On Marriage

Sometimes I'm a little overwhelmed by this whole engagement thing. Don't get me wrong - I'm incredibly excited, I've been waiting for this for a long time, and I can't wait to be married to Scott. At the same time, it's kind of akin to moving away from a place you love to go to another place you love - I keep finding myself thinking about "last time" events. This was my last Christmas before I get married. It was my last birthday. It's going to be my last New Year's Eve. I'm not really sad about any of this, but it does make me stop and think about things a little more.

Speaking of weddings, I noticed something strange (and possibly alarming?) about all the wedding website that are out there. They all assume that the couple getting married is already living together. Now, I don't have any moral objection to this. I think it's fine for people to live together before they get married if that's what they think is best for them. Or, in the case of people who can't get married, that's the only option. However, I think it's kind of disturbing that society just assumes an engaged couple is already living together. I have a lot of friends who are shocked to find out that Scott and I aren't moving in together until we get married. When did that become the acceptable norm?

The reason this bothers me is because statistics show that when couples live together before marriage, they're more likely to get divorced. Now, before anyone gets riled up over that, let me reiterate that I don't believe this happens to ALL couples. I know a lot of people who have lived together for years and have ended up very happily married. The problem with living together before marriage is that couples tend to move in together very quickly these days, and after that, marriage eventually seems like the next step to take. Instead of marriage being a big decision that couples really talk through and really WANT, it turns into "Well, we might as well get married."

I don't just gather this information from some statistics I've read about - I've seen it happen far too many times. I've known at least a dozen couples who quite honestly should not have gotten married, but they did it because they were already living together and just figured marriage would make life easier. Some of them did it to try and fix problems that were already in existence, and those problems just magnified after the vows. These couples are all either very unhappy with their relationship, or they're already divorced.

People move in with each other for all sorts of reasons, but the biggest reason seems to be convenience. It's convenient to have one apartment instead of two. It's convenient to split all the bills and pool finances. It's convenient not to have to drive across town to see each other. Society is obsessed with convenience. Society is also full of people who are divorced, obese, and generally unhealthy because of convenience.

And I know there are extenuating circumstances that make moving in together necessary. A friend of mine had to vacate her apartment and had no where else to go because she hadn't found a new place yet, so she moved in with her boyfriend - for a few weeks, until she got her own place. Now, this couple lives together, but they dated for well over a year before even considering taking that step.

My real problem with all this assumption isn't that I think people who live with each other before marriage are doomed for divorce. No, the issue is that people move in together without THINKING. It's typically young people, people my age and a little bit younger, who make the mistake of moving in with each other weeks into a relationship. Granted, there are exceptions where it isn't a mistake, but stay with me here. These people are sharing toothpaste before they've even fully shared their life stories with each other. Does that seem like a logical step? No. So why is moving in together?

My biggest pet peeve of all is people who say "Well, if you don't live together before you get married, how do you know you'll actually get along?" This question is utterly ridiculous to me. If you're serious about marriage, if you're ready to make a commitment to someone that will last for the REST OF YOUR LIVES, you shouldn't have to live together to know if you'll be able to make it work. You are COMMITTING yourselves to making it work. I'm not saying there won't be trials. You WILL drive each other crazy for a while as you learn all of each other's annoying little habits. But if you had moved in with each other, and all those annoying habits were enough to make you NOT want to marry that person...then that wasn't much of a relationship to begin with.

And please, just in case anyone actually reads this and decides to get all riled up over anything I've said, understand that I am not condemning the actual act of living together before marriage. I know lots of couples who live together happily with no plans to marry, or who have lived together in the past and are happily married now. What I'm trying to speak out against is the general attitude towards marriage these days, the casualness people view such a huge commitment with, and I think that the trend of assuming couples live with each other is only adding to that lack of seriousness. I'm aware that there really are positive sides to moving in together. I just wish people would start treating living together the same way they SHOULD be treating marriage - like a serious commitment that's not to be taken lightly.

I could write on for pages about this (too late!), but I'll just let C.S. Lewis sum things up for me:

From Mere Christianity

"The idea that "being in love" is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.
And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry."

-- C. S. Lewis

EDIT 2/5/2010: Just found this article and felt that it needed to be linked with this post.