(ThyBlackMan.com) If you are wondering whether you should live with your significant other before marriage, you should click here to learn some advantages and disadvantages.
Not everyone understands how valuable it is to find someone that genuinely appreciates your presence. If you’re together with someone that can’t take their eyes off of you, and who isn’t afraid to talk about anything — cherish that person. You never know when you may say wedding vows to someone.
Yet, marriage can be an intimidating commitment, for anyone. Marrying another person means more than dedicating your life to them; it means creating a whole new one, for both of you. Living together before marriage can help you overcome any fears of marrying your partner.
It tests both of your resolves towards the relationship and will reveal if it’s truly meant to be. Yet, not everyone is ready for such a huge step like that. Living together with someone can also preemptively end your relationship, and hurt your heart in the process.
You’re the only one who can truly know if you’re at the point in your relationship when both of you can live together. But to learn more what sharing your lives can do to either of you, keep reading below!
Living Together Before Marriage Helps You Learn
Being in a relationship is about one thing: learning. They teach you about yourself and what you want from people, and they teach you about what other people can provide. There’s a reason they’re some of scariest situations anyone can be in; learning the truth about who you and who your spouse can be is frightening.
There’s no way to tell if you’ll like what you find out, but that’s no reason to avoid taking the next steps. You’ll learn more lessons than ever before by moving in with each other, and it’s up to you to be a good student. You could only get good grades in school by putting in the effort, and it’s the same with relationships.
And you can only have a good relationship by putting in the effort to learn about you and your partner. And living together provides those opportunities to learn. To see how living together can improve your relationship, keep reading below!
You Get a Clearer Picture of Your Partner’s Life
The immediate lesson you’ll learn after moving in with your partner is that they likely live a completely different life from you. They could be totally careless about cleanliness, leaving clothes and food lying around. Yet, they could also be tidier than you, and you may notice some of your own things being moved around.
You will need to communicate how you feel about their lifestyle as soon as you can. If you find that there are issues with how they live, you must communicate that immediately, before it strains your relationship. Yet, the opposite is true too.
If you enjoy living with a person and your lives mesh perfectly, say something! It affirms that you love the person, and will bring you closer.
Living Together Helps You Adjust to Commitment
Living together with another is a kind of commitment that some people aren’t ready to take. When you live with another person, you’re not just losing space in your home. You’re also losing your independence and in a larger, general sense — your freedom.
Yet, you’re going to lose even more than that if you marry someone right away, before living with them. Marrying someone essentially means losing a part of yourself and giving it to someone else. It’s dedication, and it’s frightening.
Living with someone will help you dip your toes into the water of dedication. It will make you more comfortable with the concept as a whole. It will also give you the opportunity to identify and communicate lines you’re not willing to cross when you marry your partner.
You May End Up More Satisfied With Each Other
When you move in with another person, you get a new perspective on them. You get to see them wake up in the morning, get ready for work, and what they’re like at the end of the day. You get to learn what they turn to for comfort, and what it means to them to be at home. You get to see them more intimately.
They get to see the same things in you, and it’s likely that if you’re in a relationship with someone, you share a similar definition of intimacy. When that becomes clear and apparent, you will grow closer to each other. Both of you will end up more satisfied with the relationship as a result.
Living Together Can Risk the Relationship
Moving in together isn’t all fun and splendor — it’s also risky. Meshing lives by moving in with each other will introduce new stress on your relationship. Strong relationships will stand the test, but not all relationships are strong.
It’s important that you learn more about living together before committing to doing so. Otherwise, you may risk getting into a situation neither of you are prepared for, and the consequences can be catastrophic. Not everyone’s lives mesh well, and not everyone is ready to sacrifice some things for a relationship.
Not only will your relationship with your partner be tested, but it will test your other relationships too. By living together with your partner, both of you will likely become each other’s focus in life.
As a result, your friends and family may start feeling excluded from your life. Moving in together may end up costing you friends.
Finally, you will be expected to adjust your life to accommodate your partner. While that expectation is present in every stage of a relationship, it’s taken to a whole new level by moving in together. And failing to fully accommodate your partner in any way may motivate them to leave you.
Don’t Commit Yourself to an Unfulfilling Relationship
There is good news though: a relationship that fails after moving in is one that was doomed to fail from the start. Marrying would have tested it in even worse ways, and the consequences would have been more severe. So if you lose your relationship after moving in with your partner, don’t fret!
It just means you’re free to find a better one.
Are You Ready to Live Together?
There are only two people who can definitively say if living together before marriage is a good call: you and your partner. They have just as much a say in it as you do because they have just as much invested in the relationship as you. If you feel that it’s time to move in with each other, talk to them about it.
Relationships are about sharing emotions and communicating desires, and moving in together is just another conversation you should have. And if both of you agree that it’s time to move in, then congratulations! Enjoy learning more about your partner, and about yourself!
And for advice on how to be the best person for your partner, keep reading here. Our website is always updated with ways you can improve yourself and live a more fulfilling life.
Staff Writer; Greg Ford