5 Benefits of Living With Your Partner Before Marriage

Recently I was posed with a question- why would you choose a live-in relationship instead of a love marriage? Love marriages have been around for a long time and have come to be accepted as a normal thing. However, live-in relationships are still seen as a scandal. After a lot of thought, I realised the answer- a live-in relationship is that place between a mere relationship and a life-long commitment, and it helps you understand if you and your partner actually want to spend your lives together. So, we put together this list of the many advantages of a live-in relationship and why it might actually be essential to live together once before getting married.

* Learning If You’re Compatible

Perhaps the biggest and most important advantage of living with your partner is figuring out if you both are compatible enough for a marriage. Many call a live-in relationship the ‘ultimate test’ to see if things can work out between you and your partner. You will learn if you can handle their habit of sleeping with the TV on, and they’ll see if they can live with your habit of hogging the sheets. A live-in relationship will help you realize how to share your life with another person, and you have to be compatible enough with them for doing that. If you aren’t, well, you always have an out. If you both are compatible, then Mazel Tov! We already hear the wedding bells ringing.

* You Don’t Have The Stamp of a Divorce

When a marriage doesn’t work out, the only option left is a divorce. While divorce helps you get out of the legal bond of marriage and help you find someone new, you will always have the ‘failed marriage’ sword hanging over your head, which makes people hesitate before getting serious with you. However, when things aren’t working out in a live-in relationship, both you and your partner can make the decision calmly to go your separate ways, and that’s that. No hassle of a legal breaking of bonds or having all your nosy relatives dig into your life and see why the marriage failed.

* Freedom To End Things If They Aren’t Working Out

Yes, you might break your partner’s heart or they might break your heart if one or both of you decide it isn’t working out. You have to accept it and understand that living together before marriage gives both of you a choice to end the relationship if needed. While it may be a tough decision to part ways, at least you both will be at peace knowing that you made an effort to turn your relationship into something much more serious. It will help you move on, and find someone much more suitable for you.

* Marriage Doesn’t Seem So Scary Anymore

Many marriages fail because both partners fail to gauge the seriousness of it. Or worst case scenario, your partner develops cold feet before marriage because they think you’re not the one for them. The universal increase in divorce rates is another reason why marriage doesn’t really seem all that appealing anymore. However, living together helps you both get a test-run of marriage, how actually spending the rest of your lives with someone be. After going through that, the idea of a long-term relationship doesn’t really seem that scary anymore.

* Bonding On A Deeper Level

When you’re in a live-in relationship, you and your partner bond on a much deeper level than a relationship. Their likes will become your likes, their dislikes will become your dislikes. In the words of Ted from How I Met Your Mother, you become a ‘We’ instead of an ‘I’. However, you can figure out how to be your own person in a live-in relationship, which is difficult to do after marriage due to all the additional responsibilities.