A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for a year and a half now. He has been hinting to me that he may ask me to marry him someday. However, I want to live with him first as I think it would be a good idea to see how compatible (or not) we are. He has already given me a key but hasn't mentioned living together. I still live with my parents and he has a house he maintains on his own. We get along fine and know each other's quirks. We accept each other for who we are and rarely get into fights. Would it be too soon to talk about moving in together? I have never really lived on my own but am willing to do whatever it takes to live peacefully together.
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Danielepew  +, writes (10 April 2008):
 Social conventions and religious beliefs aside, I think it is a great idea to live with the person you love and see if you can really work out with her (him, in your case). You never really know what a person is like until you live with her (him). Every married person I know says that they had to learn to accept the little ways of their spouse. If you want this marriage to be a lasting one, you need to do this leap on something more than pure faith, something like faith and compatibility.
I'm happy to say that it seems you and your boyfriend are compatible. He said he could marry you in the future, so you're "marriage material" for him. He gave you the key so you can have, say, full access to his life, whenever you want to, if you want to. That's a good sign to me. And I don't think it is too soon for you to move with him. However, as you guessed it, life is not that easy.
Where I live, many women would disagree with me in saying it's good to live together. They would never ever live with a man they didn't marry, particularly the ones with more years of experience. They say that once you give a man "the whole package", meaning all the perks of being his wife, only without the piece of paper, that man will never marry you, particularly so if the relationship is good. I know it seems illogical, but here's the logic: despite the fact that the law here doesn't make any difference with respect to a man's alimony obligations whether the couple is married or not, there is a big difference, at the end of the day, between being legally married or not. If you're not married, there's no shared property, there's no expensive and long divorce, and he can simply walk away, particularly if there are no children. So, the logic continues, the better the relationship, the fewer the chances some men will marry you. They will make you choose between what is a stable home, without a mistress (maybe), with children he acknowledged as his own, in a perfectly functional relationship, or demand a piece of paper. Just imagine where your nagging would take you if you had children and he decided to leave.
These women are aware of the fact that things can be just as bad if they are married to someone they are not compatible with. But they take their chances; the other alternative seems worse.
To be honest, I need to say that these warning from women does seem to be the right one for many people. I have seen many, many cases where the couple never marries. And you know it is the man who won't marry, because he is the one who stands to lose something in case of a divorce. And it is he who wouldn't be able to put himself in a position of advantage by not marrying.
There are also happy endings. But, again, life isn't that simple. My grandfather married his last wife when he was 77, though they had a daughter who was like 37 at the time and had been living together all that time. He wanted his woman to be able to claim widow benefits if he died, so they married. She was not his "wife" until then.
I know that living together is the norm in Sweden, for example. But the rest of the world is not like Sweden. I do think that the United States must be different in this regard, but I wonder how many couples split because one of the parties didn't want to marry (and, of course, I am aware that sometimes it is the woman who won't marry).
So, if you want to test the waters, do it. Your chances seem very good. But be warned of the risks. These risks are smaller where you live, I guess, but they exist anyways.
As to leaving the nest, it has to happen some time. And it is just right: you need to function as a serious and whole individual, and that means you need to be able to be self-sufficient. And if you stay at your parent's, for whatever reason, you might never be in the same situation as if you lived on your own.
Take care.
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