How long should you wait before moving in with someone? This is a serious move in a relationship, one showing commitment to one another. Is there a time that is too soon to move in together? Should one wait a certain amount of time? Of course, all relationships are different and there is not set formula for anything. Here is what our readers thought.
From Gigi: I think that one shouldn’t move in together too quickly… definitely not after only a few months. It is a big step, and both sides must be certain about it. However, I do think that one should live with someone before getting married. You do not get to know someone fully until you are living together. I think if you are still together after six months, then living together is the next logical step.
From Amanda: I don’t happen to believe in moving in together before marriage. I have also heard there have been studies that couples who do that are more likely to get divorced once they do marry… just my 2 cents.
From Joanna: Well said, Amanda.
From Mike: When you come to America, not before. Wink.
From Gigi: Lol @ Mike… is that aimed at my sweetie, Jean-Claude and me?
From Mike: That’s a good possibility.
From Gigi: It certainly is 
From Hannah: I also read an article about living together before getting married and they say it is a no no. It is said you need a contract before moving in and I can almost relate to that because you don’t take it as seriously until you have a contract and you think if things aren’t going well, you can just leave. The commitment needs to be totally there. You decide, but you do get to know all a person’s faults and then it may be easier to decide if you can live with it for the rest of your life. You decide!!!!!!
From Matt: I don’t think there is any set answer for any of these questions. What is right for one couple may not be right for another. Statistics may show one thing, but I don’t think you can plan a relationship with graphs and a pie chart.
From Brie: You move in together when you are both emotionally ready….it’s not about a contract, a set of rings, an approval from the state, or a blessing from a higher power.
From Shari: I would wait for several months or till the trust was very strong.
From Camille: Six months of dating and getting to know each other, friends, and family, your hopes and dreams. If you’re still together after that, maybe it’s time for the next stop.
From Rachel: Well, I am not a good person to ask… I moved in with some one right away, and some moved in with me right away. They didn’t work out.
From Kerry: I couldnt disagree more with Angela. When it comes to living under the same roof, I think it’s completely essential to try before you buy. Do you believe that we should wait til you are married before you have sex as well???…. mmmmm, didn’t think so. I find that a very contradicting opinion personally. Imagine it.. “Morning darling… oh, sorry, did I startle you? Hey, is that my dress you’re wearing?”.. and as far as sex is concerned… “Ahhh, honey, you have a sticky outy belly button….What? It’s not your belly button?” Lol
From Winnie: When you find his toothbrush in your bathroom and the toothpaste tube squashed and disfigured and it doesn’t bother you one bit.
From Amanda: Excuse me, Kerry, but I don’t believe in sex before marriage either…
From Kerry: That’s why you’re 35 and single Angela.
From Brendan: Wow, go easy on each other. We don’t have to use each other’s views as a step up for ours.
Our values and beliefs are different because of our differing reference points. And these points vary largely because we carry very different cognitive footprints within us, part coming from internalizing our past, part imagined for ourselves (conceptuality).
Thus, we often are viewing issues from our personal past and more often from a triggered conceptual thinking. This is a highly individualized experience. But it does not define us any more than the last meal we just ate. This is simply where we are on the issue.
If this rubs you wrong, consider this posting errant and disregard it.
From Kerry: Brendan, I never once said that she didnt have the right to have her own beliefs and speak her mind. Pretty much the same way that I have the same right. The issue here is that Amanda’s views and beliefs are completely unrealistic. I don’t believe for a second that she TRULY deep down doesn’t crave sexual attention from a man. The whole concept is unrealistic. If she TRULY believes that she is going to meet a dark handsome thirty something year old virgin in the grocery store that looks like Johnny Depp and they are going to fall in love and get married and after have a passionate night of perfect first time sex and live happily ever after in their new lovely house with a picket fence and a dog called Ralph, then she had better get used to the company of her cat, because it isn’t going to happen. Amanda needs to let her hair down and realize that you don’t learn about relationships by reading magazines and spending Saturday nights polishing action figures and watching romcoms while cuddling up with her cat on the sofa accompanied by chips and dip. It actually upsets me that there are women out there that are missing out on a massive part of life because they don’t believe in themselves. Apart from that, you wouldn’t find me writing my opinion on how to correctly fit a car engine after reading an article about it, when I clearly have no experience in that field. It’s a very sad fact that for Amanda, that is exactly the case when it comes to romance and sex. As for Hannah, who describes marriage as a “contract”.. well, it’s beyond belief. It astounds me that people can be so narrow minded. I really hope that Amanda finds the man that she has been dreaming about all her life, but sometimes, in order to find the dream, we have to be more realistic with life and realize that in order to find happiness we have to give up a belief or two, because in some cases our beliefs don’t belong in our society today. A sad fact maybe, but a true one.
From Boris: Brie and Kelly said it best, I think. It’s puritanical to impress upon youngsters NOT to move in together, and it’s counterproductive. We did–29 years ago, not counting the year and a half of her staying at the house on weekends in high school. It may have been the main reason for our successful friendship, relationship, and marriage. And for those puritans, take note, we never had intercourse under our parent’s roof, or our own, until we were married. Train your kid’s brains, don’t try to bend society to their weaknesses.
From Kerry: As for the actual question Gigi… Winnie is on the ball, but let’s face it… in order to get used to the idea of his tooth brush and tooth paste all over the place, then you would have had to kind of experience living with them to some degree. You don’t have to officially live with someone to experience living with them. Your place, his place, etc etc…. It’s not about getting a place TOGETHER… it’s about coming home to that person every day and getting used to each others habbits, no matter where it may be. The chances are, if you are in love, you will spend MOST nights in the same bed, whether it be at your house or his. In a lot of cases, couples have already had a great deal of experience living with their partner before they officially MOVE IN together. You know what I’m saying? So the answer is what Winnie said… when you accept their faults (Mainly because you will have seen most of them through sleeping at each other’s places for months or however long), …. that is the time to “move in together”.
From Boris: Damn, Kathryn, that’s an impressive can of whoop ass you just opened! And I mean that in a good way. Sometimes you have to throw up the bullshit flag and crack that can of truth open, even if it stinks, and hold it up under people’s noses and say “THERE! CAN YOU SMELL IT?!” Verbally, you’re a woman after my own heart! I’m totally crushing on you right now! lol Oh, and as to the vile, evil “sex before marriage” of the fearful puritans, handed down from generation to generation, there’s a difference between hanky panky and intercourse. You can learn a lot during hanky panky about the kind of lover someone is going to be. So you can “try before you buy” without actually breaking the seal. And hanky panky is often just as good if not better than intercourse And the world won’t stop turning if you have intercourse before getting married at 35 or 40… I think that pipe dream is for the 21 and under set, personally.
From Brendan: Kelly, you really think your truth telling is not in the service of your ego? If no is your answer, then all my postings makes no difference to you. BTW, I make no reference to rights, but rather the intentions.
From Boris: Kelly’s right. Brendan’s wrong. ‘Nuf said. Aren’t “cognitive footprints” and “conceptuality” as much about your ego, as the discussion? I think Kelly just said it like it is. Bluntness can be just as valuable as $20 words. As long as the recipient doesn’t get butt hurt and disengage. Hannah mentioned an article about cohabitation before marriage being a no-no. But we did it and have been uber happily married sense, so one has to wonder where that article was, like maybe a church or church-funded publication? Everything is just opinion. There is no silver bullet for happy relationships. But the people arguing for cohabitation are doing so based on experience and success. The people arguing against it are probably doing so more because of religious beliefs impressed upon them through the normal religious brainwashing process. Those two opinions are bound to collide.
To wit, do a search on “statistics marriage success living together before” and what are the first few links returned? articles on religious sites. you know, the people that gave us “stop playing with that, you’ll go blind (and grow hair on your palms.” and you’ll also get this article, that proves they’re full of puritanical shit. Article
From Kerry: Brendan… Have you personlly had an experience where that living with someone before marriage has proven to be a bad idea??? If you have, not only are you a hypocrite, you have proven my point. If you can’t live with them and their habits, you can’t live with them full stop, let alone marry them… just as well you lived with them before you committed!!!!!! How on earth could a marriage survive in this way? All this bullshit about no sex and living together before marriage goes back to when marriages were arranged and women used to wear chastity belts and their marriages were arranged. It’s all bull shit in today’s society.. Those who are virgins at 35 are virgins for more reasons than their beliefs Brendan!!!! They are virgins because they have other issues!!!!
From Aaron: My experience: you don’t “move in together.” You just find yourself waking up with her every morning at the more comfortable or your two places and begin to question why you even have a 2nd place between the two of you.You have tested the waters and it is obviously time.
Oh, and I like you Kerry, you are a realist. Absolutely test the waters before jumping in. Perhaps there would be less of a divorce rate and unwanted children in this country if we all did.
You’ll like this one; “It’s not premarital sex if you don’t plan on getting married”. Been there, done that, and have been a single parent for the last 12 years since my son’s mother was incarcerated with her boy friend, while we were married. . I have no plans of ever get married again, but not a chance I’m gonna be abstinent the rest of my life.
From Boris: Per the statistics, the divorce rates are about the same, regardless. a lot of the time you just pick the wrong partner, regardless of whether you live together before. I agree about the liking Kerry, though, she’s a smart cookie.
From Aaron: And I see she is currently living in Spain? The most level headed ones usually seem to either be living, or have spent some time outside of this country. It should be a high school requirement to spend some time over seas, and get out of the box at least for a peek.
From Gigi: I totally agree that people who live or have lived in Europe seem to be more level-headed about sex than many who never leave the United States…
From Aaron: You’re right Alan!! but it’s not the country, in a lot of cases it’s the mental box they live in!!!! xxx
From Kerry: Ha ha ha… Gigi……. a simple question and chck out the response!!! Christ!!! It should give you plenty to write about! xxxxx
From Gigi: WOW!! I go off to tutor and come back to this!! Great blogging!!! Thanks everyone!!
From Kerry: xxxxxx
From Jackson: Fifty years ago, cohabitation was illegal in every state. Your parents probably didn’t do it and I doubt they had this aspiration for you. I could be wrong. Today, only five states still consider it a criminal act even though 50% of American women 15-44 have done it. Outside of the Western world, cohabitation ranges from being illegal and taboo in some countries to commonly practiced, as in Bulgaria where 53% of all children born were into families of unmarried couples. (Yes I looked at Wikipedia; I don’t carry that stuff in my head.) The only things which oppose the growing trend are religious beliefs, some laws (based on religious belief) and personal values instilled by traditional thinking.
If you’re older, maybe been divorced, don’t really care much about what anyone thinks you need to do, maybe already had a family that’s grown up and moved out, have no intention of getting married anytime soon, then by all means, let that young sex goddess move in before she comes to her senses!
If you are young and this is your first big love, then I’d suggest before you go apartment hunting or load up the u-haul you counsel with tribal elders, talk with both parents and agree on some definite plans and time constraints before shacking up. It won’t hurt much and may learn a thing or two in the process. If you leave things casual and undefined, then I think you may have low expectations. If you go against the will of your family and friends because you happen to be crazy in love, then you won’t have much of a support group when times get tough. (I told you so…)
Now if you are somewhere in the middle of older and young, then there is a good chance you may be joining two families and kids are involved, my suggestion here is to don’t rush anything. When it feels right for both, then it is and if doesn’t don’t force it.
From Ricardo: 5 years or more…
From Matt: I don’t want to buy a cow and find out it only gives rancid milk….
Wow and what a blog!!! I love it when they take off like this!!
