Author terra Posted December 7, 2010 Author Posted December 7, 2010 You paying one time and your date paying the next is sharing - same with sharing rent and groceries. It's not like it you would split everything down to the last cent but you both contribute to your household and I don't see what's unromantic about that. You can discuss how you want to do it. Both contribute and equal amount or the same percentage of income if there is a discrepancy. I just find it funny how people say they won't move in together unless there is a commitment to marriage but it's not like marriage is foolproof either. If you live together before or after marraige probably doesn't affect the likely hood of staying together. Although, there is probably a some study on yahoo to prove me wrong. Anyways, I think commitment is really based on the couple and not the label of being married or not. I don't split a date evenly either, unless I plan for it to be the last one/I'm planning to break up with a guy. I'll buy my own ticket to something and have him buy his if it's over $100 (like season tickets or a plane ticket or something), but otherwise, I either treat him or he treats me. That's how it's been with almost all of the guys I've dated. To me, living together means giving up my place (or him giving up his, or both) and my roommates and significant parts of my life, including my independence . . . now, if we break up, someone has to move. That's serious. And yet it's not taken as seriously as divorce. It should be. I want it to be taken as seriously by us and others. I want us to treat it as though it is that serious---to go to counseling and truly try before walking out because it's not just emotionally but practically, financially, and legally painful as well. Marriage makes people stop and think before they break up, and that sometimes saves relationships where people would be hasty. And there is the financial aspect. Groceries, for instance. Does it get split down the middle? Do we itemize? Do we shop separately, as though we were roomies? I'd just rather keep my own place until I knew I wanted to join my entire life, including my finances, with someone. But I agree that I'd never marry someone who I didn't feel I knew inside and out, their day to day habits included. I've just never had a serious relationship that didn't involve massive amounts of time spent together.
tetrapod Posted December 7, 2010 Posted December 7, 2010 I think commitment is really based on the couple and not the label of being married or not. Absolutely! I would never marry someone without having lived like a married couple for some years. How can you make a commitment of that intensity without KNOWING that it is realistic? And limerance is a word that more people should know. (Even my spellcheck doesn't know it!)
sweetjasmine Posted December 7, 2010 Posted December 7, 2010 What's funny is when I first read your thread and I saw 'buy a house', I thought 'no way'. BUT then the flip side of that could be that he buys a house, you move in with him, you share the expenses and the home maintenance 50/50, you break up in 2 years, the house is worth more (dream with me here please, the market will improve eventually ), but since you didn't buy the house with him, you could walk away with nothing. The way I view it, if one of us is paying rent on a place, we're basically paying someone else's mortgage and maintaining the property for them, and once we end the lease, we walk away with nothing. So there's not much of a difference for me between paying a landlord and contributing to my partner's expenses for the house he owns except for the fact that one's a complete stranger and the other is someone I love/care about. I'd rather help with expenses if my partner owned a house than share such a big financial responsibility in a situation where we're not married. In case of a break-up, I'd rather cut my losses and move out than have to deal with the headache of doing all the paperwork.
zengirl Posted December 7, 2010 Posted December 7, 2010 You paying one time and your date paying the next is sharing - same with sharing rent and groceries. It's not like it you would split everything down to the last cent but you both contribute to your household and I don't see what's unromantic about that. You can discuss how you want to do it. Both contribute and equal amount or the same percentage of income if there is a discrepancy. I just find it funny how people say they won't move in together unless there is a commitment to marriage but it's not like marriage is foolproof either. If you live together before or after marraige probably doesn't affect the likely hood of staying together. Although, there is probably a some study on yahoo to prove me wrong. Anyways, I think commitment is really based on the couple and not the label of being married or not. We don't go back and forth either, though. We have no system for paying for dates. We don't have to talk about or think about money for dates. I suppose the fact that we both have discretionary income -- myself, mostly because I keep my core expenses low (shared house with roommates, clipping coupons for groceries, low car payment) -- allows for that. If it were talking about core expenses, that would require actual budgeting and such. Which is fine, but something more done within the context of marriage to me, than courtship. I'm not sure living together before marriage affects the likelihood of success. My Mom and Stepdad lived together a few months before getting engaged and almost a year before getting married. I've no judgment against it. I've tried it. I just see absolutely no reason to do it, based on my experience. Living together did not break up the relationship of the person I lived with. We broke up because we had reached a point where one of us had to make a great personal compromise -- career -- to continue the relationship. Had we been married, I would have. But not unmarried. And I didn't want to have to prompt him into proposing, as I don't believe in it. I lost quite a bit of money on living with him, whereas I would've kept my core expenses lower and been just as happy. Commitment is definitely based on the couple, of course, and it's totally fine to live together, but it's not for me. Like I said, though, my boyfriend and I pretty much already come and go at each other's houses as we please. We've got keys. We spend most nights together. We just happen to have two places -- and separate finances -- because we're not in that stage where we're discussing marriage and forever yet.
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