Living Together Before Marriage

So aside from politics, I like to blog about things that annoy me. Here is one major thing that annoys me - people in my age bracket (let's say 21-30) who think they are EXPERTS on how to have a successful marriage.

Now, I would not live with someone before marriage. This is my personal choice. I don't want to offend my multiple cohabiting friends - I don't necessarily find there to be anything wrong with doing so, per se. I'll blog more about this later.

Whenever I say this to other people in the aforementioned group, I am usually met with the same response "Jaime, no, you HAVE to live with someone before getting married".

Or else what?

You're destined to divorce? I find this absurd - if you look at all the cute little old married couples who have been together for 40+ years - I guarantee less than 1% percent of these people lived together before they were married, seeing that it was very taboo back at the time when they were dating. I know plenty of couples who didn't live together who are still married (my parents, aunts and uncles, etc.).

Aside from this - look at other facts: as cohabiting before marriage has become more popular, the divorce rate has risen (not that I'm saying there's causation - but there's definitely an undeniable correlation). That, and many couples who do end up divorcing do it at varied times - let's say there's a couple who divorces after 15 years; would the one to two years of living together before marriage have broken them up before walking down the aisle?

Also, seeing that living together before marriage is a somewhat new phenomenon, relatively speaking, it's credibility is somewhat untested. Maybe 30 years from now we can look at all couples who have stayed married for a long period of time and see if there's a higher percentage success rate for those who lived together before vs. those who didn't - however, we don't currently have any statistical backing to theories that living with together beforehand makes a couple more likely to have a successful marriage.

I think what's most annoying to me is those who preach that "you have to" seem to speak as though they are some authority on the subject. Of everyone I know in their early 30s or younger - they fall into three groups: never married, divorced, or somewhat recently married. I would not classify anyone in any of these groups as an 'expert on marriage'. If someone who has been married 30+ years wants to pull me aside and tell me "Jaime, you HAVE to do x, y, and z before getting married", I'll give it consideration. However, for now, these delusional self-proclaimed experts thoughts will continue to hold little to no water with me.