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Relationships

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Original poster

Has anyone moved in with a partner only AFTER getting married?

43 replies

Felixstower · 04/02/2015 23:04

Not for religious reasons, more for practical ones, financial, I don't know... What made you choose not to live together first before you married? Was it a good decision?

OP posts:

happystory · 05/02/2015 09:06

Got married thirty years ago. Not many people were living together then. We did however share a room in a shared flat for a few weeks till our flat was ready to move into and moved into our own flat the week before the wedding. It was very exciting and a very happy time. A school friend was living with her boyfriend and the generation above certainly didn't approve!

Seeline · 05/02/2015 09:07

We bought our house before we got married, which took ages to go through so ended up moving in about 6 weeks before the wedding. I had been living with my parents, and DH was trying to sell his flat - it seemed pointless moving in there when we were buying a house together. 19 years married in June, so it didn't do any harm

Primaryteach87 · 05/02/2015 09:13

We got married after a uni course. Parents wouldn't have approved for religious reasons and it didn't make sense to upset everyone for the sake of a couple of months. Still together almost 10 years later. No regrets.

HennaFlare · 05/02/2015 09:14

Didn't live together before the wedding. DH moved into our flat 2 months before the wedding because he needed somewhere to live, and I moved in after the honeymoon. Took my stuff over in the two weeks before the wedding, but stayed at my parents. We wanted our wedding to mark the beginning of our marriage, and I would do it the same again. Been married 10 years, very happy.

BeautyQueenFromMars · 05/02/2015 09:20

We didn't live together before we got married. Sort of based on religious reasons, but for my parents' religion rather than ours. Living together is proving to be a hell of a lot easier than I was expecting it to be

123Jump · 05/02/2015 09:31

DH and I are married 12 years and we didn't live together before we were married, although I did stay over at his sometimes.
I lived on the grounds of the hospital I worked in, in a tiny room. Was so handy for nights etc.
DH bought a house to do up and sell on then we decided to keep it as it was so gorgeous.
On honeymoon, we couldn't wait to get home to live together,.
I loved that we had that to look forward too.

BiddyPop · 05/02/2015 09:31

I only moved in 4 weeks before the wedding - does that count?

We'd met while I was still at Uni, so lived 3 hours apart. He came to visit most weekends (and we often shared my single bed in student accom for the weekend). When I started working, I got a job in the city where he was working, but on the outskirts (he was other side of city centre) so got a room in a shared house there.

We bought our house, on the outskirts a different direction, which was finished as a shell in Sept, we had a lot of painting, tiling, carpeting etc to do. DH moved in to save on rent, he had a car to drive in and out. I was staying in DGran's at that stage, which was rent free (and company for her). So I was there a lot, and stayed over a fair bit at weekends, but midweek it was awkward enough. So I only moved out there over Christmas when it was mostly habitable (DH had been sleeping on a camp bed until early December).

There was a slight religious/family aspect to it (I did have one aunt who "couldn't go down to her parents in case they might ask about it" trying to make me move back to my other DGran's house, 2 weeks before the wedding!). But it was mostly a practicality issue.

1 DC (what we are happy with) later, we are celebrating our 15th Anniversary today!! And we are pretty happy most of the time.

QuintlessShadows · 05/02/2015 09:38

Not me, but friends of mine.

They were together for years, and they decided to live apart. When the first child was born, he lived with mum. 8 years later she was pregnant again, and they decided to get married and move in together. They got a divorce when the youngest was 4 and she and the kids moved away. He was a mess, went on sick leave for 6 months with stress as he had a complete breakdown. I think they were a bit unusual. She had to adjust to living with a man, he had to adjust to leaving the coast guard, find an office job, and live within a family unit full time. Aged 38 and 40, it tore them apart.

hellsbellsmelons · 05/02/2015 09:41

I didn't live the man I married until after the wedding and honeymoon.
Long and happy marriage until he decided to cheat 15 years in!
Knob.

gildedcage · 05/02/2015 10:08

We were together for a long time living separately. My now dh suggested moving in together and I said the only way that I would do that was if I were married. We got married and moved in a couple of months after that.

It wasn't for religious reasons just that I'd been brought up to think if I was sharing financial obligations etc then I should have the protection of marriage.

I'm glad I did it the way we did. We had no problems when we moved in together, we knew each other well enough. We have been very happily married, for the exception of 1year...but that has been our only rocky patch, we've been together 20 years, married for 12.

If it fails now then that isn't because we didn't live together first.

dotty2 · 05/02/2015 10:21

We met at university but pursued our jobs and moved around (separately) for a few years before we got married. We were living in different cities with our own rented flats before we got married (DH on his own; me in a flatshare). DH got a new job and moved cities so that we could live together and get married. We spent all our weekends together before, but we had the pleasure of living not only in the same flat, but the same city for the first time to look forward to after the wedding. Old-fashioned I guess but wouldn't have had it any other way. After so long of having a life in two places, it was lovely to have just one home together. Been together 23 years and married for 16.

thanksamillion · 05/02/2015 10:28

We didn't, partly for religious reasons, but also because I was at Uni and we got married straight after graduation and DH was lodging with a family. He rented a house for us and moved in a couple of weeks before the wedding.

In fact, when I moved in after the honeymoon it was the first time we'd lived closer than 2 hours apart!

We've been married 15 years this year.

DustyMaiden · 05/02/2015 10:29

Living in sin was not something nice girls did, DM's opinion.

If I am not good enough to marry then I'm not living with you, my opinion.

I was wrong, DM was even more wrong.

OTheHugeManatee · 05/02/2015 10:32

DH and I moved in together before we were married. Less than a year later I moved out again. At the point where I first moved in, he was less than a year into recovery from a severe nervous breakdown and while I loved him and knew already I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, his mood swings were a nightmare. Equally he needed all his energy to recover and didn't have enough spare to take my needs into consideration, which was obviously hard for me to take. So for the sake of our long-term relationship I moved out again, on the understanding that we weren't breaking up, just living apart.

Then after we got married, a few years later, I moved back in with him. So far it's been great

MirandaWest · 05/02/2015 10:39

XH and I didn't live together until
after we got married. Not actually sure what he thought about it but my mother at least had always been pretty vociferous about how living together before marrying was Wrong and in my quest to keep her happy I can't imagine I would have gone against that.

My sister and then boyfriend lived together and surprisingly the world didn't fall apart . Although the year after my sister graduated when they lived in a three bedroom flat with another friend I have only recently discovered that my sisters room was actually a spare room which was made to look more bedroom like for visitors .

I will be living with my boyfriend once we find a house that is suitable for all of us. No marrying until that has been proved to work. Not sure whether I would have married him if we'd lived together although easy to think that in retrospect.

RaptorInaPorkPieHat · 05/02/2015 12:20

Well, Kinda. We were in student accommodation together for one year , and I bunked at his when I had a temp job for three months a year or so before we got married (we met at uni, and were together 5 years before we married).

We bought our house beforehand but I didn't move in until after the wedding (My parents house was closer to my work so it was just sensible not to move until then).

The interesting thing is, I got a lot of grief from people about it, people honestly thought it was bizarre that we didn't live together beforehand. I remember thinking at the time (late 90's) that only 10 years previously it was still pretty rare for couples to live together before marriage (in the backwater where I grew up, anyway).

On a humorous note, with all the wedding planning etc, I actually forgot I was moving out of home until about 3 days before the wedding when I came home from work to find my parents boxing up my stuff It just hadn't entered my head that I needed to actually pack.

Fantasmicos · 05/02/2015 14:34

We did it the other way around & lived together for about 10 years before getting married - it's best to give things a little trial first in my experience

noddyholder · 05/02/2015 14:35

I had ds then let him move in! 23 yrs on all good

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