Three Essential Relationship Tests: The Move In, The Big Trip, and Sex
The old pre-marriage rules: No sex, no living together, no sleeping together, no extended periods of unsupervised time together. The people who came up with these rules obviously knew that if people really got to know each other intimately, they wouldn’t marry at any where near the rate that they do.
Better to get the young folk hitched and then let them find out all the stuff about the snoring and tossing and turning and sexual incompatibility.
Well, with a divorce rate of over 50% we’ve seen how that turned out. Oops.
Time for new rules.
The new pre-marriage rules: No marriage before moving in together, taking a long trip to a far off place together, and having lots of sex.
Here’s why.
The Move In Test:
Most people plan on living with their partner after they are married. Some people think that they know what this will be like because they spend all of their time over at their partner’s place anyway. But this is not the same by any means. When you spend time over at someone else’s place, even if you sleep there every night, you always have your own place to go back to. You are at their place, and your place is still yours to control on your own. You get to pick the color of the drapes, you can leave your dishes lying dirty in the sink whenever you want, and you can clean (or not clean) the bathroom as often as you like.
Moving in with someone else means sharing everything about that place, making all the decisions about it together. You can’t be happy sharing everything with just anyone. You have to be compatible. You have to be able to communicate, to compromise. If your relationship isn’t strong enough to handle living together before marriage, it isn’t likely to be able to handle it afterwards.
The Long Trip Test:
It’s easy to get along with someone when everything is good, safe, comfortable, and routine. And many dating relationships find and stay in that mode. But marriage is different, especially if there will one day be kids involved. As I’ve discussed in prior columns on kids messing up the proverbial box of chocolates, there is no strain on a marriage like a little tike or two. Why? Because they throw the normal routine completely out of wack. And even if there aren’t kids involved, a marriage is bound to come across unexpected challenges from time to time.
So how do you know if your relationship can handle things when they aren’t so routine and easy? Shake things up. Go on a long trip to a far off place. This kind of trip is full of unexpected challenges. These challenges, just like the challenges of marriage and/or child rearing, require a mature and well developed communication process. They require mutual respect and compromise. And they require a bilateral flexibility that not every couple has. Even two very flexible people may not be flexible together.
The Sex Test:
Despite the fact that we live in a society that often makes sex into something shameful, embarrassing, and even sinful (especially for women), it is an essential part of life and love.
There is a name for marriage without sex: Friendship.
Sex isn’t everything by any means. But it is a part of what makes a dedicated, loving relationship special, unique, and long lasting.
If you want to marry a friend, have sex just a few times for procreation’s sake, and live the rest of your lives together platonically, be my guest. But most people enter a marriage envisioning, and hoping for, a sexual relationship.
If this is the case, you owe it to yourself and your partner to make sure you are sexually compatible before you decide to commit to a lifelong, monogamous, sexual relationship.
But, even more important than knowing if you can enjoy sex together, the sex test tells you an essential truth about your relationship’s strength. Because our culture makes sex such a taboo topic, it is, in a way, the ultimate communication test. Can you talk about sex with your partner? Can you break the taboo and communicate about this intimate topic together?
If not, it does not bode well for your future. But if you can do it successfully and well, it will tell you a lot about how you’ll be able to handle tough, uncomfortable, but important discussions in the years to come.
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I think that when you are considering moving in and marriage, forget the statistics and look at your own relationship personally. Each relationship is different and unique, and if you can use your time living together as a model for marriage, you’ll probably be better off in the long run and the adjustment period into marriage won’t be so bad.Getting tied up in statistics and other people’s relationships are only detracting time spent away from your own.
Good article, really reflects our times.
Hmmm… 2 out of 3 isnt bad I guess. Research shows that men and women that move in together before marriage have a higher rate of divorce. Look it up.