Is An Unconventional Marriage The Key To Marital Bliss?
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-h...b_1116856.html

I just read this article about unconventional marriages where people either swing or live in seperate homes from their spouse and I was wondering, since marriage is one of those things "evolving" from it's orginal roots, do you think these type of set-ups? Alot of people don't bother to get married anymore and live together which works out great for some people. Ever heard the saying "nothing ruins a good relationship like "marriage"?

Personaly I guess I am more traditional in the sense that I still belive in "regular" marriage and possiably niave enough to think that it could still work out well, if people are willing to work at it. However personaly I think the reason alot of marriages don't work is because people get married before they are ready, don't live with each first to see if they can stand each other, get married for shallow or stupid reasons, and of course money.

I agree with you on this Sage. I believe in traditional marriage and I want that for myself one day. There is nothing better than the partnership that is marriage. The non-conventional ways to me are showing a lack of commitment and perhaps shouldn't marry if they perfer situations like that. For me its more of the old american dream of married with kids is a key to happiness. There are many opinions on this matter and there are those who will disagree with us,but I can't see it any other way than marriage being traditionally a goal and a really good thing.

My high school sociology teacher was in a long term relationship with someone but she insisted that they would never live together or get married because they were happy that way.

This guy was like 40 and had braces, though, so there's that. Weird lookin dude.

I wouldn't want to live in separate houses or have separate bedrooms if I'm married. I don't mind living together before marriage because sometimes you have to test out whether it will work out or not. If you wait until you're married to live together, that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen because it's never happened before then. The way I see it, the people who do get divorced are probably people who weren't happy with each other and just decided things didn't work out.

I've heard that living together before marriage isn't a really good idea as couples who do that are more likely to divorce, but I don't believe that's the reason at all. I think it's just that couples couldn't live together and just ended it instead of working it out.

I look at it this way: getting married doesn't make your relationship any more or less likely to fail... it just makes it a little bit more of a pain to terminate it if it does end up failing.

If people feel that the need separate homes or an open relationship to be happy, marriage probably isn't what they need to do. There's no law that says anyone has to be married.

On the living together pre-marriage thing, a lot of the ones who end up breaking up after moving in together might have moved in in an attempt to "fix" their relationship. ("He'll give me the attention I want if we're always together!") Kind of a similar mentality to a girl who purposely gets pregnant by a guy she is in a failing relationship with...."he'll stay cause of the baby!"

Living together...marriage...it's all good as long as both people believe in making that commitment. If either one is unsure at all, don't do it.

I agree. I also never felt that living with them first is really a good way to test a possible marriage. This thought process does not make sense. If you are just living with your potential future spouse you can ultimately just leave if it doesnt work, but you cant do that when you are actually married. There is only one good reason to get married and that is: You are 100% committed to that person.

I wonder how people who have never even met each other until their wedding day do it, and stay married. :ohwell: There are two teachers who had arranged marriages and they have been married for years and years. One of them is very critical of the way marriages are handled in the west, they think it is a selfish and shallow. This teacher has a saying "over here people marry people they love, where I come from you love who you marry." Right after this, she points out that she's still married, but many people here who married for love have split up.

I totally agree with you, Katie. If any has any doubts about committing to marriage or living together, it's probably best to just not do it.

Sure you can. Happens all the time. What's stopping you from leaving, even if you're married?

But getting married doesn't somehow increase a commitment tangibly. And what if you come home early from work and you catch your wife Suzie sweating in your bed with Tyrone? Now you have to go through all this headache and paperwork and lawyers to send her packing... and then she still might end up with your house and you might have to pay her alimony indefinitely.

Oh you can leave but it carries greater ramifications if you do. Ramifications that can destroy your life or others far worse than just being a couple that lives together. Of course there are exceptions to both situations but they certainly are not the rule. My ultimate point is that there is no GOOD test for marriage.