Should They?
Nowadays, people should live together before they get married. In my first marriage I was a young woman who married a man eight years older then her. However, living together for at least a long-enough period of time would have been good experience. It may also have deterred me from getting into an abusive marriage. However, that is not always evident early.
Now let me tell you about my best relationship, in which living together for several years, we learned a lot about one another. Yes, we did get married recently too.
We met in December 2003 and began dating. Within weeks the compatibility seemed to be quite evident. However, both of us had both been twice married and twice divorced. Even though we are an older couple it was sure we wanted to not rush into marriage once again. We most definitely wanted to be sure that if we ever again it would be our last time. Therefore, May 2004, giving up my rent-controlled apartment, I moved and into his home. The relocation took me about an hour and a half from where I had been living. Also, farther away from where my disabled mother was residing at the time. However, my mother had previously made the decision that she would be going to California in July. Therefore, she urged me to make this move so she could be content knowing I would be happy before she left.
It is not always easy when one person moves into another person's home. It more then likely would have been easier had we had gotten a place we chose together. However, he's owned this home for over twenty-five years so that was not an option. I felt a bit awkward and tried my best not to step on his toes. Russ on the other hand, at first, went out of his way to make me feel like a guest. That was even more awkward as it made me feel like we were still on a date basis if I was his house guest. Even though he would say "make yourself at home", "put your things where-ever you want." However, I didn't want to just clutter up his home. I still felt the need to ask permission to do this or put that there for at least a month. Finally the newness of being in his home wore off.
Relationship wise, he at first tried to always sit beside me each evening. Still as if we were on a date. Finally, I told him "treat me like a room-mate type girlfriend and we shall get a better perspective on things". That's when things did fall better into place for us. Everyone will have to find their own way to handle the initial perspective of how to begin to join your lives together in the least awkward of ways.
Communication is one of the biggest problems for most couples. It can either go one of two ways; lack of communication or mis-communication that causes the major problems in relationships. I believe our biggest communication issues revolve around selective hearing/tuning one another out. This happens either because we are either just too tired or we simply don't hear the other one clearly enough. The latter problem is a common problem in middle-aged couples like us who do have slight hearing impairments. I for one am partially deaf in my left ear due to a disability so if we are in a vehicle and the radio is on I generally can't hear him. This is a major frustration issue for him. But, I have been told, due to my disability, it is not possible for me to wear a hearing aid.
Our other major ups and downs during these years of living together have been many. We have had to learn to adjust to sharing the blankets and bed with someone else. Many times one of our schedules conflict and one of us needs to leave for work while the other is sleeping. This can be a disturbance. It is much easier for me to roll over and fall back to sleep then for him. However, if I need to go to sleep much earlier to go to work early, it is hard for me to sleep with light seeping in under the door. There have been many times either of us has had broken sleep.
The pluses though have been that you can learn a lot about the person you care and love. You learn if they have the same taste in food, televison, if they hog the remote, are a channel hopper, how loud they like the volume on the television/radio. You also learn if they whine/complain a lot, if they will help out around the house, how good a cook they may be, what phobias they may have, if they are abusive, if they are a slob or if they are neat, what there goal/dreams may be, their outlook on life and what they would like to do when they retire someday. Most importantly you learn about their family values, their life, upbringing, and how they feel about you and if you feel you want to build a future with this person.
There was a time we separated for five months. I moved out on my own. I had my ex-husband stalking me and it was causing issues in our relationship. Things had become difficult and the magic was somewhat lost. Mainly, because I was under a lot of stress due to I felt he was also in possible danger. Since my boyfriend has MS, I thought it best under the circumstances, to protect him from my angry ex-husband. However, during those months apart we still sorta saw each other in the company of our other friends. Eventually, my ex-husband got caught. He asked me to move back in again after I explained why I had moved out, following my ex's incarceration.
Back together again he seemed to show me more appreciation. So did his grown kids. As the days passed by in our life, we seem to only grow more and more in our love. Nearly eighteen months, after reuniting, we became engaged. A week later we said our vows on August first of 2007.
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