Saturday, April 03, 2004
COFFEE TALK
I went out for coffee with my former UCLA co-worker (let's call her "Jenny"). Jenny had moved across the country to live with her boyfriend and to get a job here in LA. They had been together for over three years and basically acted like a married couple, minus the legality and the paperwork.
But just a few months ago, her boyfriend (also a good friend of mine) began to have a change of heart, but wasn't man enough to talk to her about it. So, she had to be the strong one and end things when she began noticing things weren't the same. She's the one who had to move out, find her own place, and get settled in an area where she had few friends and was "on his turf." But I'm glad to report that she is doing fairly well and is in a good place, all things considered.
But she asked me this question: Do you think people should live together before getting married? Her thought was, because she didn't feel the urge to have kids yet, getting married was just a piece of paper. It's not any different than being in a loving, committed relationship. I told her we didn't move in together, even when we were engaged, because we wanted being married to mean something different and something special, plus it's the "right" thing to do. In retrospect, I was glad the first 6 months of our marriage were filled with little disagreements as we learned how to live together because it deepened our understanding for each other and set a better foundation for our marriage.
Another viewpoint expressed was that people shoul definitely live together beforehand because if they can live together, then they know they can survive and manage the marriage (without divorce).
I don't know. I'm standing firm on my viewpoint.
I went out for coffee with my former UCLA co-worker (let's call her "Jenny"). Jenny had moved across the country to live with her boyfriend and to get a job here in LA. They had been together for over three years and basically acted like a married couple, minus the legality and the paperwork.
But just a few months ago, her boyfriend (also a good friend of mine) began to have a change of heart, but wasn't man enough to talk to her about it. So, she had to be the strong one and end things when she began noticing things weren't the same. She's the one who had to move out, find her own place, and get settled in an area where she had few friends and was "on his turf." But I'm glad to report that she is doing fairly well and is in a good place, all things considered.
But she asked me this question: Do you think people should live together before getting married? Her thought was, because she didn't feel the urge to have kids yet, getting married was just a piece of paper. It's not any different than being in a loving, committed relationship. I told her we didn't move in together, even when we were engaged, because we wanted being married to mean something different and something special, plus it's the "right" thing to do. In retrospect, I was glad the first 6 months of our marriage were filled with little disagreements as we learned how to live together because it deepened our understanding for each other and set a better foundation for our marriage.
Another viewpoint expressed was that people shoul definitely live together beforehand because if they can live together, then they know they can survive and manage the marriage (without divorce).
I don't know. I'm standing firm on my viewpoint.
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