by Holly Riordan

If you’re both sure that you want to spend the rest of your life together, living together can be a good start of your life together. Your guy may not have spotted the perfect ring for a proposal yet and you may not have enough money to plan a wedding right now, but at least you know for sure that you want to start a life together.

Did you ever wonder if and why living together before marriage is a good thing? Keep on reading. Many traditional couples like to live separately until they tie the knot, but there is a plethora of advantages of moving in together before the big day. What makes it even better is that it could potentially save your relationship in the long term. In some parts of the world, living together isn’t always accepted, but for this article I look at countries where it’s not as frowned upon. These are 7 reasons why living together before marriage is a good thing.

1. IT’S CHEAPER

Why would you have two apartments, while you already spend most of the nights together? Keeping both places is a huge waste of money, if you only imagine what you could do with the money. Couples could save up for their wedding, they could spend it on traveling or they could simply pay off their student loans by moving in together. Living together is much cheaper and I think it’s a valid reason why living together before marriage is a good thing. Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to sell stuff you don’t need or don’t have room for anymore.

2. YOU GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER

No matter how long you’ve been dating your guy and no matter how many days and nights you’ve spent together, you will get to know each other in a totally different way once you move in together. You may find that there are certain habits that annoy the other person. Living together can sometimes be an eye-opener and it gives couples the time and opportunity to accept each other’s bad habits. Some habits may be unacceptable and it’s important to talk about these without keeping them to yourself for too long. Living together is about giving and taking, and over time you will learn how to live together in peace.

3. YOU SHARE RESPONSIBILITIES

When you’re dating, it’s pretty much all fun. You go out on dates, you sometimes visit each other’s family and you may have sleepovers at each other’s house. But you don’t really share responsibilities when you’re dating. Living together before marriage can prepare you for the responsibilities you will share as you build a life together. Not only will you share chores, like cooking and cleaning, but you will also share the responsibility of bills that need to be paid and things around the house that need to be fixed. Living together is like working in a team, especially when you both have busy schedules.

4. IT’S A TEST

I have never considered living together as a test, but in reality, it is. There are couples who moved in together and realized their relationship doesn’t have a future. Some might question if their partner is even marriage material. But even if you’re still positive about your relationship after moving in together, it’s still a test, as it’s sometimes a challenge for couples to remain passionate and romantic in the stress that sharing a home can bring. Can your relationship overcome all the dirty laundry, bills and sports on TV?

5. IT’S FUN

Living together is a lot of fun, especially when you feel comfortable with each other. You get to see each other every day and planning time together isn’t so hard anymore, now that you wake up together and come home to each other every night. You get to watch movies together at night and you don’t have to worry about not having your stuff with you for the next morning. You can cook for each other, have dinner together and you can invite friends over for a small party. And because you’re still boyfriend and girlfriend, it’s still likely that you’ll spend time out with your girlfriends and your guy will do so with his friends. These moments will give you time for yourself at home.

6. THE SOCIAL STIGMA IS DISAPPEARING

As I said, there are still plenty of parts in the world where living together before marriage is considered a scandal, and there might even be a community in your environment too. But it’s a fact that the social stigma around living together before marriage is disappearing, meaning more couples will make the decision to move in together and more parents find it acceptable for their kids to do so. I am from the Netherlands and it’s been very normal to live together ever since I can remember. In fact, there are couples who live together for most of their lives without even getting married.

7. YOU WANT TO START A LIFE TOGETHER

If you’re both sure that you want to spend the rest of your life together, living together can be a good start of your life together. Your guy may not have spotted the perfect ring for a proposal yet and you may not have enough money to plan a wedding right now, but at least you know for sure that you want to start a life together. Additionally, moving in together right after the wedding can be quite stressful, because most of the arrangements will have to be done prior to the wedding. And planning a wedding is enough work in the first place. Couples who live together have one less thing to think about when planning a wedding. Instead, start planning that amazing honeymoon you’ve always dreamed about

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.