The Love Shack November 20, 2007
Posted by Babs O'Leary in Dating.trackback
Lord Hannibal (are you tired of being called out on everyone’s blogs?) asked me a question over at Monnie’s spot. Rather than answer him and have it get lost in a myriad of other topics, and because quite frankly I didn’t have a topic for today, I thought I’d answer it here.
There has been a lot of conversation about the whole matter of living together. The pros, the cons. Are women hoes, and is that man an ex-con. Whatever. The big question over at the Next Big Thing was does shacking lead to marriage or is it just a way to share expenses and have the nookie at the ready. I am the product of a couple that lived together and I did indeed make it to the altar. I am also a divorced woman.
When my ex asked me to move in with him I was ecstatic. Not only because he loved me enough to want me around all the time, but because I was going to get to save a lot of money! It was not my intention to live with him as a test drive for marriage. I had spent enough nights and weekends at his place to know we would have no problem living under the same roof. He, on the other hand, was operating under a different plan. You see, long before he met me he had a timeline of how he thought his life should look:
Graduate from college
Good Job
Pretty Girl
Travel a lot
Shack Up
Get Married
He never strayed from the plan.
We lived together for one and a half years before we got engaged and another one and a half years before we said I Do. We both had plenty of time to learn whether we could live together or not. But cohabitation was not our problem.
When we returned from our honeymoon I’ll never forget that feeling of walking in and sitting on the couch and being like “ooooookaaaay”. Aside from my last name, nothing was had changed Nothing was new or special. We crossed that threshold and it was same ole same ole. I guess I felt like we were married the moment I moved in. Exchanging vows was just a formality.
Our union ended, sadly, as nearly half of all marriages do. On a cold January morning with some stranger banging his gavel and telling us that two were no longer one. Honey, you wanna talk about a blog topic?!? I could do a five-day series on the rise and fall of a marriage and the effects it has!
So am I a proponent of living together? A definite no. But not because I think it will end the marriage. I honestly don’t think it will help. Shacking when I was younger had a lot to do with finances. Hey both of our leases are up you want to get an apartment together? Now that I am a homeowner and I probably wouldn’t consider dating someone seriously that didn’t own his own home, shacking isn’t as easy. One would have to sell or rent their house. And that is a whole lotta effort to go through for someone you don’t even love enough to commit fully.
My advice, and this is just my advice, is to save the shacking until after the honeymoon. Take your time getting to know each other. Really know each other. Lots of long weekends at each others homes and lots of travel will provide insight into a person’s personal habits. The kind of things that could end a marriage probably aren’t going to be discovered by living together.
Very thought-provoking.
Great insight. Thanks for the thoughts.
I am gonna try to avoid writing a blog here, but I want to say that I respect your opinion first and foremost.
I also will say that I don’t expect most women to agree with the idea of shacking because most women want that ring first and foremost. I really and truly believe that most women think that if a man lives with them before exchanging vows that he won’t want to do so at any time in the future. That says a lot.
To me, the line in the sand that people draw at shacking is arbitrary. Almost none of these people are opposed to fornicating, but once talk turns to living together, now here they go talking about sin. If that makes any sense, I can’t see it.
I’ve lived with a few women and talk of marriage came up. The fact that I’ve never been married speaks for itself. I thank God Almighty that I didn’t marry any of these women, because we would have been in court within a couple of years. I learnt things about these women by living with them that I couldn’t possibly have come to know from just spending time with them.
Statistics indicate that shacking doesn’t really have much impact on divorce rates, so I’m not offering it as an elixir for er’body. But for ol’ Hanni, that isht saved the DAY!!!
Thanks for coming over and playing nice.
Now it’s your turn to blog about it. What did you learn that saved the day? What were your breaking points when you lived with these women?
Thanks, Bab. I hate when people us the ‘test drive a car’ analogy for living together. It is so true that you can find out many things about a person by just spending ENOUGH time with them. You don’t have to live with them. Hey, I know a lot about my friends and some of them I’ve NEVER lived with. So there….:-)
Babs,
Great post… I said enough on the other blog for you to get an idea of my stance… no need to reiterate.
Gladys,
That analogy gets under my skin too! So dangon R. Kelly-ish (You remind me of my jeep).
Babs, I always play nice … even when I entertain the attempts to “school” me and/or the passive aggressive references to the things I say on other blogs.
It’s hilarious.
Now then … I just wrote a little ditty about shacking over at The Breaking Point.
For me, the breaking point with each of the women I lived with came in such a way that I’d have NEVER learnt about it by spending time with them. I don’t even want to get into specifics because i shudder at some of the things I found out, but I am happy as hell I did because it saved me from making a really big mistake.
I promise you that if I weren’t the only man (practically) who participated on most of the blogs I frequent, more people would see that I’m not the only one who thinks as I do. That isn’t to say that I need affirmation, but sometimes I think people think it’s just me. It ain’t.
Thanks for coming over and representing all the men in blogland. It sure would be nice if more of them would speak the hell up! As much as I heart you I disagree with probably half of your opinions.
See now, you not sharing the details will continue to have us women thinking they way we do. How else are you going to prove your point without sharing specifics??? (throwing the bait…)
I wish LH would give specific details too! If you date someone for a few years what can they hide that living with them would expose? A crack habit LOL? Bad finances (you should lay this out *before* marriage – pull out the credit reports for real)? What?!? If marriage is about commitment there must have been a shaky foundation present if finding out that they leave the toilet seat up would be grounds for divorce. Maybe I’m naive.
My hesitance to provide specific details is based on my not wanting to throw my ex-girlfriends under the bus. It’s also ‘cos I know knee grows. Someone will read what I have to say and then come tellin’ me that something must be wrong with me ‘cos I attracted them.
But here goes:
Chica #1: Intelligent, driven, giving, funny, versatile and not at all bad on the eyes. Sh*t was sweet … until we moved in together (her suggestion, not mine). All of a sudden, here comes the neediness/clinginess, neither of which had been on display prior to us living together. All of a sudden, here comes the you leaving f*cking dishes in the damn sink AFTER I just stood here for the last 20 minutes washing and drying damn dishes. Here comes you leaving your damn heels in the front door after you come home from work … and just leaving them there … until I pick them up and place them, gee, I dunno … in the f*cking closet?!? She kinda sorta believed in paying bills on time … I could go on and on. I finally put her azz out.
Chica #2: Mania isn’t the kind of thing you discover just walking down the street. it’s the kind of thing you discover after your woman hasn’t been asleep in four days and you come home one day and she is drawing clouds and angles on the f*cking walls, in coloured pencil, talkin’ ’bout: “I feel so relieved.” :-/
Chica #3: Slob, liar and always in the streets doing who knows what (and whom)? Before we lived together,she was always talkin’ ’bout how she was never at home ‘cos she was at work. But one night when she claimed to be at work I ran up on her and some scarey cat at grand Lux, kee kee’n it up. I could have busted her without moving in with her, true … but actually being at home at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night and having you tell me you’re at work is different from me being out and about and you telling me you’re at work. I didn’t go looking for her, but something about her story just didn’t feel right.
…love it when they take the bait!
OK. I’ve told you before you aren’t so good at choosing the ladies, so don’t think your comments are making me think something new.
I’ll give you #1- that sounds kinda fair. although could those issues not have been worked on?
#2- I laughed out loud! Then I read it again and laguhed again! That ish is funny.
#3- you woulda found out about her eventually.
LH – How long did you date each of the chicas in question before shacking?
Great blog, Babs! Great advice for a young buck. I actually remember talking to you about this in North Carolina.
LH-Was chick #2 Drew Barrymore? LMAO That had me rollin’!!
I love how the comments section has become a secondary blog!
I’m not going to accept your statement about me not being good at choosing. You’re gonna have to take that up with the stocker, not me, the shopper.
@ Keyalus:
Chica #1: Two years.
Chica #2: Two months.
Chica #3: Off and on, six years.
@ Coop: Would you believe her mother had the nerve to say to me, “Oh, I thought I’d mentioned to you that she’s manic depressive.” Oh, you thought so, huh?
Coop- I had forgotten about that! Good times! Glad I can impart some of my wisdom on you young bucks! As you can recall, I have way more to add in person. Add a cocktail to the mix? I’d have my own talk show!
I agree with you shacking up is unnecessary. I am not opposed to shacking up on some moral ground it is just not very practical as far as I am concerned. Living with another person takes work, compromise, selflessness. If we haven’t figured out if we even want to commit to each other why bother?
Fornicating is unnecessary too–it only clouds the picture.
lady tee- I was totally with you. Was picking up my pen and getting ready to cosign.
Until that last sentence.
@ lady tee: What you’re saying makes a lot of sense until real life happens and you come to find out that the person you committed to isn’t who you thought s/he was. I’d much rather know that before exchanging vows than afterward.
@ Babs: I am not into my friends ignoring me, so I’ll ask you again (LOL!!!): Why no to shacking but yes to fornicating?
LOL! and Duly Noted. Let me pop on over to your spot and address your questions posthaste.
LH…you making some SERIOUS tracks. ROFLROFLROFL!
Lord have mercy! Lord Hannibal, what in the world!? Sometimes even in a marriage that starts out very promising people change. I don’t think any of us can predict the future and shacking to find out for sure isn’t going to yield accurate results anyway. For one thing, she isn’t going to truly relax until she gets you to sign that marriage license anyway. lol So, if you live with some chick for a year and think, “Oh my God, I found her,” and then a year after the wedding she’s walking around looking like Shirley from “What’s Happenin’” what are you going to do?! LMAO
Damn, I hate being like a year late but who knows, you or someone may actually read this…. As a newlywed (5 months married!), who dated my husband for 5 1/2 years before we were engaged (never broke up either) and got married at the 6 1/2 year point AND only lived together one month before the wedding, I don’t think living together or not living together makes a difference. (sorry for the run on) I think knowing who you are marrying is what is important. Couples need to TALK about things and be REAL about what they want. Assuming that someone thinks one way about something is the main reason why relationships have issues – COMMUNICATION. They need to be real with themselves and with their S.O. If you are doing that then you can make a decision, an intentional decision, to marry the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. I does not matter whether you live together first or not. Everything you need to know is right in front of you. Just ask questions and be real so you know what you’re getting in to.