Transitions in Marriage

One of the first subjects that we talked about was cohabitation. This is something that is quite common around the world, but is not noticed as much as I think it should be. There are many different types of cohabitation.

The first type of cohabitation is “parallel living.” This means that two significant partners do everything together, and is seen a lot as “the next step” before getting married. Another type of cohabitation is when people do it because “they are getting married anyway.” Opposite to this, some people cohabit “instead of marriage.” One of the most common reasons for cohabitation is to be more financially stable. This is really common among individuals that have different jobs and want to make a better living by sharing property. The last is “co-parenting.” This is when a man moves in with a single mother or a woman moves in with a single father to help parent the children that they have. While there are many different types of cohabitation, they mostly have the same effects on the individuals. An “LDS parallel” to this can simply be that you basically spend every waking moment with another individual that you are interested in.

After cohabitation, most couples share everything the way that they did before when they get married. This means that it becomes a “mine and yours” situation. It can be negative because then you do not share money, have joint responsibilities, or work as a team. This can lead to divorce or unhappy marriages. It is proven that not sharing a bank account makes couples feel separated. It leads to people being more worried about the person’s “other half” rather than the actual person. This can be extremely negative, especially if the individuals feel like they do not meet up to their spouse’s needs.

One thing that I think is important is knowing the proper steps of engagement. The first is dating. This is when you get to know the person and decide whether or not they are a person that you would be interested in marrying some day. The next is courtship. This could be modernly described in today’s society as “becoming exclusive.” The next step is actually getting engaged. Lastly, you are actually married. All of the steps are important because it helps you set yourself up with a healthy marriage. While engagements are a happy thing for your love and emotions, becoming engagement is a money commitment.

One thing that many people think is old fashioned, but is actually quite important is for men to ask for the father’s hand in marriage. This is important because it gives support from the family, it humbles the man into explaining how they will take care of their daughter, and it makes a genuine and formal commitment. I find it very interesting that when men propose, they are on their knees. The way I see it, it is a genuine question.

Lastly, as my teacher would say, do not make marriage a Facebook event. This means that it does not need to be a gigantic, expensive, out of this world wedding. The average cost of a wedding ranges from $27-36,000. Pulling out a loan for this sized wedding can lead to financial issues within the marriage. Having parents and family paying for the majority of the wedding can lead to many different things. It can sometimes cause a family to think that they “always have a say,” it may establish a pattern that mom and dad pay everything, or it may make it seem like the children owe their parents something. Trying to save up this money can lead to cohabitation, or postponed marriage which also has negative side effects.