Saturday, April 21, 2012

Cohabitation
Cohabitation became know as a sin by society back in the 1960s and 1970s. People still lived together without any guilt. Some married and some remained in stable relation ships and later married each other. Of course some of those relationships did not have any stability.
 I was raised during this time.  I saw my sisters marry because of becoming pregnant. Three of my brothers did the same thing. My other brother married when he was nineteen. All of these marriages ended in divorce. I on the other hand decided not to rush into marriage. I do not believe in divorce. I cohabited with my now husband for 7 years before getting married. I would not marry him until I felt he had worked through his problems with alcohol. He was clean and sober for the seven years we lived together.
Out of the blue , he called my father and asked him if he had his blessings to marry me. he told me of this, and asked me to marry him and I accepted. We were married days later.
Our relationship has lasted for 33 years. We always live as a married couple from the start. We had great respect and love for each other and never let society put us down. Believe me they tried.
We were lucky that our relationship lasted,even after we married.  Studies show that most relationships, like ours, do not last. It takes a lot of work and communication to make it last.
                                                                                                  Terry Begley

3 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your post Terry! this is something that i am very interested in, because I am getting to the age when you start having serious relationships that lead to marraige. With that comes the question of should we get a place together, even though we are not married. Personally, I would think that I would want to live with my significant other to make sure we can deal with eachothers habits before we are tied together "till death do us part." (Haha) There are those statistics that say living together before he puts a ring on leads to more divorce, and I dont want that. So, I am at the point of to move in, or not to move in together? That is the ultimate question I am facing as I get to the age where society starts to settle down. I really enjoyed your post!
    Brittanie Bennett

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  2. I enjoyed this post for the same reasons Brittanie did! At my age it is definitely something on my mind. With the divorce rates being so high and coming from divorced parents marriage is somewhat of a scary thing! Because my parents are divorced it is really important to me that I never go through a divorce myself. It is great to hear others stories that go against the statistics and still have successful marriages. I am currently in a serious relationship and this is something we have been talking about lately. Its great to see posts that I can associate with my own life!
    Jill Fritter

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  3. I'm a huge fan of cohabitation. I lived with a boyfriend once, and it was HORRIBLE. I actually thought I wanted to marry that jerk. It was a horrible experience, but one with the best message i could ever ask for. I'm in favor of living together and getting to know each other on the most personal levels before comitting to marriage. -Jennifer Hancock

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