Should I move in? Update
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Should I move in? Update
| Wed, 10-17-2007 - 4:14am |
Hi ladies,
Thanks for all the excellent advice!
Soo, we had a talk over the weekend, and I *think* we have figured out a plan.

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Passing the credit for the Find to Judy.... all I did was paste in the text.
That whole site http://www.marriagebuilders.com/
Little different take on all the negative responses to living together here .. ONLY b/c i THINK her kiddo is an infant, or small toddler - like under age 2.
That is an "eye opener" article. Very interesting. Made me wonder if most women just automatically take the role as the "Pleaser" just because of what I call the 1950's attitude (more dominant in people now in there 40's or so) where the woman keeps the house and cooks and the man is the breadwinner. My sister is like this and works a full time job, but Pleases her man. Literally grosses me out to the point it's hard for me to be around them as a couple. He just sits back and Takes.
I would have really liked to email that to the man I was seeing this passed summer as he said he would never get married again (he was married 2x's) because people always change when they marry. BUT because I don't want correspondence and phone calls from him, I WON'T! LOL
Sharon
I was trying to find some hard statistics for the failure rate
In the case of me and my BF, we started to spend every waking moment together(when not at work), then later on we started to spend every sleeping moment together too. Then it just gets to a point
Whoops- sorry! Judy was the first one to actually post it! But I guess it's because she posted the link to the living-in article... and then it was through Soonee's cut/paste that I discovered the link to the Policy of Joint Agreement. And it was THAT part of it all that I was sending out to everyone I knew. The living-in article I'm not sure if I totally agree with.
But anyway- the whole MarriageBuilders site IS quite a treasure trove of thoughts and info!! I've spent some time today reading over stuff and I think my brain is full. Some of those things require more digesting and thought than just light reading. So I have it bookmarked and I will go through it slowly, with time to mull things over as I go. You just can't read through that site in one sitting and expect to digest it all!
I love the section about Love Busters. We should all date with those in mind. It's not just for marriage-bound couples! Start at the dating level- and it makes it MUCH easier to weed out the ones that need to be weeded out. Sure saves yourself some "wasted time" if you might end up with someone you shouldn't be with. (time is not wasted if you're learning from it, IMO- only wasted if you keep continuing the same mistake!)
~shrimpy, who is no where near perfect, and does need to keep reading and improving, even with a relationship that isn't broken
~shrimpy
"A man who wants something will find a way; a man who doesn't will find an excuse." ~Stephen Dolley Jr.
~<
Wow - I had no idea you guys would like that one so much. I have read ALL of his books and can totally see why my exh and I never stayed married. I was also the pleaser/doormat....
I love that website!!
In addition to the policy of joint agreement he has a rock-solid formula for finding and filling each other's emotional needs. And avoiding lovebusters. And spending enough time together. He has a book called the four gifts of love that discuss all those - and it was great. He also had another one that defines the freeloaders, renters and buyers of relationships and says we all want to be buyers. Lifeguard was a freeloader in my opinion.
THAT is so cool you mailed that to Hiker. PLEASE PLEASE give us the update of what he says - I will bet he LOVES that you sent that after all the drama he had with his exw!!
I know all of that info is my mind as I now have a clean slate to look/find again.
From my experience from living together for 3 yrs
The thing is that when you are young and paying rent it is very easy to want to live with someone because you can save a lot of money and it is fun to have the companionship - I think it happens more for those reasons than for "testing the waters".
But now that I own a house and have a DS, my feelings about living together have changed. There is no way I am going to let a man move in with us. I think I have lived alone too long - LOL!!
The funny thing is that I did not want to live together with my exh before we were married. But we were sort of forced to - his lease was up 3 months before our wedding and his room mate didn't want to sign another lease with him, knowing he wasn't going to stay so my exh had no where else to go but to move in with me. I didn't really give it any thought, I mean that was a logical money-saving thing to do and by that time we had been engaged 6 months and were worried about wedding plans and budgets and work and the honeymoon and all that good stuff.
And in our case I think that has no bearing on the divorce, which was 10 years later. I think our divorce was brought about by our lack of knowledge, lack of time and lack of effort. He is a very selfish person and I was a willing doormat. In the end he said my problems were my problems. And I really believe he has not changed - that he wants to do whatever he pleases without regard to how it makes the other person feel. He has an attitude of entitlement with regards to marriage and relationships. He was not affectionate, accommodating or capable of real emotional intimacy and he liked to belittle me. I do not believe he really loved me.
I believe that it takes a lot of mutual work and self sacrifice to make the principles in marriagebuilders.com to work. It takes knowledge, time, awareness and communication. But in the end I think you have a rock solid relationship. What remains to be seen now is to find a quality minded person who would agree with that. And I don't think THAT type of person is going to be the type to want to live with me - he will want to court me and we will be very sure we would want to marry.
I am in no hurry now so time is truly on my side.
Edited 10/18/2007 10:27 pm ET by cl-west1745
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