I have always wondered why people opt for one or another.
Let’s see some definitions first (according to wikipedia)
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found.
Cohabitation is when people live together in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married.
Registered partnership is one of several terms synonymous with a civil union or civil partnership similar to marriage, typically created in order to provide same-sex couples the legal and social benefits of traditional marriage and thus could be described as quasi marriages.
(please, check on wiki, it’s quite an amusing subject to learn about how many types there is, but I don’t wish to make this post into a legal anything)
Is it better to live together before the wedding? Should we just live together and not get married at all? Or should we stay in our separate homes and only move together, share bed and table when we marry? This is a decision you have to make, all by yourself, nobody can help you, all we can do is to give you a clean sheet of paper and a pen, write down the cons and pros and make the decision! Remember that (nearly) everything can be changed, it’s only a part of our lives..
I know people who are in some sort of religion and they don’t go out, don’t kiss, don’t try each other’s sweet physicality. They only meet in front of other people, they are given to each other and go onto marriage without even holding hands. But of course, there are people in this same group who “can’t wait” and do nearly everything before the “sharing of bed and table” but in secret. Now, where is the religion here? If you commit yourself to this religion and really want to do it, not just show that you are doing it, then do it, with all your heart and soul, don’t just frown when I curse and kiss, mainly not if you do it too – secretly…
Some people consider marriage a sacred thing, that it’s the best of all commitments, if you get married you really know that you love the other one and you want to stay foreverandever together. Dah! Why on earth is the divorce rate so high then?! A good part of my high school classmates are divorced with/or without children, and they are the ones who were going on and on about how great their marriage was – when it wasn’t, as we can see now. They are the ones who were in relationships constantly since they were like 14 so you expect that people with years and years of experience of a serious relationship, living together a long time will make the right decision when the time comes, because they know. Not! I believe some of these constantly-in-a-relationship people are just hungry for love, they just want someone to love and to love them, and so they can say: “my boy/girlfriend”. How foolish!
Sometimes when we go out with other people we think we know them – and this is not necessarily right. Seeing someone for a couple of hours every day, spending the weekend together (that lovely, sunny, full of entertainment weekend, when you don’t really know yet how smelly the other can fart), it’s just not the same thing. When couples are dating, they only and exclusively want to show their best side. Girls will be always neat, wear perfume and the best clothes and they would never ever pass gas in front of the boys, what more, they don’t even go to the toilet for number 2. Girls just don’t do that. Boys? Yes, they were born with smooth and silky face which is always shaved to perfection and they wouldn’t burp at the table. Because they are gentlemen.
And you know what? This same girl will go and cry to the best friend later in the marriage that “the Joe” is such a pig, he burps and farts, and he wouldn’t shave, wears the same tee all weekend and cuts his fingernails at dinnertime at the table. And this same boy will soon realise – but never share with the mates – that “the Mary” is really a brunette, not a blond, she actually has normal humanly grown eyebrows, not the perfectly arched masterpiece, and she does go for number 2s, she doesn’t look that awesome in the morning and they realise that both of them are stressed at weekdays, that they really don’t even love each other like this and they only wanted the perfect Joe (with silky smooth face) and the perfect Mary (who never does the number 2) and they divorce.
This doesn’t have to be like this. And you don’t have to live together either. I think you can just show your real self after a short while and stop making up yourself in order to impress the other.
Here comes possibly the most valuable thought from me (and my Grandma’):
Marriage is a tough one with all the joy there is, but still a tough one. It’s like pebbles in a river. There are these 2 rocks with rough edges and they meet in the river, show how shiny they are, make the other rock not notice the edges and they chose to be together, hold each other’s hand, never let go, and every time they clash by the current of the river, the rough edges become smoother and smoother, they shape to fit to each other and the 2 rocks become 2 perfectly formed pebbles…
So Dear Reader (if there is any besides the ones that I know 
), please go and find your rock and get into the current of life holding hands and shape yourselves both until you really really fit together, with or without the paperwork, organisation, spending and law of a wedding. Or just go and get married quickly, quietly, cheaply and cheerfully. Or don’t get married at all. The important thing is that you live happily together and you love one another unconditionally. (with all the beard, burp, gas, stress, nerves and the everyday life which can be a living hell without the respect, love and will to change…)
