DESPERATE! Need help with a paper for school.. any help would be greatly appreciated

[ZeroSteph]

I have a paper due for school tomorrow about being married and living together and could use some help from anyone out there who is willing. If you could answer the following questions (be as brief or as lengthy as you want) and send them back to me I would be forever in your debt... (or at least as much in one's debt as I can be on the internet! paper is due tomorrow so this may be somewhat of a long shot but I thought I'd give it a try...

 

First: Name, Age, Gender?

 

A) Did you live together before marriage? If NO, skip to item c.

i. For how long?

ii. In what year did you begin living together?

 

B) For those who lived together before marriage, why did you initially choose cohabitation instead of marriage?

 

C) For those who did not cohabit before marriage, why did you go right into a marriage before living together first?

 

D) What were some of the factors that convinced you that you were ready to marry?

 

E) How would you describe the state of your marriage today?

 

F) What are some of the most important things that people need to know about each other before they decide whether to marry? Please provide some specific examples.

 

G) What are some effective ways to learn those things about each other? Please provide some specific examples.

 

H) Is there anything you wish you had done differently prior to marriage?

 

I) Would you recommend cohabitation prior to marriage for other couples? Why/why not?

[shyanne]

female 37

 

(a) yes.....maybe 1989 or 1991 that's one date i'm not 100% sure of.

for at least 10years before we got married. we married after 12 years total together.

 

(b) we weren't ready to marry but loved each other.

 

(d) we been together for many years and had a child

 

(e) not the best

 

(f) i guess you really have to love and get to know how someone is, what type of person they are... maybe how their family is, good morals cause that's important. sometimes you don't know that until dating for a few years or living with someone.

 

(g) just by dating, meeting people in their family and getting to really know them. sometimes by even living with them first. that's when most true colors come out. i think.

 

(h) i wish i was married before we had our first child. i think that's important.

 

(i) that's a hard one... i would recommend it only if you loved each other.. because you get to know how that person really is.. sometimes just dating, even if you see each other lots is still hard to know.. you get to decide if the good out weighs the bad... sometimes when you live with someone they may have little things you don't like... so before you marry you can decide if you can handle the those things. marriage is a big decision, not something people should just do at the first "i love you"

[ZeroSteph]

Thank you sooooooo very very much! I am only one person short of having everyone I need for my paper. Thanks!!!!!

[justpaisley]

A) No

 

C) We are Christians, and we waited until our wedding night to have sex. There's entirely too much temptation in cohabitation.

 

D) We had known each other for a long time before even considering dating, so we basically knew each other. We also had a "prep course" in marriage in the form of a pre-marital counselor. The counselor had us discuss every possible issue we could think of. We were both relatively responsible, independent people. Add that to the fact that we both just "knew," and you've got two people who are ready for marriage. Plus, we had leases expiring at roughly the same time, and if we hadn't gotten married when we did, we would possibly have had to wait another year. Wasn't going to happen.

 

E) Absolutely wonderful. Better every day.

 

F) Common goals and philosophies. Specific examples... where do you want to live when you retire? Do you want children? If so, how will you discipline them? Are you both of the same religion?

 

G) Talk about them. They're difficult to discuss, because they might cause arguments, but love does NOT conquer all, and those issues will eventually surface. I'm sure there are books that deal with preparation for marriage, but a licensed pre-marital counselor will always get stuff out.

 

H) Not really. If the situation had been more controllable, I would have waited a little longer so that my whole family could have been there, but it wasn't, so too bad. They got the tapes.

 

I) No. Statistics are showing more and more often that couples who cohabitate are more likely to divorce than those who don't. Something's not working.

 

Good luck on that paper!

[Starfall]

I think it is a personal choice. With me I needed to be engaged first with a set date, etc. Others have done it with the marriage never happening, I didn't want to waste my time.