@RuuDie, hmmm

in all what u said, i think what i was trying to say is i value my space, ofcourse if i like u alot to share 'some' of it with u, then thats kool, but the guy needs to understand thats the way i am, and tolerate me, same way im sure i'll be accomodating to some of his needs

@ Luxoire,

if you like me enuff to live with me, you're not sharing your space with me; i've have, metaphorically speaking, become a part of your space - think of it along the lines of marriage !

and i'll repeat albeit in a re-phrase; if you really valued "your space" more than anything else in this world - you wouldn't be eager, willing or downright care about living with anybody else !

@ luxoire,

my point is that when cohabitation goes sour, the woman is always at the receiving end. so why bother? most of the time if the man gets o sit at home doing the cleaning, then you can be rest assured the woman is paying the rent.

my point is that the woman has more to loose if things go sour, whether the man helps around the house or not.

and my dear, marriages do break up, talk less of relationships. so if you think after 2 yrs you are sure you guys would get married and then you dont (whichever party calls it off), you are back to square one. and then another and another, until you find the one you truly want to be with.

besides, cohabitation can reduce your toasters you know. so why go through the hassle? just stay in your place and i'll stay at mine.

RuuDie:

@ Luxoire / Militia

i don't quite dig this your theory of "your space" being a defining factor of co-habitation. everybody has such periods where they w'anna preserve "their space"; it ain't a permanent thingy - one sec, you w'anna have people around you, the next you w'anna go solo; it happens to everybody !

but when you talk about co-habitation, which simply translates to living together (in our instance here) as spouses - the "space" thing doesn't count. why ? c'os its simply something you got without even having to ask for it.

it all boils down to how much you and your partner like each other, how much you understand each other, how much you can tolerate each other; when he/she's moving, in the last thing on your mind's g'onna be how to work-out "your space" management ! i mean, we're not talking room-mates at school or stuff like that.

MILITIA, like i said; if you really valued "your space" more than anything else in this world - you'd be [b]single[/b] !

Okay oh!  I will announce when I get divorced  to prove to you that "my space" is important!

Dont think there is a right or wrong to this but personally i will not do it. I would want to feel the excitement of something new( living with my man) and if we were cohabiting before it leaves nothing to look forward to for we will have done it all already.

Co habitation is a very big no for me, u can never be sure u will get married at the end of the day.a cousin of mine who indulged in that was called at 1pm on a nice saturday that the man she was wearing his engagement ring and woke up with that morning is getting married later in the day.
How about that

@ Topic.
I can only cohabit for one week with a superly babe. But to cohabit with my inteded wife for about one month? HELL NO!!!!!!!! (the thought alone frightens me). Don't you guys know that when one get married he wouldn't that free anymore? One inspector-kinda-wife will always be on one's case. So why pass through that when one in still free? No more playing around and all that stuff!!! I CAN'T COHABIT untill am married.

on a lighter note, I can cohabit with either Rihanna or Beyounce till I die Even I wouldn't want to die under that status!

@Silly boy

hahahah ur reasons are silly but true ( i am sure for a lot of guys), only u gat guts to say it. Some men view co habitation as already impinging on their 'freedom' BEFORE marriage, and so, they wouldnt want to do it for that reason.

as for for ur fantasy, hahahahaha, keep dreaming, who dyu think u are?, JAY Z?

Lux. I think am better than JayZ only that the guy is richer. And you guys keep saying love goes beyond money(though I don't believe that o). I beg, let me keep dreaming of those two gorgeous babes. That could be the nearest I can get to'em.

@Silly

i appreciate your honesty, dream on hun, dont let anybody take away your dreams, theres a famous quote A MAN WITHOUT DREAMS, HAS NO ASPIRATIONS AND NOTHING TO LIVE FOR so dream on brother!!

personally i wouldnt

Lets get something straight here, The fact that u date someone within a year doesnt mean that it as to end in a marriage, Its the "testing water" stage, thats what folks esp ladies dont get, u start to play all ur cards.

its differs, some for one year, others need more years

@TOPIC

We don't really know how the future would turn out no matter how we plan it.
I will cohabitate with a man , if we both choose to. I'm not a Preacher's Daughter
It will give me the chance to learn my man's habit and body's Map.
if he farts alot in my presence that means he doesn't respect me and might not help in housework duties.
I will give him sex if he needs it but its not a condition I know men will always be Men.
I can always find sex with or without my man. he does not have the sole right to it.
I will always be myself regardless of how life turns out.

How will I know if his car will fit in my Garage. if we don't cohabitate

Ha Ha.

Girls na wa. U know that most of these girls that say they wont do it are actually staying with a man thats not their husband? and some have actually been thrown out of their boyfriends houses?

The stomach will never tell what it has eaten.

We might all have diffrent ideas bout this
but real talk - Cohabitation is a wonderful idea
I did it n' I think y'all should too

it definitely got some merits  & demerits
Cusz it makes u knw what u dealin' with n' goin' to deal with

@ long last sm sense in d place ! Lol

I love cohabitation. I started it while still in the University and when I get my place in proper order, the cohabitation continues.

mekaboy:

Ha Ha.

Girls na wa. You know that most of these girls that say they wont do it are actually staying with a man thats not their husband? and some have actually been thrown out of their boyfriends houses?

The stomach will never tell what it has eaten.

Sorry dude!  This is 2007.  I think you got it backwardzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!  The men in most neighborhoods are the ones getting thrown out in their underwears at 6AM most mornings by their live-in girlfriends/landladies!  It is the other way round! Most boyfriends these days no get houses and are constantly perching or squating from babe to babe for bed and breakfast! Most live in their trucks-------only to run into the earliest open McDonalds abi na Mr Biggs to brush teeth and wash the washables before heading off to wherever to push wheelbarrow or construction site for day labour! he he he he he

@militia,
that there not here. here, brothers got the cribs and the ladies are the ones that get kicked out.

@poster,
hell yeah, but after about a year of going steady

babadee:

@militia,
that there not here. here, brothers got the cribs and the ladies are the ones that get kicked out.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!  That is not what I see in HOMVIES oh!   Genevieve and Omotola or Stella always have their own cribs, while Emeka Ike, Francis Duru and Nonso Diobi are always commuting from molue to molue! Over there is even worse since most men still dey live with them papa or mama!   Waiting to catch one "MUGU" to hammar build one hut!

Cohabitation
uhmn well i av done it b4, tho d whole world was on my neck,i personali saw nutin wrong wit it.tho i cant say 4sure if it payd me.but i know the "HE" in mentn apreciatd it.sumtyms tho it reduces d level of respect.if u knw wat i mean

@ menike
GBAM! I suport u o

my brother the thing u ask from us os very hard but to be true with i must confesss that i cant i dont think that i can becos with the wave of girls trying to get girls to believe that there is no way that a guy cann go out with them and not sleep withn them so thats why so many guys are really sleping witha chick before they actually get married but as for me i wud not wait man must get at least one shot or two to register ur name in the book of the girls life

Every relationship must start with some foundation.

If you are not religious and just go with the flow, fine you can cohabite today and tommorrow 'move on' as they say in the west. But if your foundation is based on a christian home, then cohabitation before marriage is non starter

The more you think about why the bible said it is not right is that with marriage you will have a 'life contract' and if you were to be christian or a roman catholic or jew, it may be extremely diffcult to break that contract.

To be quite frank, you should avoid cohabiting before you are married at any costs (very exceptionally) for people that live in the West, financial pressure but what happens if one the other person is not there, you will still manage either to rent your own place or stay with friends.

If you live by yourselves before you get married,, you are able to reflect on the person while he/she not there and be sure he/she is the right person. You don't want to cohabitte as many men/women on and off before you are sure.

The bottom line is do pray to God and find out if the person is the right person for you. If yes it will be hard but wait until you get married and you both belong to each other, the idea of space is a selfish feminist thing and any man advocating it has some games he wants to play

if you will have to go out and the samething for the man with your friends from time to time okay but 'space' or too much of it, may encourage things that will destroy the relationship.

A word is enough for the wise.

Co- habit before marriage? For me, no way umless there are truly mitigating circumstances. I believe it leads to 'see finish.' Cohabitation will come after marriage. Otherwise, as my mom wisely says,' Who would want to buy a cow when he can get the milk for free?'

haha, my good friend came to visit me last week with her bf. she was gisting me that her bf was living with her at some point in their relationship. she got fed up and asked him to get his place. the guy didn't want to leave (he is an oyinbo). so she went to court lol. she said she became tired haha. as she was telling me, the guy was just laughing at what she had to do to get him out. the cop came to evict him. they still together.

personally, i won't because am not ready to play that big role like doing things for 2.

My answer is based on the results of socio-scientific research.

"Recent evidence linking premarital cohabitation to high rates of divorce poses a complex theoretical and empirical puzzle. We develop hypotheses predicting that premarital cohabitation is selective of those who are prone to divorce as well as hypotheses predicting that the experience of premarital cohabitation produces attitudes and values which increase the probability of divorce. Using multiwave panel data from a recent cohort of young men and women in the United States, we specify and test models of these predictions. The results are consistent with hypotheses suggesting that cohabitation is selective of men and women who are less committed to marriage and more approving of divorce. The results also are consistent with the conclusion that cohabiting experiences significantly increase young people's acceptance of divorce." The Relationship between Cohabitation and Divorce: Selectivity or Causal Influence?
William G. Axinn, Arland Thornton
Demography, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Aug., 1992), pp. 357-374
doi:10.2307/2061823
This article consists of 18 page(s). http://www.popassoc.org/

@topic: cohabitation iznt a guarante2 mariage,its just4 convinience. But 4me?Hell no. Smetimez im moody, iffy or just down assd bitchy. So i mark my territory lika polar bear. When its time,il do it rite.Therez no rite or wrong just 'shades of grey' @d holy people: d dead sea scrols n a host of oda buks have dis 2say to u: shut d ef up,ur ruinin my high

@ Militia and Others
We aint religion fanatics. U establised it that its wrong, so be it.
Nothing bad can be good again. But, to be truthful, my babe once stayed with me for a while when in the UNI. we really had issues then cos the more u stay live together, the more revealing it becomes. She's gone(Not what ur thinking) Irreconciliable diffrences, Nothing more.

If i meet another person, i'll still try it 'cos i want my babe around me all the time. Yeah, i know im a sinner. I will repent.LOL (, My bad)

@tbk
it is wrong religiously, does not mean you as a PERSON has an opinion as to why you believe it is wrong!!, We all know what religion tells us, heck i can even safely assume, some ppl are brainwashed by religion, and never for one minute stop to think about life and their actions and WHAT IT MEANS TO THEM AS A PERSON!!, [/b]they do it, because the pastor said so!!, bullsh*t, i have no respect for such madness!!, again thats my view!

[b]@others i appreciate those of you, who say you wont do it for your personal reasons, and i didnt say it guarantees marriage, neither did i say it leeds the way for inevitable divorce because of (as one person put it) ''see finish'', it's just sometimes you find your self in a situation where you need to make a decision for yourself. for your life. you need to put aside prejudices and judge whether co-habitating or not is the right thing for you to do, at that point, will you do it, or will u still stand by and watch things go, because u couldnt do it!!, that is where i was coming from

as we can see, there are some who have done it, and would do it again in another life, others have regretted it!!, so WHILST YOU MAY HOLD THE VIEW THAT IT IS WRONG, DO NOT TRY TO IMPOSE IT ON OTHERS OR TO CONDEMN THEM, FOR DOING WHAT THEY THINK IS RIGHT!

then again as one person rightly said, there might be ppl in here, preaching against it, when they are currently practicing it! to those, i say, Hypocrites!

and to all those girls that, cook, wash, clean, iron for their boyfriends, and have sex with him when the mood kicks in (his place or yours), without even having as much as the right to know what time of the night he gets home!, i wonder who is better off, they babe co-habitating and doing all those, getting SOME acknowledgment, or you who (is maybe) being used a maid, whislt he maybe plays around outside!!!, i suppose if ur not gonna play along to 'wifey' before u get married, then be truly independent of him, stop doing half-half and then pretending to be holier than thou!

Yep, I'll do it! We're actually planning on moving in together at the moment!