Committed Relationships

Are you tired of being the bad ‘guy’ in the committed relationship when it heads south? Perhaps the word commitment scares you and you high tail it out of the relationship when you hear those words. You are not alone as commitment scares many people out of good relationships on a daily basis. However, please know the word commitment means different things to everyone.

The number one reason marriages or committed relationships flounder or break entirely is the lack of commitment and open honest communication within the relationship. How is one to know what type of commitment the other is looking for if it’s not communicated about.

So exactly what is commitment? That answer depends on whom you ask the commitment question. The answer varies from male to female and even person-to-person. There are different answers between people who are dating long term, living together and marriages. About the only type of romantic relationship where there is no commitment is casual dating.

There seems to be several levels of commitment for couples. Couples who are dating long term but do not live together have one type of commitment, while couples who live together have another type. Each type of relationship has its own level of companionship but the one thing that ties them together is open honest communication. Without that, a relationship is nothing.

It’s hard for dating couples at times to reach that level of open communication. However hard it might be, it needs to be done or you will find your self in a troubled relationship which if not rectified does spell the end of the relationship.

Talk with the one you love and see what commitment means to them. Once you are on the same page so to speak, the relationship may get better.

Living Together Vs. Getting Married Right Away

Couples who have dated for more then 6 months and are thinking about marriage in the future should live together first for many reasons. This trail period allows them to see if they can get along on a day-to-day basis. They see the little quirks firsthand and can determine if they can deal with it before its nuptial time.

Couples who live together before they are married have a great opportunity to see exactly how their future spouse will be like after the wedding day beforehand. Perhaps he leaves the cap of the toothpaste or she squeezes it from the middle, while those things will not bother most people, some couples will fight over this. There are no surprises like that if a couple lives together first.

It used to be frowned upon to live together acting as husband and wife if you were not married but times have changed. Times have changed and many people cannot live on one income, so pooling those incomes as early as possible helps everyone involved. Money is a huge thing married couple's fight over, and by living together first, you are giving this aspect of married life a trail run as well.

Too many single parents realize it is not just them dating; they are in a way dating the children involved. If those children do not like the other adult, they will create problems with in the relationship. By living together first single parents can have a trail run to see if things will work out with the children who are very much part of the equation.

Couples who live together before the wedding have stronger marriages in my opinion because they truly know each other and do not go into the marriage blindly, as those couples who do not live together often do.

When couples do not live together, everything is a surprise after the wedding. Too many of us try to change our spouses' habits if we do not like this and this sets up for a bad marriage from the start. A neat freak cannot live happily with a slob, and if you are married, you have either to deal with it or be miserable.

Too many times when we settle into a day-to-day routine with a spouse without having lived with them first, problems arise. At times, these problems are easy to get over yet at other times they are insurmountable.

This makes for miserable people who feel stuck in a relationship with nowhere to turn. Had they lived together ahead of the nuptials they would not have those awful surprises.
I believe a couple should live together before marriage so if the differences between the two are too great they can get out of the relationship without having to go through a messy divorce.