Live together or marry first?

They should definitely live together first ... and if they don't marry, that's fine with me, too. Personally I think that people should get tax benefits for raising children - not for living together, marriage or not.

^^ nah, tax the breaders, don't reward them

^ Well, in countries which are suffering from overpopulation that might be the solution.

@harmonium.ro: Yes, but married couples get tax benefits on top of the benefits for the children. IMO it would be better to abolish the tax benefits for married couples and instead focus on the raising children part - preferably also including some form of training courses for parenting which the parents have to participate in in order to receive the benefits. 

Dean wrote: ^^ nah, tax the breaders, don't reward them

There must something in the water in Ireland, though, and I can't figure out what it is 

harmonium.ro wrote: There must something in the water in Ireland, though, and I can't figure out what it is

Poitín

Just my own experience:

I also think it is a personal decision.

There is one practical issue that favors not marrying though, especially in the US with the health care thing. Here, if an unlucky mix of major illness and loss of insurance hits one partner, the couple as a unit could be buried in the massive bills, bankruptcy, and ruination of the credit of both.  An unmarried couple with similar problem would only see one of the two in these straights, the other one's credit would not be ruined and thus the healthy one would be able to provide for both of them. 

When it comes to this scenario, which is rare but does happen, it seems unmarrieds are almost safer from the catastrophe.  

thellama73 wrote: A lot of people live together first as a kind of "test drive" to see if they can stand being around each other for extended priods of time. In my view, if you need a test drive, you shouldn't be getting married.

Maybe a little short-sighted...

As far as an emotional attachment/relationship goes, yes, you can be pretty sure early on - face it, everyone's on their best behaviour when (to use an archaic term) dating, so everything will be hunky dory whenever you see each other.

What you don't get when dating is the real personality of a person, when they get mood swings, what they're really like 1st thing in the morning, or when they get in from a crappy day at work... Are they lazy? Are they untidy? Are they generally inconsiderate?

I guess what I'm trying to say is when you date, you see people at their best, when you live together you see them at their worst - if you can cope with both & still say you love your partner, then go for it

My wife & I have been together 22 years, lived together for 20 of those & next week sees our 17th wedding anniversary, so seems to have worked for us

Dean wrote:   So, yeah, my wife and I had a "test drive" for a couple of years before marrying, but it was the only one we had and we didn't have alternative models lined-up for test drives should there have been any defects in build-quality or handling - sure prior to meeting each other we had take other's for a spin around the block, looked under the hood, checked the lubrication and kicked the spare tyre but beyond that no test drives were necessary.