he's probably right when i think on it. why live with a woman unless you are planning on marriage. just makes the breakup infinitely harder. not living together doesn't mean you can't still spend plenty of days and nights together. i don't have stats but i doubt living together makes marriages more likely to last. a lot of people want someone to share bills...that can be a big draw. seen plenty of women posting crap like that. often times one of the people has some angle that's an advantage for them...like my struggling (yet "i'm an independent woman") ex with me moving in 3 months after she became "independent" and paying half the bills which quickly turned into paying 90% of the bills.

probably something to be said for spending plenty of time learning about a person without living with them

Great wisdom comes from going trough stuff like this and experiencing it to the full extent. It will hurt, hurt hurt and then it will be just a memory. Don't try to hide from it or indulge in whoremaxxing to numb the pain, it will just make it worse in the long run, you will eventually have to go trough it, now or later. Better now so that when you find THE ONE you will be all healed up and ready to go.

Cmon bro, you look like a sick **** in your avi ( in a good way ) you gonna get as many sloots as you want when you are ready.
Suffer now so that you can be great later. Misc got u.
Never text or contact her ever again. She doesn't exist from now on.

Cuffing season is over.

Time to start working on that 3 girl rotation for summer. No cohabitation.

Mine threw a fit because I don't pay enough attention to her. I went no contact 2 days ago and nothing but radio silence. It's over.

I've had to reflect on that. Trying to force things. In many things in my life I've crushed accomplishments by pure grit, moxie, my own force of will and it frankly has worked for me. Relationships are something abstract and fragile at times. They take time to nurture and grow. Maybe letting them occur more organically is the right thing to do and maybe we can fall into happiness. Hard to think about as a type a person tho.

I will say a few months before my break up I did see a 50% increase in my base pay so that isn't hurting me either heh.

I didn't buy a home with her. Where did I say that? I said she wanted to buy a home. She bought a home after me renewing my lease and I decided to keep my place but I did stay with her a bit, which caused a huge conflict.

My argument is cohabitation is a form of relationship creep and how some people test a relationship. Many people do it out of convenience or money which I think is a bad idea.

It also, for some couples, makes marriage less of a priority. I'm saying that assuming that's what Ken-O wants but I'm not sure.

It sort of made my relationship unfortunately into more of a roommates scenario the last year which killed the relationship.

There have been some studies that shown that people who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates, but I'd counter argue that given certain cultural shifts that may not hold as true anymore.

Ultimately YMMV but I'd think after Ken-O's experience he would reconsider it before a girlfriend living in with him, or at least make it much shorter and not a state of relationship purgatory.

moving in together after marriage gives you time to figure out who a person is...how they function independently. are they responsible enough to pay their own bills? gives you time to get past the infatuation/sex stage without everything being tied up together. and damn why do you have to be so clingy that you have to be up each other's arse. now if it's a years and years relationship and neither person cares about marriage that might be a different thing.

just googled it and i'm seeing that cohabitation before marriage can increase the odds of divorce. maybe marriage really is just viewed as a piece of paper when you've already been playing house for a while. let's go sign some papers and get back home.

still gotta date to get married

I dont need longer than a few months to decide if a chick is wife material

For almost all of history, every Chad in the tribe was gangbanging every woman in the tribe. That's our default. Monogamy and marriage are very recent creations, far from natural.

Pretty much modern dating. Most people date for a while then marry.Potential yes but first fight, traveling together, meeting family to see if you miss something, etc are all important. Gotta vet. I'd say a few months too TBH.

if this is the default mindset i guess don't go after people who say they want marriage and certainly don't move in with them

modern relation****s want commitment with the ability to still check the grass on the other side. oh great you moved in with bf/gf...still just a bf/gf which is essentially nothing in a world of disposability.

You just need to find a woman who can resist every natural urge in her body to sloot. Also she has a roster of 6'4" Chads in her pocket begging for her attention 24/7. And also she gets a huge payday if she ever decides to leave. EZ.

considering i had a little money from a young age this made pulling the trigger on marriage a gamble i couldn't take. the thrill of a new man/chad plus money in her pocket in a world that doesn't give a damn if you divorce...ehh

If I find an amazing woman that I feel strongly to marry in a year I'm down, but the Honeymoon Phase will have you looking all sorts of red flags lol so I don't think a year is pragmatic. 1.5 or 2 years ya.

This one hits deep brother

What's his end goal? Why even be in a long term relationship if marriage is not the goal. For most people the problem is that there aren't clearly defined expectations, and every other issue stems from there.That's all it's ever been about. Marriage was never about love. It has always been about either about strengthening political relationships, securing financial gain, or more recently, creating a defined nuclear family and a stable environment in which to have children in.

Y'all are too caught up in fairy tales, that's not how the world works.

The other part of the problem is that men aren't acting like men, men need to steer and define the relationship, not go with the flow and see how things end up.

I agree. You make a great point. Men should have a clear agenda with the woman they are dating or in a relationship.

But I don't know what Ken-O's interests was with this woman so I'd like to hear what he said.

Where are the fukin pics

u be aiight brah

Tyrone and Jamal will take good care of her

How do you "break up" with a FwB? There was nothing of substance, just stringing 1 person along for x time. SS be just trying to hijack another thread.

Ken-O if you're a man of honesty you should establish early with a girl that there will always be a hotter girl, nicer tits better hair whatever. And male gaze will always lock onto it. But it doesn't mean she's an upgrade on your girl, because the object of your gaze could be walking baggage and your GF is the devil you know.

And likewise your GF is welcome to notice hotter guys, because they exist. She can make a comment every time Matthew McConaughey comes on screen, and you avoid being insecure about it because yeah he's pretty phucking handsome.

My GF was a virgin when I met her and had this Hollywood idea that when you have a partner everyone else is suddenly unattractive, but I quickly nipped that in the bud. It was your fault for ignoring this red flag, especially as you admit it was a day 1 thing.

sorry for the long post

sucks. i feel like something like this could have been worked out but maybe she was just too much and could not be re-assured due to her baggage.

I think living with a person before marrying is interesting. I honestly agree with sword. Moving in with somebody before marriage seems like it shifts the relationship into purgatory where neither party seems really interested in tying the knot and becomes more like a roommate type of situation where both are just living with each other just because and out of convenience, without really investing in each other.

Sure you get to know how a person is by living with them but like Sword said there are other ways IMO to test a relationship. How do they act in public? Ask the person some thought provoking questions on the spot to see how they think, how do they act around their family, parents? Ask her friends and parents about her, although the parents may paint them as some sort of angel.

In my opinion dating for years on end for the sake of dating is a waste of time. You can really get to know a person within the first few to several months, or at least know them ENOUGH where dating them for several years won't really reveal much more. At least know what her values/beliefs are and know if you are compatible. The longer the dating phase goes, the harder it becomes to commit bc you get so used to the routine, the boredom monotony until somebody says "aiight i'm out". For women it sucks because her prime biological age is 18-28. That's a small window for her and it only goes downhill from there. Men don't have that problem but still, courts have stacked the cards against them and the dating market doesn't really favour them and many have chosen to check out.

In the past, women married in their prime reproductive years and seemed to be much happier. Men married earlier as well. And there wasn't this whole extended dating culture. Couples of the past used to get married quicker and because they committed to each other quicker, were less likely to bail out on each other because it would have consequences. Socially and financially. Divorce was looked down upon. Men made more money so this incentivized women to stay. So in that sense, they were forced to figure things out because it would be in the best interest of both parties due to the repercussions.

Some might argue well, you really need to get to know a person for years before committing. I honestly 100% disagree. There's only so much you can get to know after a certain point. If you're dating with the intention to marry, you can expedite this process. And look at the divorce rates, can you even really say that dating for years really helps that argument?

At least from my own experience, i only knew her for several months before marriage. if you want to go that route, make sure you both have the same intentions from the start and make it clear. Ask your questions, vet, etc. One thing I recommend as well to is getting their parents involved somewhat early in the process once you've gotten a general idea. It will let you know whether or not your potential in-laws are batchit crazy and what you would be marrying into as well as how she acts around them and it can help smooth out and facilitate the process. Plus it protects her as well. This is just anecdotal from my end but after learning my lesson, I knew dating for years on end was a terrible decision, but I learned alot from it. I don't regret at all the way I went about it the 2nd time around. Yeah we had some minor issues but since we are committed we learned how to solve these problems and grow into each other. Just my 2 cents.

There is always a risk in marriage, whether you marry after 6 months or 6 years. My argument is that past the 8 month mark, you're not really reducing your risk at all. Or the minute reduction in risk is not worth the relationship blowing up in your face and wasting a whole bunch of time. Time is short fellas. Don't waste your time with women you don't plan on committing to. Either commit or do your own thing. All you're doing if you don't do that is just making everybody jaded, heartbroken and depressed when it all comes crashing down like wth did I do with the past 4 years of my life?

It takes months just for enough of the mask to come off to see the real person underneath, and a few months in you're still blinded by infatuation. Infatuation is not love, because love takes time. If a relationships ends because a couple lived together for a year, why they hell would it have been any different if they were married for a year instead? And now you have to deal with divorce court, where in the previous scenario you can just go your separate ways.