(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568340)

It is both.

"basic day to day shit is superficial and can be worked out if two people have the right values and character"

Yeah, if two people like to live in totally different ways they're in for a rough time.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568440)

Also, the number one cause of divorce is finances. This is an opportunity to see how they handle spending on a day to day basis.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568523)

of course divorce/sex are the top causes of divorce. you could easily observe how shitty someone is with their money without living with them. i could tell you whether every friend/acquaintance i know is good or bad with money just by seeing the lifestyle they lead.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568545)

i broke up with a LTR after we had lived together for a couple years, had the same circle of friends, shared most things, etc and it was fucking DREADFUL.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35596250)

My wife and I cohabitated for a few years and have been married for 11, btw. We were aware going in to our marriage that cohabitation prior was connected with higher divorce rates. We also did premarital counseling through our church and they urged us to make specific life changes so that our life together felt "new" after the marriage and that helped considerably.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568334)

It was also far enough away that we needed to find a new church.

We also started a "date night" since we'd already fallen into an old married couple routine. We've let it go since then, but that lasted for a while and was helpful.

We made a few commitments toward basic relationship maintenance - communication type things - that we started right after we got married, too, and that we hadn't been doing when we were just living together.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35571267)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568538)

explain

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35568737)

Sorry to pry a bit, but rather than simply advise ATD I guess I'd have a few questions:

-Is she entering the church for serious reasons or mostly to make you happy? Are you still cohabiting (and presumably boning) at this moment? Do you consider this inadvisable at all if so?

-Why the heck is she so opposed to getting married at 25? That's a perfectly normal age to get married at. No significant life changes are coming past that point save your steady decline to inevitable death.

-Does she know about your impending departure to foreign land? How does she feel about it? Was she just down for some non-marital LDR of indeterminate length?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35596194)

it'd be different if she had a reason. like maybe she might get a promotion that would require her to expat for a year and she wants to get married when she's back in the US. or if you had been dating for only 3 months and she wanted more time to get to know you better, that would be totally reasonable.

but 3 years dating and you're moving in together? i mean shit, if you don't know by now whether you want to marry the person then you might as well break up.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35602318)

- she has serious reasons of her own, and her social life has weirdly swayed into an awkward position between degenerate liberals and tradcons. cohabitating was a mistake, but, perhaps luckily, we won't be soon. on sex i have a perhaps post-hoc or disingenuous position, but seriously think that the telos should not just be childbearing, but also serious, hopefully permanent unification of two people. obviously it should be done in marriage so that it will be permanent, and i regret my decisions.

- i have no idea. one of her friends is getting married at 29 (the becky mentioned above), so maybe that's making her think it isn't time yet; or, since she is from proletown USA, perhaps she associates getting married young with that; or perhaps she did not plan for the relationship to be marriage-track, as you suggest.

- she knows, and she encouraged me to do it when i initially said "fuck no". maybe she didn't think she was signing up for this, so to speak, and she expected to be in more relationships before she tied herself down. in that case, i wonder if she would have cut out much earlier if we weren't cohabitating. on the other hand, giving her the benefit of the doubt, me leaving is hitting her kinda hard too. maybe she just was not prepared to think about marriage.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35601107)

not trying to be too flippant here. just can't think of many other reasons given your description of her and the situation. you're her "relationship" but she thinks she's too young to give up the rest of her sex life.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35601317)

if she didn't like op she wouldn't have spent 3 years with him or cohabitated with him, and she wouldn't have gotten "taken aback/anxious" at the idea of marriage. she would have said "lol fuck no" and gone on her way.

she got anxious because she actually does think she might want to marry him, but she isn't ready for it, and is afraid that if she just says "no" then it's all over and back to square one for her as far as finding a potential mate goes. but she also doesn't want to say "yes" because she doesn't want to give up her youth yet.

optimal path for a chick is to maximize time fucking strange while still young, and lock someone down just before looks start to go downhill. risk is that she hasn't locked someone down before it starts to go downhill. so the game to play is to foster relationships with potential husbands while still pulling tricks on the side. then she can maximize fucking around time without the risk of not having a potential long-term mate when looks start to go south. but op has forced her hand and now she can't have both MY relationship and MY chads.

i.e. she wants to have her cake and eat it too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35601352)

It'll happen.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3913822&forum_id=2#35595981)