While the no shacking rule seemed to work for them, not everyone think it’s effective or even smart. Most of my friends fully support cohabitation. My recently-divorced male friend says it’s good to get to “know a person before [you] marry them.” To avoid “relationship purgatory,” wherein you play the roles of husband and wife without being married, he says to set ground rules: “Say we’re moving in to increase our knowledge of one another and by [a designated] time, we’ll make a move.”
Conversely, my married female friend feels it’s a one way trip to never getting married. “There’s no incentive to commit.” “If you’re not married and living together, breakups get really sticky when it’s time to split assets,” she adds.