Weddings...

[Katharine]

Kerren, I have heard that divorce does happen to such couples more often than expected - did to my sister too! At her second wedding they had his children, her son and their son as attendants! She refuses to marry her current partner, though he dearly wants it. They have been together more than 10 years and when she had leukaemia he gave up his well paid job to look after her children.

[sejintenej]

Well, that's cheerful!
Has anyone done any research on the relationship between 'living together before marriage' and 'divorce after marriage'? The only long-term living together friends I had, who eventually married with great ceremony, were divorced within two years...... But we must not generalise. I am sure that each and every case is individual.......

I have known the "bride" since she was about 4; she and her partner lived together (well, effectively in the first few years - everyone knew what was happpening) for about 17 years before they got married in a very quiet ceremony - one guest who was her mother. They have now been married I think another 17 or 18 years with their eldest child 8 years old. There are no signs of marriage problems - she has helped him with his several businesses in the past though that is not so much now that she has yound children to look after
BTW - she is now 48 or 49 and yes - your mathematics are not wrong, and they have always lived in England.

Living together might be a recipe for problems but there are always exceptions.

[Great Plum]

These days pretty much everyone I know has lived together for at least a year before they get married...

exceptions to this rule seem pretty much those who subscribe to 'RCT' (Randy Christian Theory) which evangelicals often subscribe to as they believe in no sex before marriage and therefore get married very quickly... (This has already lead to 2 divorces of friends of mine as they married to quickly...)

[blondie95]

Well i will have been living with bf for almost 4 years by time we get married-though saying that i lived with him before he became my boyfriend

[englishangel]

We ll that's a good reason for it to last then, friends go on forever.

[blondie95]

We ll that's a good reason for it to last then, friends go on forever.

thanks i like to think that because i lived with him for a couple of mths before we got together-i knew what he was like before i got too involved. All the bad habits etc i knew about yet still wanted to be with him

[cj]

Well, I definitely subscribe to the theory of 'trying before you buy'. After all you'd never buy a car without taking it for a test drive first, would you?

[sejintenej]

Well, I definitely subscribe to the theory of 'trying before you buy'. After all you'd never buy a car without taking it for a test drive first, would you?

My imagination boggles so much that I have spent the last 5 minutes paralysed with laughter.

Try before you wed - how I wished my various girlfriends subscribed to that philosophy when I was young!
You could have written that one should sample all of the wares present before deciding which one is the best or, more likely, that the samples tried are not up to scratch and need a further comparison against a new supply of samples.

To avoid any claims of sexism I would of course wish be the first to be test driven by the ladies

[J.R.]

Well, I definitely subscribe to the theory of 'trying before you buy'. After all you'd never buy a car without taking it for a test drive first, would you?

........ and I never said a word !!! Someone else got there before me.

[midget]

You're slowing down,John!

[kerrensimmonds]

Ermm..well my last (present) car I DID buy without a test drive. I bought it on eBay, for about 2/3 of its actual value, basing my confidence in researching the feedback on and previous sales of the vendor. The car was also a significantly updated version of the car which I had previously owned, known and loved, for three years (which in turn I subsequently sold on eBay). So I took a deep breath, bit the bullet, and went ahead. And I have not regretted it. The car was (and is...) absolutely brilliant - though I am still conscious that I took a huge risk in placing confidence (and several thousand pounds..) in a total stranger. Not sure how we can relate this to 'sampling' before marriage!

[sejintenej]

Well, I definitely subscribe to the theory of 'trying before you buy'. After all you'd never buy a car without taking it for a test drive first, would you?

........ and I never said a word !!! Someone else got there before me.

You're slowing down,John!

Plodding along a bit slower than an ancient tortoise; he was delayed by over four hours. I wonder if he is hibernating in this cold weather.

[J.R.]

A lot going on in the footy world for me at the moment, I'm afraid.

.... and sadly, or ex-Captain collapsed and died yesterday afternoon whilst playing for Ringmer against Three Bridges.

RIP Herve King.

A sad, sad weekend !

[Angela Woodford]

We ll that's a good reason for it to last then, friends go on forever.

Alas, no; friends from when I was married to my first husband, I never heard from again! I was very hurt by that.

[sejintenej]

Sigh..... I'd love to have a wedding (though I'd be a nervous wreck worrying that everything would go to plan).

I suspect that, as bride, you wouldn't have time to worry; that is the job of the Best Man!

It comes down to planning - what can go wrong and if it does, how do we get round it? I've been involved in a few and each time various things really went wrong but the guests (and in many cases even the bride and/or groom) never realised, which is the aim of the exercise.

In any case if there is a catastrophe you can laugh about it for the next 50 years!