When a man cohabitates, marriage becomes the LAST thing on his mind. Have you ever noticed they don’t make “Grooms” magazines for men? Or as my friend puts it, “Weddings are a woman’s sport.” It’s cuz, already… a wedding is not something a man dreams of…ever.

He probably envisions having a woman by his side…
having a great sex life…
maybe even becoming a father…

ALL of which can be done SANS a wedding. SANS marriage.

Or as Patti puts it in the clip below, “When they have the rent for free… they’re not going to buy the house.”

Ellen disagrees… but that’s because she’s in a relationship with a woman! She’s not dealing with the male species, the gender that does NOT have marriage on the brain. She is sooo funny! At the end she’s like “You heterosexuals are weird.” So true. We are.

I’m not saying that if you cohabitate you will never get married. I’m just saying that it will be an uphill battle at least, and a long long long time waiting at most. I have a girlfriend who waited 5-6 years, and the proposal didn’t come until after several conversations that ended in tears. Do you want to cry yourself to a ring? Do you want tears and guilt to be his motivation?

Another girlfriend is 3-4 years in and still waiting. And I know there are countless others trying to wait patiently and wondering, wondering if he will ever pop the question.

All of this unnecessary waiting can be avoided if you DONT LIVE TOGETHER.

But you rationalize… It’s inconvenient to NOT live together.

Let him figure it out! Let that be his problem! Inconvenience forces him to think seriously about where he wants this to go or if he wants it to go anywhere at all… You’re at his place one day, your place the next. You live in different suburbs… Let the inconvenience of being apart from you make him see that he wants to be with you forever… or at least get him to start thinking in that direction.

If you eliminate that middle ground, that relationship limbo that is “living together,” he will either get serious about marriage or back out.

Better now than 10 years later…

As is the case of my husband’s former girlfriend.

They dated for 10 years (all of her 20s) and lived together. He was waiting for that “feeling” that she was the one… and he never got that confirmation.

My guess is that if she hadn’t lived with him, they would have broken up waaaayyy sooner and she wouldn’t have had to wait 10 years and wasted her entire 20s all for nothing.

I know it takes two to make this terrible decision, but all I’m saying is that the male population has no desire to race to matrimony.

It’s up to women to say, “If you want the benefits of living with me, you have to give me forever.”

Your actions will speak this message if you don’t cohabitate before marriage.

Even BETTER, don’t give the “milk” for free either!

BTW, I’m kinda curious of Patti’s movie! Patti Stanger: Married in a Year