When living-in before marriage does no good

Akorede Monisola, 40-year-old engineer, says it is abnormal. “She made a huge mistake by living with him before marriage. It is wrong for a lady to live with a man that has not paid her dowry; If not for any reason, for the common fact that you need to respect yourself. What if after some months of living together he says he isn’t interested in you anymore, what do you do? She is even lucky that in her case he married her. She is his wife now and has to be patient; they already had their honey moon as live in partners. The bitter truth and fact remains that it’s wrong to live with a man before marriage. Pride and dignity count a lot in every woman’s life.”

Victoria Johnson, 39-year-old pharmacist, says “Living together first is a mistake. Dating allows you to get to know someone and decide if they are worth marrying. Why would a man marry a woman he lives with if he gets all the benefits of marriage without the commitment? What is happening now is that he has no regard for you anymore and believes there is nothing new he has to benefit from the marriage. Men easily get bored of staying with one woman and to have lived with him for five years, he must be yearning for new blood. She already used up her chance as a live-in lover for five years.”

Oluwatosin Ojolowo, 42-year-old civil servant, says “I will say its normal and at the same time not normal. My advice to the young wife is to be very observant as it’s possible she is doing something he does not like and he doesn’t want to tell her to avoid any fight. This is the time she needs to be very patient and carry out her responsibility as a wife and never use the excuse of his behavior to be wayward or to start to nag.”

Chukwudi Ibe, 40-year-old surveyor, says “Men will always be men; you can’t spend five years with a man and expect him to be excited when you guys eventually tie the knot. He must be tired as he doesn’t expect any innovation and creativity from her anymore. Everything must have become boring for him now, be it in the bedroom or the kitchen when it comes to her cooking. He has lived and done all he is supposed to be doing in marriage before now so there is nothing new to be done. She should pray about it and he might come around and begin to love her again.”

Fatima Ahmed, 39-year-old lawyer, says “it’s funny how people advice you to pray about it and leave it to God. God gave us common knowledge. You can’t stupidly live life through prayers. Communication is the key. She needs to tell him how his recent behavior is making her feel and from his reaction, she will have an idea of why he changed. It’s simply ignorant to turn a blind eye to a problem which you influenced the outcomes just because you got to leave it to God to handle. Until we use the brain God has blessed us with and figure out a solution that makes us personally happy, we will continue to have ladies in such situations who think to be a live-in lover is the only way to get a man to get married to you. Nothing can take the place of communication in a marriage; both of partners should a heart-to-heart discussion on this matter. They should find a common ground to settle it.”