I was just watching this TV show hosted by cosmetic surgeon and TV personality, Nishikawa Ayako. Toward the end of the program, she made a comment that gave me some food for thought.
どっちも不幸だから、結婚するもしないも。どっちの不幸を選択するかくらいのことじゃないですか。
Getting married and remaining single are both miserable. It’s just a question of which misery you choose.
For an elite who has gone through countless relationships and a heartbreaking divorce, it’s an interesting opinion which isn’t entirely false. Although you can put it another way in that there’s bliss in being single and in being married. Which would you choose?
When one of the guests says she would want to cohabit with her boyfriend before getting married so as to know the other party’s private habits, Nishikawa raised that cohabitation and marriage are different. Reason being, during cohabitation, the girl is still not yours entirely, so the guy will do his best to show the positive side of himself even if it was a lie.
For Nishikawa, when she lived with her then-boyfriend before they got married, they often went to have meals at Thai restaurants together, but as soon as they got married, the guy told her that he actually hates coriander.
I can actually understand her point of view.
To put it another point of view for cohabitation, since the guy is not married to the girl and so, does not “belong” to the girl yet, the girl also has to continue to look good and be “positive” in this type of arrangement.
Cohabitation is basically a pretend-play, when one is sick n tired of the other, this arrangement naturally comes apart.
Marriage is different- the couple become family after marriage. U can’t easily throw your family member away, at least the law is made that way.
Funny I’m not getting any notifications on new comments now, and I agree with your point.
Another issue with cohabitation is that, the physically observable change to live together after marriage is no longer present so the timing for a proposal/marriage might be lost.