Hi im a newbie and im in need of some advise already

Hi, welcome to hitched! Have you told him how you feel? Do you think its worth putting the wedding back so you know you will be living togeather first? I can see if theres a child envolved that you would want to make sure everythings in place before you get married. personaly i would want to live togeather first.

I obviously don't know your circumstances but surely if you pooled the rent you're paying separately, you could afford somewhere bigger for the three of you?

Yeah I'm confused about this too...I would have thought it would be cheaper overall to rent a 2-3 bedroom place than it would be to rent a 2 bedroom place and a 1 bedroom place seperately.

Thank you! I said before we got engaged that i would want to live with someone before marrage, but i don't think he was really listening. He is quite calm about it, for him its just the way it is at the moment and theres nothing we can do about it. I don't realy want to put the wedding back, and i know he won't as hes almost 40 and keeps sayings he's getting on a bit! Its just i feel a little silly telling people we are engaged when we aren't even living togeather, and familys reactions are...do you think you will live togeather when you get married then? as if we might not, i find it so embarising.

So you can't pool your rent then and get somewhere bigger? Why not?

We are both on low rent housing, and i get help for 1/2 of my rent money as i only work part time as im re training. i would stop receving this if we moved in togeather so basicly jointly we pay £500 less a month than it costs to private rent a house in our town.

Ahh I see. Have you spoken to the council to see what would happen if you were to move in together? Money wise.

I am working part time so half my rent is payed for me, and we both live in housing assosiation places (low rent) i would lose my rent payments if we lived togeather and we would have to move into private rented, the houses in are town would cost us £500 a month more than what we are jointly paying now.

There is no way either of us could move into the others place, so we are just waiting for a bigger place to come up, its been over 3 years and still nothing, money wise we would be stuck if we private rented, we couldn't afford to live.

Do you think the process would speed up once you're married? Have you told them you're engaged to be married?

Personally, I'd keep the wedding date where it is - it's not until 2014 so you have time.

I personally would not want to set a wedding date until I had lived with someone first. Can you get all the info together from the council and have a look into housing options before starting to book things for your wedding?

Yeah they know, its a case of there being no houses to move in to in the last 3 years only 2 houses have come up in our town, and we are 6th on the list so just over a year and a half till we get married feels quite scary!

Hi I have read all the views on this and did wonder whether to post this or not. I apoligise now if this is not what you want to hear though. I'm engaged to be married a 3rd time in June next year. My first husband I was with for 22 years and we had 5 children together. When we divorced (he left me) I rushed into another relationship. After being together for 2 years we got married. We didn't live together before hand either as like you he rented and so did I. The marriage lasted for just 18 months. If truthful I had had enough after 6 months. He was a totally different person from the person that used to come round every evening to see me and stop over. We had even had holidays together but the moment he gotr that ring on my finger his personality changed. I know how tough things can be I raised 5 children on my own and I know how difficult it is to make ends meet but I would seriously think about living together before you make this commitment. I paid dearly for my mistake and my children suffered also for the mistake I made. Sorry again if this is all too heavy but we get blinded by love sometimes.

Sorry, I don't get it. You can't move in together now, so what's to say you'll be able to when you're married. I'm all for the traditional "marry, then live together", that's fine, but unless you can sort your finances, I can't see how you can guarantee being able to get a place. All you need is a large-ish 2 bed place - are you sure 2 working people can't get that where you live? Or both be prepared to declutter severely and move into your place until you find something better

I understand that you're in a difficult financial position at the moment but like Mrs H said, is there any guarantee you'll be able to afford to live together when you're married? How long does your training last? Maybe you're better off waiting until you've finished your training and are working full time. Saying that, I don't think it's THAT rare nowadays to wait until marriage to live together, people still do it. Personally I couldn't marry someone without living with them first, I can understand him saying that you've both lived with other people before but it's worth bearing in mind that those relationships obviously didn't work out! Do you know what each other's bad habits are/how messy clean each other is/how each other feels housework should be divided?

Exactly what I was getting at with my long comment. We had both been married before yet we were just not compatible enough to live together. Were ok dating etc but unless you live with someone do you truly know them?

Im not worried at all about the fact that we might not be compatible enough, we have been close friends for 20 years and as are lives are as if we already are living togeather, we get up go to work, he comes home to mine for dinner (we food shop togeather as he doesn't buy food for his house) we eat, he washes up, we watch t.v/go out etc and then we go to bed, in the morning he goes home to shower and change clothes and goes to work. he moved his cat into my house 3 years ago as he wasn't at home enough to look after her. Its not like we spend nights or days apart, infact the last 8 months his sister has been using the house for storage so he couldn't stay there if he wanted to! It sounds like i am being selfish with my space but my place is so small, it should be a 1 bed with small office but we have squashed a bed in there for my son, hence all his things being in my room and my wardrobes being in the livingroom!

I forgot to add that obviously we are saving for a wedding, once that is payed for we would have alot more money and if needs must we would private rent and could afford it then!- we will be living togeather once we marry, i wouldn't even consider marrage if that was the case, like i said before what would be the point? but over the next 20 months i want us to all be under the same roof .

OK, a bit of perspective. If he already sleeps at your house, and it's just a matter of having all his stuff at his house, my comment about decluttering stands. How many posessions do you actually need? You no longer need 2 of things, so it's only really clothes, books, music etc that he needs to bring. And although it's nice to have wardrobes full of clothes, you probably don't need that many. General stuff can be car booted or charity shopped. Yes, it's nice to hang on to things from the past, but not essential if it could make the difference between living together when married, and living apart. Plenty of people round the world live in far, far more cramped conditions than 3 people in a small 2 bed house. They just don't have "stuff", just what they need for day to day living.

I do know what it's like in a small house. My old house sounds like yours - a small double (hardly room to walk round the bed) and a boxroom you could just squeeze a single bed into. Yet I lived there with my ex husband, and we couldn't have moved straight away had we had kids either. I don't think you're being selfish at all, I just don't think you're being realistic. At the moment, you want to get married but also want a larger house. You can't/won't rent on the private market, so are relying on the council. In effect, your forthcoming marriage is dependent on a local authority list. Ugh. I'd say you can't have everything. Your ony reliable choices are:

a) rent together from now / nearer the wedding. No idea where you live but round here you can get a suburban 2-3 bed house for under £700 a month as long as you don't want the posh areas. Hardly expensive for a 2 income house

b) move your OH in with you if no progress on housing from the council. Yes, it will mean sacrifices, but hey, a schoolfriend of mine married young and she and her OH lived in a tiny bedsit for the first 2 yrs of their marriage.

c) don't set a wedding date until you are given a new house.

As I said, I do sympathise - at one stage last year when we were househunting and not doing very well, it looked like OH and I would have to temporarily live together in my tiny house and have to chuck out 80% of our posessions to do so. As it happened, we got an offer accepted on a new place last Oct, but we were due to marry initially in March, so it would have been tight!

Sorry to put a downer on this, but living together (& I mean actually living together, where you share finances and bills) is completely different to just spending lots of time together. I found this when me and H2B moved out of my parents' house, where we lived together and had to pay for things together. There is a lot more to argue about, hence a lot more to go wrong. I couldn't imagine marrying him without living with him properly first as like other people have said, people can be very different in these circumstances. For example, have you thought about how he will cope with being with your little one 24/7, where he can't just walk out and go back to his own house for space?

Also, if you don't have enough money to rent a house - how can you afford to save for the wedding? I would have thought moving in together would be more important?

Really sorry if that sounded harsh, I don't really know how to put it across.

Hopefully you get it sorted though, but I definitely think it is better to live together first.