So we held hands, took a deep breath and said, I do. They say that every huge decision made in haste is repented at leisure, that all ill luck is luck in a hurry. Only a true nutcase would advise a hasty marriage. And yet, it seems to me that people spend altogether too much time trying to avoid making long-term, messy, potentially expensive commitments to other people. But the only way to make sure nothing goes wrong is also the only surefire strategy for making sure nothing goes right, waiting and waiting until the desire to make a profound change is as worn down and extinguished as the dread.
People wait too long to commit.
Perhaps they even rehearse too much. In my generation, living together became commonplace. For the conservative, it was a way of making sure. For the wary, a way of not making overly sure. But two recent long-term research studies independently gave evidence that living together means a given couple will be less likely to marry.