Most of you probably are/were married, so what (short?) advice can you give me for successfully living with another human in a small (928 sqare foot) house? 71 days until the wedding!

Sounds like a marriage counselling topic to me.

You should definitely use this time to really get to know one another by spending as much time together as you possibly can.

We have a person in our church who will be married on December 1st. She lives about 5 hours away from here. She has been coming here to spend time with him most weekends since they met. By weekend, I mean from Thursday evening to Sunday evening inclusive. He has gone there once or twice for the weekend, Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.

Congratulations Jason. May I say that living in cramped quarters will bring you into close contact with your bride. (That might not be too bad!) Learn to laugh at yourselves instead of getting uptight or angry. Pray together. Don't take each other for granted. Don't forget to say with words and actions "I love you." Keep dating. There's lots more, but you said to keep it short! (PS: From a woman's point of view, make sure she knows she does everything {or at least some things} better than your mother.)

Faith

If you haven't already done so, there are a few things you need to discuss before the wedding so that you both have an understanding of what each of you expects in the future. They are:

1. Children- especially when, and how many. And yes, this discussion also includes matters of birth control. This is not the time to be embarrassed or squeamish unless you plan to let nature take its course which comes with problems of its own.

2. Finances- one paycheck or two? If two, for how long? Until you have children or will mother stay home? Plan a budget. Figure out what you need to get to set up housekeeping and how you plan to obtain it. A word of advice: avoid debt and credit cards. And if you haven't discussed number 1, then you'd better plan right now how you're going to finance an expanding family 'cause those cute little bundles of joy are very expensive!

3. Religion- Don't be too quick to think that "we're of the same faith so it's okay." Even in the same denomation, there can be serious differences in religious beliefs. An example (which could be quite true of a Catholic couple): if one doesn't believe in using "artificial" birth control, only "natural" birth control which can be risky, and the other doesn't believe in taking such risks, this creates a platform for a major rift.

Religion can also cause conflicts when church responsibilities take one spouse away from home for more hours than the other is willing to give up. Last but not least do you see eye to eye doctrinally? Are you both on the same level in your beliefs? If one sees no harm in going to the movies on Saturday night, and the other is firmly against it, again, there is going to be some friction.

Maybe you aren't expecting anyone to get to the nitty gritty, but too often couples fail to discuss these areas, and a few weeks or months after the marriage, problems develope because one expected things one way which is opposite of what the other expected. The result is conflict.

One last thing- do the wedding your way, not to please others. Sure you want to please the parents, but it's your wedding and your memories. Make it what you want it to be (within reason, of course).

Ok, a little background and more info. Thank you for all the advice so far.

I've known her (otherwise known as Tawnee) for 9 years now, but not really that well. Earlier this year, around the middle of April, I had opprotunity to stay with her family and work with her father and brother.

Basically we've spent 12 hours a day together (at least, unless I was working and she wasn't) for the last 6 months. I'd say that's a fair amount.

We have discussed children, birth control, finances (2 paychecks is better than one, but I better be earning enough to live on...) housing debt religion autos entertainment diet hair styles clothing styles and everything else I can think of right now.

Anymore advice would be great!