Living Together Before Marriage?

[blowry]

According to todays standards, I was married young, I was 21 when I married my first husband (that was 29 yrs ago). I had my first daughter 15 months after we got married. Then 5 yrs later we had another daughter. My marriage to Bob was not a good one. He was an abusive alcoholic. A decision was made for me to not work and stay home and raise our 2 beautiful daughters. I'm not really sure if I loved him when I married him or was in love with the idea of being married and having a family. After manys unhappy years I decided to end the marriage...which, wasn't an easy thing to do, even though I was the one that wanted it. I had been married for 19 yrs when I decided it was time to leave. It was the hardest thing in my life I have ever done. I feel that if we had lived together (my parents would have disowned me if I had done this) we probably wouldn't have gotten married. I dealt with my unhappy marriage because of the children...which wasnt' fair for them either.
I have been married to a wonderful man now for 8 yrs. We dated for a yr, lived together for a year then got married. We have our ups and downs like everyone else does but, we love and cherish each other.
I feel you don't really know a person unless you live with them.