DR. WALLACE: I'm 19 and my boyfriend is 22. We are in a serious relationship and we love each other very much. He wants us to get an apartment together. I'm living with my parents and he is rooming with a friend. I'm not thrilled with the idea because I believe in the old fashioned idea that you live together after you get married. My parents will also be really upset because they will not condone a live-in relationship without a marriage license.

My boyfriend is very smart and usually makes a specific plan and then follows every detail to completion. He says his plan is that eventually we will get married, but before we do, he wants to be sure we are compatible. He believes that couples who live together first have a better chance of having a successful marriage.

What scares me is that it's possible that I could become pregnant and he could move out and I would be left to deal with the problem by myself. I'm almost positive he would never bail out on me if I got pregnant, but there is always that chance. Nothing is predictable because we live in a very different and difficult world these days.

Do you have any survey results that show more successful marriages when a couple lives together before their wedding? — Nameless, St. Charles, Ill.

NAMELESS: Your boyfriend's theory is all wet. Cohabitation makes a lousy foundation for a strong marriage. Some time ago, researchers at Brigham Young University reviewed 50 years of data on this issue and found that couples who live together before marriage are 50 percent more likely to wind up divorcing than couples who don't. "We find strong evidence that the marriages of those who lived together first are less satisfying and more unstable than those who didn't," the researchers said.

The problems with living together before marriage include: Later regret by couples violating their moral standards, tension with parents over the live-in arrangement, and disillusionment when living together didn't pave the way for a perfect marriage.

When partners who have lived together marry, many times one or both feel a loss of personal freedom, because they can't just take off when things go wrong. Living together and playing house can sound exciting, but doing it the old-fashioned way, (playing house after being married) could keep the couple together, "till death do we part."

ARE FASTING DIETS SAFE?

DR. WALLACE: I've read that some church members in India fast for three weeks to cleanse their bodies of impurities. I'd like to cleanse my body of about 20 pounds and a friend told me that I could lose about a pound a day if I ate no food and drank only water for three weeks. I'd like to try it and get down to my desired weight, but my mom doesn't like the idea of eating no food for three weeks. She told me to check it out and if it is considered safe, then she will go along with it. Is fasting like this safe? — Nameless, Dunlap, Ind.

NAMELESS: The answer is NO. Going on a water-only diet for three weeks is definitely a bad idea, especially for a young person who is still growing. When a person fasts, he or she loses not only fat, but also muscle tissue. This could be disastrous for teens, whose bodies are undergoing rapid changes due to growth spurts. Adolescence is a time when the body should be adding lean tissue, not subtracting it. Fasting may also cause a loss of bone tissue, which could stunt a teen's natural growth.

Sorry, but there is no shortcut to weight loss. The only sensible way to do it is through a regimen of daily exercise and a well-balanced diet containing mainly fruits and vegetables.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. E-mail him at rwallace@galesburg.net. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: David Amsler