Dave Pang didn't think it was a big deal to move in with his girlfriend. In fact, he thought living together would be a great way to get to know her better.

But his girlfriend wanted to be engaged first.

"I had done it before, and it just didn't work out well," said Jennifer Bowers, 31. "I wasn't going to make that same mistake twice."

So once the couple was engaged in December 2004, Pang moved into Bowers' Makiki apartment about three months later. And the two joined a growing number of couples who are living together either before or in lieu of marriage.

Cohabitation is on the rise in America. According to the Census, about 10 million people live with a partner of the opposite sex, making up about 8 percent of total U.S. coupled households. That's a tenfold jump from 40 years ago.

In Hawai'i, nearly 9 percent of all coupled households are occupied by opposite-sex unmarried partners — slightly higher than the national average, according to the 2000 Census.

For Pang and Bowers, it's been a learning experience.

He goes to bed late; she gets up early to paddle. He travels a lot for his job or works late at the office; she doesn't cook or turn off the lights.

But they both agree that living together before their October wedding has only reinforced their decision to wed.

"I think everybody should do it," said Pang, 35, about living together before marriage. "It just allows you to really see the other person. You can't always put on your best face all the time ... It's sampling the food before you buy."

Living together doesn't carry much social stigma in Hawai'i or the nation today, said Dr. Nancy Sidun, chief clinical psychologist in behavioral health services at Kaiser Permanente.

"My sense is that it's become more of the norm and accepted these days," Sidun said. "It seems like a natural progression in a relationship, like a new step before marriage."

That's how Bowers and Pang view their present living arrangement.

"It's a lot harder to change, the older you get, so it's important for people to live together and learn to change, or realize this isn't going to work prior to walking down the aisle," Bowers said. "It's a happy medium (for us). We're engaged and we're living together. And it's been good."

Most unmarried partners in the United States are 25 to 34. And they're not rushing into marriage. Data from the 2004 Current Population Survey show the tr