Cohabitation is bad for you

There are many reasons that it's a bad idea to live together before marriage. Divorce rates are higher for cohabiting couples who get married, for example, and serial cohabitation is probably to blame, since the average cohabiting woman who gets married does so with the second man she's lived with, and he with the third woman. Not exactly a recipe for marital stability.

But here's another reason: your fiancee may shoot you to death the day before your wedding day.

On the eve of his wedding, a Florida man heard a burglar in his home, grabbed a gun and opened fire.

Tragically, the supposed intruder turned out to be his live-in fiancée - who died in front of him.

It happened about 2:30 a.m. Friday while John Tabutt, 62, was in bed at his Winter Springs home. He heard a suspicious noise and saw a figure in the dark hallway.

Thinking his girlfriend, Nancy Dinsmore, was still in bed, he pulled the trigger on his .38-caliber revolver - then collapsed in sobs when he realized she was the one prowling the house.

"I thought I had an intruder in the house," a moaning Tabutt told a 911 operator, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

"Honest to God, she looks dead," he said between sobs.

At one point, he thought he saw his fiancée take a breath.

"Hang in there, honey. Hang in there," he was heard telling her.

"We were supposed to get married. Get married this Saturday," Tabutt told the dispatcher.

Dinsmore was pronounced dead minutes after paramedics arrived.

Tabutt has not been charged. Authorities are so far agreed that the shooting was a tragic accident. And in fairness to the report, this could just as well have happened had they been married thirty years.

The real lesson here is that just because you have a firearm and think someone has broken into your home does not mean that you don't have to make sure of the danger and the presumed intruder's identity before you shoot. Being armed means that you have to think and analyze more, not less. This is what Tabutt failed to do. Now his fiance is dead and that night will gnaw at his soul for the rest of is life. A terrible tragedy all around, but one that was entirely preventable.