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The Pew Research Center recently published a study on the social impact of marriage and parenthood. One of the findings focused on cohabitation and, unsurprisingly, found that the trend is still on the rise. According to the study, "nearly half (47%) of adults in their 30s and 40s have spent a portion of their lives in a cohabiting relationship."
With marriage exerting less influence over how adults organize their lives and bear their children, cohabitation is filling some of the vacuum. Today about a half of all nonmarital births are to a cohabiting couple; 15 years ago, only about a third were. Cohabiters are ambivalent about marriage – just under half (44%) say they to want marry; a nearly equal portion (41%) say they aren't sure.
As she prepares for "Project Cohabitation 2007," Melissa writes an open letter to her boyfriend and lists a few things he should expect. In one example, she says she is "Eary to Bed, Early to Rise."
It's Friday night, we're playing a cutthroat game of Scrabble. You're about to use all your letters in a single word when I fall asleep in the dictionary. You may succeed in reviving me, a useless jumble of Qs and Xs plastered to my cheek, but I will not seem human because I will have worked myself to exhaustion. Odds are I woke up before 5am that morning. Odds are I'll do the same the next day. And so the vicious cycle of utter geekdom continues.
Stikki K. is also anticipating moving in with her boyfriend:
I am curious about what it'll be like to live with my boyfriend and do the whole "Hunny, I'm home" thing. I like the idea of cooking with him and setting up a little table with an umbrella out back. Reading in bed with him before we go to sleep. Mingling our toiletries together in the bathroom cabinet. I like that he'll figure out a good way to organize all of our things. We'll have an office where our computers and my teaching stuff will live. I like the idea of not calling and trying to coordinate our weekends to where we can spend time together and then never getting around to doing what we wanted to do by ourselves. Maybe we'll wake up on a Saturday and he'll say "I'm going to record some stuff" and I'll say "I'm going hang out with so and so" and we'll say "see you later," and when I come home without calling, I'll see him. I'll see him, and I'll be, simultaneously, at home. That'll be cool.
Jill and her boyfriend had to take a look at their roles when they moved in together. For her part, Jill says she learned to care less about cleanliness and now they split duties (if one person cooks, the other person cleans the kitchen).
I currently live with my boyfriend aka "cohabitation" and it really has been a huge learning experience for me. I went in without knowing what to expect or how I would react. When I started doing most of the cooking and suggesting what should be cleaned, my Betty Crocker buzzer went off. I couldn't be the housewife - I really don't have a single bone of housewife in my body. Now, I love to cook - but really because I enjoy eating good food. I HATE cleaning, laundry, or anything that involves organizing. I really had to communicate to my boyfriend that I wanted in no way to be forced into that role.
From a dating advice site, advice against cohabitating too soon:
You've been dating for a few months and your lease is about to be up so you think: what a shame to waste money on a new place when I'm spending every night with him - why not move in together? Don't do it. Nothing will kill a budding romance faster than moving in together too soon. And yes, if it hasn't been at LEAST 6 months (although I would probably say a year), it is too soon. [...]
[Y]ou probably don’t really know that he is the one before being with him half a year or so. Anyone can be on their best behavior for 3-6 months and can usually hide their true colors for this long. If you move in before you see these colors, you’re going to be less likely to leave once you do. Moving costs, stress, splitting up the shared purchases, etc. You don’t want any reason to
