Why have things changed so much (relationships)?

[NewUser2022]

Genuine question. Not being judgy but would love to know why!

When I got married, 35 years ago, no one lived together before being married (or very few.) It was called 'living in sin' if you did.
Because of circumstances, I had to end the lease on my house and move in with my fiance for a few weeks before our wedding. My parents were ashamed and didn't even like telling people.

I know this is hard to believe.

But now, the pendulum has gone the other way.

None of my friends sons or daughters get engaged while living apart in their own places, then marry. They all live together and then an engagement and wedding (might) follow at some point, even after a child arrives.

If you are under 55, you might not be aware of how dramatically things have changed over 30 years.

But what I'm asking is why?

Why does no one live separately any more and then buy/move in once they are engaged or married?

Is it really all about try before you buy, as well as not placing any value on marriage any more?

I imagine in a lot of cases it’s to do with financial and time constraints. I was in a shitty financial position when I moved in with my ex and I’d never have seen my current DP if we hadn’t moved in together as he works so much.

@WhatAHexIGotInto I am not unpleasant at all but I am annoyed that some posters seem unable to appreciate this is a discussion and not based on disapproval. I knew some people would wade in with their nasty comments, which is why I went out of my way to stress it was not about judging. The first 2 lines of my post stated that but they choose to ignore it.

Are you a journo? Always suspicious of new users who pose questions like this.
But assuming you're not, am happy to engage. I don't k ow why things have swung. But I agree they have, and think it's broadly for for the best.
Am 55 and when I met DH was on my mid twenties, Independent and in a career. And id had plenty of relationships. Yet still we never shared a bed on my parents house before marriage. I didn't question it, tho it did make me less inclined to visit!

High cost of housing, getting married later and societal mores?

I think in part it is to do with the level of exposure we now have, my parents for instance are in 70s and when they met neither had lived outside of their respective London suburbs. My mum had been abroad once but my dad hadn’t ever been out of London / Kent.
And that was the norm.
You didn’t meet lots of different people. You didn’t have lots of different experiences and you weren’t exposed to the world. Therefore that very siloed way of living your life was the norm and people didn’t really go against it.
Job, courting, engagement, marriage, baby

But for the last couple of generations, probably starting with those born late 70s to the 80s and onwards. We know so much more about the world. We have been exposed to so many other ways of living, working, travelling, connecting etc.

We have access to literally millions more people in the dating pool than older generations did.

So why would you jump in and marry the guy from down the road when you’re 21 and never seen past the end of the town?

This is just one reason of many but it makes sense to me that the younger generations have many more options. The norm is to have a few serious relationships before meeting your life partner now. Surely it’s a good thing!
How can you know what you want when you’ve never experienced anything else and have no basis for comparison?

Because the church has less power over people and their communities.

Because women are no longer chattels or secondary citizens and have more choices to live independent lives.

Because the old approach did not work for many, many people and caused great harm.

Because people have different priorities and make different choices.

There are cultures where couples are not permitted to marry until they have lived together for a year to ensure they are compatible. Legally tying yourself to somebody you've never lived with is foolish.

Really, it depends on whether you view the purpose of marriage to be cementing a healthy long term partnership, or being to transfer ownership of a woman from one man to another.

Because fewer young adults have judgement arseholes for parents who accuse them of all sorts of nonsense like living in sin.

There's some really mean people on here. OP you're question is not judgy at all. Why are people so offended by everything these days!!

I think there's so many reasons- getting married is soooooo expensive and for me and my partner, we chose buying a house over that as wanted to be stable and have somewhere to call our own for when we have children. We are in our mid 30s and been together 4 years.

I also think a lot of it comes down to choice- it's a lot easier these days to meet people and people are always looking for something better and don't want to "settle". Not like back in the day when you only really met people in your own town.

Online dating and mobile phones show people what's out there and social media shows the "perfect man/ woman/ house/ family" etc and that's what people are always looking for.

OP I’m from NI. I will be married 10 years this year (I got married when I just turned 26).

I lived in England when we married and we had a house together that we bought.

At my wedding some of my relatives (aunts/uncles) were asking if we had a house sorted for after we got married.

They hadn’t a clue that we lived together and owned a house 🤣

So in my family’s sphere, I was even a disgrace to not be talked about less than 10 years ago for living in sin 🙄

I think those who see judgment in your questions are being deliberately obtuse, OP. Goodness knows how they'd cope having to think about something like why many previous generations of women also had to give up working when they married.

[quote NewUser2022]**@WhatAHexIGotInto* I am not unpleasant at all but I am annoyed that some posters seem unable to appreciate this is a discussion and not based on disapproval. I knew* some people would wade in with their nasty comments, which is why I went out of my way to stress it was not about judging. The first 2 lines of my post stated that but they choose to ignore it.[/quote]
Simply writing "I'm not being judgy" and then proceeding to be very judgemental does not alter the judgemental nature of what you have written.

And engaging in personal attacks against people who disagreed with you and noted the unpleasant tone of your op hardly improves the perception.

Personally, I think it is a great idea to live together, and see how things work out. DH & I started living with each other at 18, got married at 23, and still happily married 27 years on. We have two DS, I would recommend that they live with their girlfriends first, before marriage, but of course they will do what’s best for them.

Marriage is a huge commitment and should be take seriously - hence why I think it's essential to live with someone first.

You don't really know someone until you actually live with them . Imagine marrying someone only to find out he doesn't believe it's his job to do his share of the housework , or lays on the couch all day not lifting a finger. 😡

I lived with my husband for 10 years before getting married . Wouldn't have had it any other way .

I am not seeing judgement in your post, OP, and I got married over 30 years ago. It really wasn't usual with my friends and family to live together. We did, and it raised a few family eyebrows.

I think it changed with more access to and more knowledge of divorce. Before the relaxation of the divorce laws, you endured an unhappy marriage, usually keeping quiet. I was the only kid with divorced parents in primary school in the 1970s.

As more people divorced, I think marriage wasn't seen as something so permanent. And more people were aware of bad marriages. Weddings have become a lot more expensive and complicated than my time as well. It made sense to spend some time living together first to see if things will work out.

I think it depends on what is usual for your area / the people you know.

My in-laws (now in their 80s and who have been married for 60 years) lives together before marriage as did many of their friends, but they lived in London where they worked and neither family lived nearby.

DH and I have been married for 25 years and lived together first.

I guess if you married someone you'd been to school with and you all live in the same place as your parents, you're less likely to live together because a)judgement and b) you already know them. That applies to fewer and fewer people.

Whilst I think a lot of Brits believe in God and would consider themselves Christian they take the rules of the church with a pinch of salt. In parts of America particularly in the South which is very religious women still marry young, not out of school but out of college is common.

I remember reading that the erosion of adhering to church rules in the U.K. versus America really diverged around the time of world war 2 due to the blitz and the long war with young men dying so sex before marriage became more common although not talked about. You them have more progressive attitudes going forward combined with birth control in the seventies.

In this case the new way is the best way. It's mad to marry someone you've never lived with.

Interesting to pinpoint the timing of the change. I graduated just over 20 years ago and lots of couples moved in together - nobody got married first. So seems like the change must have been mid 80s to mid 90s?

I think they do it differently now because

Housing is orders of magnitude more expensive

People have seen it go wrong for older generations and therefore want to giving living together a go before making a big commitment

Expectations of weddings are over the top expensive so some people feel they can't afford it and then put off the marriage part until after they have saved up for a house deposit, which takes a lot longer than it used to

There isn't a social stigma against living together before marriage

I think it’s very much related to the trends for not seeing sex as only part of a long-term relationship (eg someone on here this week saying a man wasn’t interested in sex because he’d not jumped at the chance to have sex a second date) and for not expecting to be with a partner for life.

There’s good and bad sides to this - easier to leave an abusive or just plain bad relationship, fewer children suffering daily arguments or worse between parents; but also more abortions, more children in tugs of war between parents, housing shortages, less effort made to repair a relationship that could turn out well.

In general I think people are more scared of commitment and having to work at a relationship and less inclined to care what others think of them. And always searching for something better or even perfection - and that means they end up not trying to have children until it’s physically unlikely to happen, which is sad if that is something they wanted.

I think an interesting sub-strand if the marriage discussion, is how marriage has broadly become a class issue.

Today most people live together in their relationships. The middle class and those more educated are far more likely to go onto get married, than the working class and less educated. Of course, before anyone mentions individuals they know, this isn’t the case for all people in any group. However, there has been a real change over time. Previously, most people proceeded to marriage after living with someone, or several people, but now, many many don’t. There are whole communities where marriage is very unusual and other communities where it is entirely normal beyond a certain age.

Strange question really, and I'm 52. It makes sense to live together to test compatibility before getting engaged or married.

I got married 42 years ago and it wasn't that uncommon for couples to live together.

Both myself and my DH had lived with someone before we met. We never lived together because we wanted our relationship to be more special than the one each of us had had before.

We got married 5 months after we met. Been very happily married for 42 years.

I can see the reasoning behind living together but it doesn't seem to work does it? The divorce rate is still just as high even though a lot of couples live together for years before marrying.

They say the average relationship only lasts 12 years. Not worth marrying.

I'd go so far as to say I'd be shocked if someone was going to get married without having lived together first these days, and think it was a very unwise and risky decision actually.
If it was one of my children I'd be concerned!

Because the way it was now seems like being trapped for life and is now a cautionary tale for how it doesn’t need to be. Try before you buy. Sex is important part of relationship. Financial constraints. Less judgement and value on marriage.