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?

Being single is prohibitively expensive, esp if you're at the start of a career, on an entry-level salary and need to live in a city. I moved to London in the late 1990s and rented a studio flat in a safe area on my pitiful salary; a similar salary today would only stretch to a room in a zone 3+ house shared with strangers.

@Guacamole001

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

Well my family must be an exception. Me and DH married 42 years, both siblings married 40 years. Five out of six cousins married at least 27 years. Aunts and uncles all married at least 50 years.

My parents were married for 67 years (they both died last year) and were very very happy.

All my relatives have only been married once and all have happy marriages as far as I know.

My parents not only lived together they had me out of wedlock too, and that's 45 years ago. All their long standing friends did the same. Maybe it's a class/regional thing?

I recently came across a letter written by my DGM. She met her DH during the first world war and after a just couple of very innocent meetings they got married very quickly because he was going away to fight in Northern France. The letter, written after her DGF's death in more recent years, tells the story of how they met and she expresses how lucky she was to have spent a lifetime with such a wonderful man. I am still in awe of the fact that she knew he was the one after having tea with him on a couple of occassions! I don't think it is all down to luck, I think it must also be due to expectations. I am now in my 60s and looking back at my failed marriage and other relationships I do feel that I didn't choose wisely but living together really didn't help me either. I was so in love at the time that I overlooked the obvious red flags. I am not being judgemental, I had two DCs out of wedlock so in no position to judge others but do sometimes wonder if the inncocence of the pre-1970s marriages was better for some.

I think there has been a very gradual and subtle change in society over the last 30-40 years.

All of my 3 children live with their partners. I am happy they are trying before they buy! They see it as a means of getting to know someone better . They are all able to support themselves without having a partner. Two of them already owned their own homes before they moved in together.

But I also think a lot is to do with class. For my mother, working class, and not much education, the biggest 'prize' a woman had was to be a virgin on her wedding night. This was something she had to 'give' to a man. And then if you weren't married by 21 there was something wrong with you.

Gradually, perhaps after divorce was easier, more couples lived together on their 2nd time around (as it was called.) And as more benefits became available to women and unmarried mothers, the stigma of being unmarried and having a child disappeared.

It was as recently as the 1970s that unmarried mothers were often sent to homes to have their babies, and they were often adopted.

My post was really about how quickly, relatively, things have changed so much since then and younger people have a lot of choice over which way they do things and the order they do them in. I was curious why not many still go down the 'traditional' route.

My parents lived together before they got married, and that was in 1973 so I think it has been changing for quite a while especially in cities.

For better or worse liberal ideas took over everything.

I don't think the young can afford to live on a single income. Not with rent so high and cuts of living so steep.

I think it's necessity rather than having a choice. But necessity has made this the norm and it's become acceptable and what happens.

Yes things have changed a lot in 30-40 years. If I had been able to live with my first husband before I moved out (on my wedding day) my life choices may have been different.

But with things costing so much it's not going to happen for the vast majority.

I don't know of any 20-30 year olds that have married before setting up home together. None at all.

Marriage is very much seen as the thing to do once your home is set up and stable but before planning children. It doesn't always work out in that order as children arrive. it's mostly 30 somethings that have a stable home and are planning/ able to afford to marry.

@NewUser2022

Before anyone else jumps in read y 2nd sentence.

I am not judging.

I want to now why younger people would never do what we oldies did which was date for a while, get engaged and live apart, then marry.

Surely you e answered your own question, though, OP? You did what you did because of the social opprobrium over extramarital cohabitation or pregnancy — it wasn’t a choice, particularly. Now that social opprobrium has largely gone, so people no longer feel compelled to act as they did in the past.

I think there has been a huge step forwards in women's rights and rightly most people can see the nonsense about the import of virginity and seeing this as a "prize to give to your husband on your wedding night" for the oppressive, damaging rubbish that it was.

@SleeplessWB

My parents lived together before they got married, and that was in 1973 so I think it has been changing for quite a while especially in cities.

I agree. I think it's regional too. My parents had me 3 years before they were married, back in the 70s. There was no horror or stigma attached to it. Clearly my mum didn't view her virginity as a 'prize'. All their friend group did much the same as them, so it's not an isolated experience. Growing up, my older cousins in the 80s lived together before marrying too.

I think it's because marriage became less important in society. Weddings are also very expensive and so people perhaps began to see it as more about a wedding than marriage but don't want to do that straight away.

I don’t understand what the benefit was of not living together before marriage?

I'm in my late 50s and in the 1980s lived with my boyfriend before we were engaged and married. Even then "Living in sin" was a joke about a bygone age!

Women nowadays have choices and higher standards. In my mother's era (she was married in the early 1960s), a man who didn't knock you about, had a stable job and put his money on the table on a Friday night was a good catch.

My mum and dad lived together before engagement and marriage
My dad was my mums 2nd marriage though and she was the one with the high powered international career so I suspect they were always going to be a bit different (they are in their 70's)
For us it made sense to do things in a progressive order, we dated, moved in together, bought a house together, got married then had kids .... it enabled us to grow together without feeling pressured to do anything we regretted. We've been together 21yrs so it worked for us.

I met my DH in the late 80s. People did live together then but not everyone did. In my case I already had my own house (it was easier to buy back then) and my DH to be lived and worked 50 miles away. He stayed with me most weekends and one night in the week, so we half lived together but we only bought a place together when we married. The only difference really, apart from the fact we both moved area to do so, was I had to consult him over decisions about our house, which did lead to some initial upset, I admit, as our views didn't necessarily coincide!

One friend was castigated by her parents for living with a man, though he was a lot older than her and had been married before, which possibly made it worse from the parents' point of view. I think they married quite quickly to appease her parents, but they are still married now. Another didn't believe in sleeping with a man before marriage, but again, they are still together.

Amongst my younger acquaintance who have young families, about half are married and half cohabiting. I feel the non married ought to marry for legal / protective reasons but can see why they might be just getting on with life and have perhaps passed the time of making that decision. And all the women I know work, at least part time, so have some financial independence, unlike many I've read about on MN.

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.

I don't know what what remote and backward corner of UK society you lived in 35 years ago, but for the rest of us, oh yes we did, and oh no it wasn't

Of my friends grown up children, yes all have lived together / bought a house prior to their wedding. One of my friends told me recently her son was buying a place with his latest girlfriend and I was surprised by her lack of excitement. I got the feeling she would rather they had got engaged first. I'm not sure she is taking their relationship seriously.

I think that this is a fascinating discussion OP, thanks for starting it. I read a lot of books about the beginning of the twentieth century (Below Stairs and Monica are two I recommend, one the true account of a woman who started as a scullery maid and ended career as a cook, and the other is about a wealthy debutante. BOTH women in both stories absolutely believed marriage was their endpoint. Monica is RUINED by…. (Drumroll) KISSING SOMEONE.

We have gone in a century from thinking we are ruined if we kiss someone to starting threads asking if we need to sleep with someone from a dating app by the third date.

That is a huge social change in a world commonly set up by men to suit men and I love discussing where upon the spectrum actually suits us best as women!

Renting was relatively cheap in the 80s. I lived in shared houses prior to buying my own and felt I was pretty well off. Lots of nights out, holidays and I still saved several hundred pounds every month. Bills and petrol were relatively cheap too - not considered a significant expense at all, so it was easy to live well as a single person. And most people I knew bought their own place alone around their mid 20s. Very different nowadays.

It wasn’t that long ago that women couldn’t get a mortgage without a man, so you had no choice to get married first. Thank god now we can do what we want!! It’s great we have a choice don’t you think?

And that is what I interpret the OP as - wanting to discuss how huge a social change this is, why it suits us, was there ANYTHING better about the old days?

I have a very liberal slant and er… vibrant past personal life, and I find myself fascinated by reading influencers who are, as a pp said, from the more religious communities in the US where girls long to be married out of college, have several kids, and be courted by their husband and then kept by them. It is just FASCINATING to me as I, like a lot of you, was brought up by a working class mum always to work. Not necessarily have a career though…! To work.

I'm amazed and horrified at how many women give up their financial independence when they give up work or go part-time to bring up children with a man who won't commit to marriage. Years on they're completely screwed if he wants to leave the relationship and they are shocked that they have no rights to anything except child support. (And it's tough getting that out of a lot of men.)

I'm also horrified at how many women will bring a relative stranger into the house to live with their children. It's hard to think any decent man would do that after only knowing someone a short time.

I think it's a combination of things, some social changes and some financial. Socially, thank goodness, there is no longer the puritanical 'shame' about having sex before you get married, therefore 'living in sin' is no longer an issue. Financially, housing has become so expensive that in order to stand a chance of owning a decent family-sized home by the time people have a growing family, they need to get on the housing ladder as soon as possible. That is not possible with just one income in many places any more as salaries for ordinary people have stagnated, hence people buying with their boyfriends/girlfriends.

@Divebar2021

I don’t understand what the benefit was of not living together before marriage?

Well I think if you lived together unmarried there was nothing stopping the man changing his mind, and going off. Then you'd be destitute and unmarriageable!!