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?

When I went to uni (1980) only about 10% of people in my area (East of England) went onto uni/polytechnic. I'm also from a working class background (first in my family to go to uni etc) so possibly our backgrounds are similar OP. However our experiences are obviously different - very interesting!

It has always happened. People are just more open now.
When my paternal grandparents married, they had a 4yo son together and had been living as "man and wife" while their respective divorces were finalised! Grandma may have already been pregnant with my dad as well.

A school friend from the late '70s had parents who weren't married, although her mum called herself "Mrs Hisname". Most of the adults around them knew but didn't care.

I think I grew up bit like you OP.

We lived by such a strict moral code, anyone who deviated from it was shunned and talked about. All that seemed to matter was what others thought of you in the local community. Any girl who got pregnant outside marriage was married swiftly, went to 'stay with her Aunt' or had the baby and was shunned.

I'm glad we no longer live in those times. It is smart to live together before getting engaged to see if you are compatible. All you have to do is see the multiple threads on this site of people who stay together when it makes no sense to do so as they are just 'saving face'. Ridiculous.

In the vast majority of 1980s England when it was called 'living in sin' it was a bit of a joke. If it was meant seriously in Barrow or wherever you're from, then isn't it good that's changed, because 'sin' is a religious concept that was normally used in the 80s to hammer women and gay men into their subordinate place in Thatcher's pecking order.

I often hear people say they were happier just living together and date the onset of problems from the wedding onwards. Perhaps thinking marriage itself would magic away life's inevitable drudgeries

I think it's prob due to so many people going to uni - so you come out without savings or a job but you are possibly in a longish term relationship or just older. So you move in together as it's cheaper, if nothing else.
It's also the loss of religion - Muslims marry, Christians if they're practicing, marry. We've thrown off the religious rules, good in some ways but does selfishly doing exactly what you want the best. So many men opt out of their responsibilities (in comparison to women).

I am a similar age to you, Op.

People did live with their partners without being married. But you are right, there was judgement certainly from our parents' generation.

I had job interviews where I was asked what my dad did, if I had a boyfriend etc. I look back on the 80s for me being the beginning of me understanding that women were treated as second class citizens. And of course we still are but under a veneer of employment and other laws, with a different threat to our rights and safety than we would have thought of all those years ago.

Would I want to go back to the morals and set ups of the 80s? No. But I worry that my adult daughter is facing just as much shit that I was, just different.

If you've been married 35 years, as you say, you married in 1986, so not the "early 80s". I will have been married 35 years in March and in my experience living together before marriage was the norm. The term "living in sin" was only really said as a joke. You can't generalise your experience in the far north west to include the whole country. The 80s wasn't the victorian age!

Some younger people do as you describe( I know several couples who did, including my own dc).

I wonder if even as late as the 80s whether it was the norm for women to be financially dependent on men, therefore marriage was the safest or default option for them. Women were brought up in the 1960s with the expectation that they would be primarily housewives and mothers, and the man would go out to work and bring home most or all the money.
Now that there are thankfully a lot more options and opportunities for women to ne financially independent within a relationship, and more of a variety of financial situations among couples (some women are the higher earners etc.), marriage is now less important for financial security (although I understand it's a different story if a woman is not working and has children).

Now that traditional gender norms are being smashed I see it as vital to road-test before marriage how able and willing a male partner is to step up with housework, emotional labour etc. which is especially important to estimate how reliable he will be with childcare. The old gender norms just don't work for modern relationships in a lot of cases as not all women are content to be full time homemakers forevermore.

I met my now DH when I was 21 and he was 18. We didn't get a lot of space being in our families houses and couldn't afford to live apart so I moved in with him and his dad. His dad then moved in with his partner so we got a flat together. Got engaged 9 years later. Had DD after 10 years together then got married this year after 19 years together. I know my dad didn't understand why we didn't get married first but to be honest weddings cost a lot of money and there's no real need for it. Our wedding was more of a celebration of our relationship. My only 'regret' is we got stuck in renting instead of buying.

Because we saw so many of our grandparents and parents end up stuck in absolute misery because of "the sanctity of marriage" and a lot of the issues they faced could have been discovered by simply living together for a few months before becoming legally bound to one another.

@Ovenaffray

Your post is dripping in judgement.

Yes, it absolutely is.

Trying before you buy is an EXCELLENT idea if what you are 'buying' is a lifelong legal commitment to another human being.

Also, my parents (working class, living in a northern city at the time) lived together before marrying in the 70s. They had both moved away from their home towns though, so were maybe more adventurous minded?

I'd actually say that marriage is valued more these day. Back then, people rushed into it in order to get their leg over whereas now it tends to be something people have actively chosen to do, to make the commitment.

Yes, things have changed, but I disagree with your timeline. I was eighteen 35 years ago (1987) and people living together was a pretty normal and unremarkable phenomenon. I moved in with my new boyfriend (now DH of 30 years) at that age, just a few weeks after meeting him because I had to leave my flat and hadn't found anywhere else. We were students, everyone was flat hopping and shagging.
My dad started living with his girlfriend in 1978.

Perhaps a certain section of society disapproved; and many opted for a more traditional approach to their relationships, but cohabiting was normal and acceptable to most people in the 80s.

Apparently in 2020 the least marriages were recorded between heterosexual couples.

Marriage is on the decline.

Though maybe some of that was the pandemic.

But you have to take me at my word when I say that in the late 70s and early 80s, living together was frowned upon

I will take you at your word that it's your experience of the late 70s and early 80s, and of the people you socialised with, if you will take me at my word that it was not my experience, nor of most of the people I socialised with, at the same time. And given the number of other responses here I am getting the impression that your experience was rarer.

The sexual revolution did happen in the 1960s and 1970s, and reliable female-controlled contraception did make a huge difference. Perhaps the variation is to do with social class, mine was probably a bit more middle-class than yours, and maybe we expected a bit more freedom and independence for longer, including sexual freedom and independence. I do remember talking about "getting married to have sex" though we talked about it as a thing of the past.

I was married by the early 1980s.

That figures, though there's a question about which is cause and effect . So I'm probably older than you are, though I cohabited without marriage for many years starting at about the time you got married, and that wasn't my first relationship.

The attitudes you describe sound much more like what my mother describes from her own life (also working class North West, married mid-1950s) than the ones I've encountered.

I cannot fathom marrying someone whom I haven't lived with. You only really know someone after you live with them for a couple of years.

Marriage to me is a legal contract that ensures my financial protection once we have children. If I was not planning to have children, I would not get married. It would not be in my best interest to get married if childless.

The 'why' is a great deal to do with simply because people, particularly women, don't have to live by the silly sexist rules imposed on them by their parents, grandparents and so on.

We don't have to live in fear of social and familial shunning for perfectly acceptable, healthy things. Outdated 'rules' imposed by religion, culture and tradition have been bypassed by free will, thought and consideration of better options.

Life has simply moved on.

I hope the imposing of the old ways continues to die a death, personally. My relative is very old fashioned, every question I ask him like 'did you want children?' (he has) is answered with exactly or similar versions of 'well it's just what you do/did'. How awful. Doing things PURELY because they are expected, because some older duffer says so. And he still lives that way and can't see that that is very limiting and has been very damaging to his family as a result of said mindset.

People mourn the 'nobody is married 70 years anymore' but it's not true, they are and will continue to be. people do stick together, in hopefully happier circumstances. and those that don't, are leaving toxic ones where they could indeed have lasted 50-60 years in absolute misery (I know at least 3 examples of this in my own family!)

A lot of different reasons. I am starting to think there was a window of opportunity for women which has narrowed again. A time when I could rent a house as a single woman without being viewed with suspicion any more, and get my own mortgage without needing a man to sign for me any more, and could still afford rent or mortgage by myself without a spectacular income. A time in between the end of the "family wage" paid to men, and the start of needing two incomes to raise a family at all.

Things move on and change. I don't see how you could consider marrying someone without living together first that just makes more sense doesn't it ? I think people still value marriage but women have a lot more choices these days than 30 plus years ago where they were just expected to give up work and be a housewife women want more these days

@NewUser2022

To the posters asking where I lived it was the far north west. It was a working class area, the goal for many women was to get a ring on your finger and be married. Some of us- about 20%- went to uni. I went to uni and moved many miles away, where I lived independently till I was 30. Education, being able to access uni and other training has changed things a lot for women.

But you have to take me at my word when I say that in the late 70s and early 80s, living together was frowned upon. I had no friends at all who did that, even those who went to university. It was usually date for 2- 3 years, engaged for a year or so, then marry. Yes, they were having sex, but they weren't living together.

Unmarried women we having babies in 'homes' until around 1974, so what I'm saying stacks up.

I agree with you, OP!

I too lived in 2 cities in the North Midlands and then further North in the 70’s and knew loads of people but didn’t know anyone who, “Lived in sin” as it was crudely referred as at that time. I think the London area people were far more liberally minded.

Also, to the lady with the very sad post about her mother having a child outside marriage, I was that child too but back in the Republic of Ireland in a very strong Catholic area. I vividly remember being referred to as the, “Devil’s - pronounced Divil’s - child, and none of the other children were allowed to play with me. My mother didn’t really want me either but that’s a whole other story. Left me with dreadful low self esteem which I have battled internally with all my life.

I too have been married 43 years this year and we didn’t live together although DH stayed over with me in my flat a great deal. DH wasn’t my first lover and I vividly recall having sex - being coerced by a boyfriend I adored - for the first time as a young teen and spent the next 6 years trying to hold on to this guy because I convinced myself I was now, “Damaged goods.” It sounds laughable nowadays but I swear it is true!

Relationships have changed massively over the past 50 years; some aspects certainly for the better.

I think it's pretty clear why surely? Now people aren't judged about 'living in sin' they want to see what it's actually like living together before marrying. It seems totally nuts to me (married 15 years ago) not to live together before committing to marriage and I think most people now would think the same.

The sorts of things that put strain on relationships are often the 'domestics' - money, tidiness, helpfulness, sleep patterns, how much someone takes work home etc.

DH and I had our first argument in 3 years of being a couple within 3 days of moving in together, but luckily those sorts of arguments proved to be a 'couple of times a year' type incident. But had it turned out to be a 'couple of times a week' or even 'couple of times a month' scenario then we'd probably not have stayed together.