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Original poster

Why have things changed so much (relationships)?

218 replies

NewUser2022 · 01/01/2022 09:22

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?

OP posts:
BitOutOfPractice · 01/01/2022 16:15

Absolutely all of my friends lived with their partners before marriage, 35 years ago. In fact it was considered a bit odd to wait till you were married to live together.

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 01/01/2022 16:16

As I said, and I am mid 50s, DH is 60, we all have quite different experiences of the same times. And I don't recognise the living in sin mind set with my generation.

Was there a backslip somewhen? Like the sex equality regression in the 90s?

Davros · 01/01/2022 16:19

I'm 61 and I don't remember anyone when I was young going straight from their parents' home to marriage. There was no "shame" or disgrace that I recall. Maybe you are from a small place or community?

coogee · 01/01/2022 16:25

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

Some people still do. I moved in with my husband three days after we got married.

SkyM0vingCl0ud · 01/01/2022 16:26

I have older friends & they have mentioned things that occurred in the past

Some women were not offered to be included into company pensions, if they worked
Some women were expected to leave work when pregnant/after having children
No equal pay
No maternity pay
No NHS
Poor contraception
Poor rights for women

Biggest changes
Women working during WW1 & WW2
Better contraception
Better education
Better rights for women

If you are in UK, you can view the stats on www.ons.gov.uk for marriages, milestones into adulthood, employment etc

CSJobseeker · 01/01/2022 16:27

@Guacamole001

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

Marriage is on the decline.

Though maybe some of that was the pandemic.

Weren't marriages banned for a large chunk of 2020 due to lockdown? I'm not sure I'd consider that year representative of a trend.
passthepesto · 01/01/2022 16:46

I hate posts whereby someone likes to romanticise the past and criticise younger generations but ok I will bite.

50 years ago, women didn't work the same way they do now so they were financially reliable on their spouses. "Love" and "hardwork" did not make their marriages last, financial dependency did. They didn't manage to choose the best partner by luck or skill from the first person they dated...

30 years ago, there was a bit more of a mix with some living together first and some marrying first but as more and more women gained independence in the workplace, they gained the financial freedom and then were able to flee marriages that weren't working... hence divorce rate increasing in the 90s.

Their children are this generation you talk of now (I fall into that generation). My parents are together but so many of my friends growing up have had their parents separate or their parents had been married before. This is why generationally, people live together first.

RaininSummer · 01/01/2022 16:59

35 years ago loads of people lived together before marriage or, indeed, never bothered getting married. I would agree that it was very unusual 45 or 50 years ago.

teezletangler · 01/01/2022 17:23

It wasn't unheard of to live together before marriage at that time. But it might have depended much more on your social circle/where you lived. My parents are 71 and 79 and they lived together before they got engaged in 1978. So did quite a few of their friends. It wasn't a scandal.

HeyUpits2022 · 01/01/2022 17:32

My parents married in the early 70's. They were "told" to get married as my DM was pregnant. Thankfully they were compatible and are still married now, but I definitely judge my grandparents for forcing them to marry.

My Aunt has never married her partner and has lived with my uncle for well over 40 years.

I lived with DH for a few years before we got married, I moved in with him because I loved him (still do) and more practically, it didn't make financial sense to run two houses.

It is a very good job I didn't marry the first man I lived with. He would have either killed me, or I would have been trapped in an abusive marriage.

HorsesHoundsandHills · 01/01/2022 17:39

This is all fascinating!

My parents are in their early 70s and married in 1971. Northern industrial working class. Not especially religious. They didn’t live together before marriage, as it would have been seen as shameful. They did have sex after engagement but before marriage, and kept very quiet about it, as it was risking my mother’s reputation Confused.

I met DH in 1999 aged 21, and he proposed on the day we moved in together in 2002, as he felt it would be wrong to live together before being engaged! He’s also northern working class, but we had both done degrees and had professional careers at that point. I certainly ignored some red flags and worked through some behaviours that, in hindsight, I probably should have ended the relationship over, as I felt very aware of the ‘shame’ of a broken engagement/ divorce in my family and felt responsible for making the relationship work. In neither of our parents’ homes were we allowed to share a bedroom until we married in 2004!

As it is, we’ve both changed a lot and grown together over the past 20 years, and have a happy and equal marriage now. So there’s a happy ending, but I wouldn’t want my DC to meet at 21/ marry at 25 like I did, and I hope they will be able to live independently first rather than moving in together straight from Uni flat share.

MadMadMadamMim · 01/01/2022 17:42

@DivorcedAndDelighted

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.

Where do/did you live OP? I got married 25 years ago and started dating in the 80s. It was very common for couples to live together before marriage in the 80s. Certainly in the late 80s it was the norm. I can't remember any weddings where the couple didn't live together beforehand. But I'm in SE England, so maybe it was different in more traditional areas?

I came on to say this! I'm 56, live in a fairly rural area in the North and all my mates (and me) lived with partners. My parents generation talked about 'living in sin'. Not mine.

We were all sinning.

CatherinedeBourgh · 01/01/2022 17:46

If you got married 35 years ago it was 1986 or 7, not really 70s or early 80s.

The early 70s was 50 years ago, that’s at least 2 generations which is not really that fast a change if you think about everything else that’s changed in the world in that time.

foxgoosefinch · 01/01/2022 17:51

Agree that if you’re in your fifties, the 80s - especially in the south east or London - was really really different to when my parents married (early nineteen-seventies in the north).

The 1960s-early 1980s were very different to the late 1980s and 1990s in that respect.

felulageller · 01/01/2022 17:57

Because men have the attitude of 'why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free'.

mydogisthebest · 01/01/2022 18:29

@Davros

I'm 61 and I don't remember anyone when I was young going straight from their parents' home to marriage. There was no "shame" or disgrace that I recall. Maybe you are from a small place or community?
I am 66 and most of my friends went from their parents' home to marriage.

My sisters are 64 and 60 and most of their friends did the same. So did most of our neighbours' children.

We lived in London

VicSynix · 01/01/2022 18:31

I'm 56, OP, and every single one of my friends lived with their partners before they got married. It was pretty much the norm in the mid 80s (35 years ago) - I'd say you're actually thinking of the mid 70s.

KatherineJaneway · 01/01/2022 18:39

35 years ago was the 1980s.

We all loved together. Nobody called it living in sin.

Yes, some did. Just because it didn't happen in your social circle, didn't mean it didn't happen to come of us.

Original poster
NewUser2022 · 01/01/2022 18:39

Regarding dates, I am being slightly approximate ( by a couple of years or so) as not to reveal anything that people who know me in RL may recognise.

My community was industrial, working class, large scale. Staunch Labour territory. What I am aware of with hindsight is that some of the more working class families had a much more 'moral' attitude towards sex and marriage than their more professional peers. It's well known that the upper classes and aristocracy had pretty raunchy lifestyles, whereas the poor behaved differently, mainly as many women were scared of unwanted pregnancy.

Many of my school friends were married by 1977. They went from home to marriage. IME it was a good decade later that living together became an acceptable thing and even then it wasn't mainstream.

OP posts:
torquewench · 01/01/2022 18:40

@felulageller

Because men have the attitude of 'why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free'.
And women have the attitude of "why buy the pig when you can just have the sausage". 😉
BatshitCrazyWoman · 01/01/2022 18:45

@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'm divorced now, but got married 34 years ago. We lived together 3 years before we got married. I don't recognise your description of 'living in sin' - all our friends did the same. Quite a lot of them never married.
Itshothothot · 01/01/2022 18:51

I think its better now. Its a very good idea to live with someone first before marrying them etc.

As the saying goes…. You never know a person until you have lived with them.

You don't need to get married these days, its much easier to go your separate ways if you aren't married.

youkiddingme · 01/01/2022 18:56

We've been married 37 years and lived together for two first. Wasn't that unusual then. Weddings and divorces are expensive, wanted to make sure we got along.

youkiddingme · 01/01/2022 18:57

Oh and I'm working class and went to Catholic schools, nuns and the lot.

Nathlash · 01/01/2022 18:57

@NewUser2022

Regarding dates, I am being slightly approximate ( by a couple of years or so) as not to reveal anything that people who know me in RL may recognise.

My community was industrial, working class, large scale. Staunch Labour territory. What I am aware of with hindsight is that some of the more working class families had a much more 'moral' attitude towards sex and marriage than their more professional peers. It's well known that the upper classes and aristocracy had pretty raunchy lifestyles, whereas the poor behaved differently, mainly as many women were scared of unwanted pregnancy.

Many of my school friends were married by 1977. They went from home to marriage. IME it was a good decade later that living together became an acceptable thing and even then it wasn't mainstream.

But it’s not a ‘moral’ issue, as most people have recognised. I mean, you may subscribe to a religion where extra-marital sex is forbidden, but that shouldn’t have implications for those who don’t. Sex, assuming it’s consensual, is a morally-neutral activity.