To wonder why living together has become the benchmark for others to recognise you’re in a serious relationship?

[AllHeart1]

I’ve read on here on numerous occasions that “if you’re not living together then he’s not your partner, he’s your boyfriend.” “If you don’t live together then it’s not a serious relationship,” and most recently “we didn’t invite anyone who wasn’t living together to our wedding.” And no this is not a TAAT, it’s a lot more common on here than that example.

Thing is, it wasn’t that long ago that people didn’t live together until they were married. yet they were engaged, planning a wedding, finding a house, wedding gifts were generally things they’d need in their new home.

And yet some people would think now that because they’re not living together, the relationship can’t possibly be serious? When actually couples move in together after five minutes of starting a relationship and their relationship is seemingly more real than that of the couple planning to move in together after the wedding.

There are all sorts of reasons why couples can’t live together such as geographical location/not wanting to blend families while children are small/both being used to their own space now., But that surely doesn’t mean that that relationship can’t be a serious one and that that person is just a boyfriend?

“partnership” implies shared parenting, finances and/or housing.

A relationship may be emotionally “serious”, but if either party can walk away without having to deal with housing, DC or money it’s essentially dating.

Or pets

Quite a few of DM's friends age 60+ are in stable, long term relationships but often live seperately. They've usually come out of the other side of widdowhood or divorce following long marriages that saw children into adulthood. They like their own space and have their families to protect financially so I can see a lot of sense in the logistics of being emotional partners but not necessarily financial partners.

In younger people, particularly without children in the equation it is unusual to live indefinitely as partners without any aspiration to live together, marry or have children (a form of commitment that long outlives many a relationship).

Living together is a reasonable, obvious indicator that people are partners in sharing various aspects of life. Obviously that's not infallible as many a mn thread will testify, but without getting intrusive about the particulars of an aquaintance's relationship, it's a boundary that works pretty well for most the patterns of most people's relationships.

If you don't live together then where's the commitment?! You're essentially just dating... Spend evening and weekends together, no joint finances, none of the every day stresses of life to share together, not falling asleep together at night, not coming home to each other. That's commitment not spending your time together.

If you are in love then you want to be together! Geography can hold you back but I for one am rearranging my life so I can move - we knew after just a couple of weeks, you just know

I met DH at 18 education and careers kept us in different places - was engaged at 24 moved in together one month before the wedding.

I was suprised to encounter this attitude a lot just before and the changes in attitude after the wedding. Interestingly it did seem to correlate with people who got offended if one or both of us couldn't go to a child free invite because of lack of childcare.

There was also a period for few years when DH lived away during week due to work commitments - we had three kids and a mortgage and many people kept insisting we were divorcing or our marriage was in trouble.

@NameChangeNugget I think that because to me, you can't be that serious about each other if you don't want to live together, to change your life around to be able to do so. Two couples of 30yrs that don't live together are still only boyfriend and girlfriend.

They aren't partners because they don't fully share their lives together.

It is a sign of how committed you are to a relationship but it’s not the only sign! I took a punt and moved in with my wife after a year out of financial necessity rather than moving back home after uni (probably too soon with hindsight and nothing to do with commitment) Thankfully it worked out and ten years later we are happily married.

Only you know how serious your relationship is, that’s not for others to decide. You do you - never mind what others think.

@Userwhatevernumber Yes I agree it depends on individuals but that it my experience and the experience of all my friends.

On the flip side... My grandparents have been together 50-odd years. Around 10 years ago, my gran moved out of the family home and up to Scotland to be close to her one remaining parent who required care, while my grandad stayed behind to sell the house.

Turns out they both enjoyed their own space, so when the family home sold, my grandad bought a little house directly across the street from gran's new house. They see each other every day, they have 5 kids together, they support each other through everything, but after all these years frankly they irritate each other too much to be up in each others' space all the time.

Are they committed?

I agree. There are far, far too many needy, clingy, immature people with no imagination out there who simply cannot be without being velcro'd to another person. It's tragic.

I've got many friends who are in very committed relationships and don't live together. For most, it's due to being divorced/widowed and needing to protect assets and/or not wanting to blend families but also they have a desire for their own space.

SO many are so desperate to validate themselves by another person they consider everyone they're with a 'partner'.

It's pitiful and immature.

I should say, my grandparents have been MARRIED 50-odd years.

For me it's just that partner means life partner.

I completely understand never moving in with a boyfriend/ girlfriend as adults with separate lives and separate children. I think it's often the vastly more responsible, sensible, adult decision not to blend families and to keep your love life broadly separate from your family life.

It's just semantics, up to a point, that your partner is literally a partner in your domestic life, and if your domestic lives and finances and residential arrangements are separate from yours, for excellent reasons, you're an independent adult which is arguably the best way to be, and your live interest isn't a partner in a life sense, and it's a bit weird for anyone else to be refering to their status as your sexual partner...

There needs to be another word I think - people refer to someone they've been seeing six weeks as their partner sometimes and regardless of whether you're 19 or 59 they're the man/ woman you're dating/ seeing, or your boy/ girlfriend, or just your (ambigious) friend in that context!

I agree that some people live with a sexual partner who's barely more than a housemate too in some cases - living under the same roof and sharing a bed but not feeling responsibility towards the other person and keeping all finances separate, not doing mutually beneficial tasks for one another, holidaying separately and generally living separate lives outside the bedroom means living together without being partners in any meaningful sense beyond sexual.

Being middle-aged too, I know none too few who also cannot move their jobs easily due to pension considerations and being unable to find a similar-paying job in another location so cannot shack up with someone, or they have custody arrangements which preclude them from shifted locations easily, if at all; can't get another mortgage due to financial issues, all sorts.

I agree with you.

I think living together is a tangible, easy indicator of how serious a relationship may or may not be (notice i said tangible, not accurate)

It is an easy way for people to make a snap judgement without getting the full story.

I would consider it lazy to place the 'living together' couples in the 'serious relationship' category and the 'not living together in the 'non-serious relationship' category without knowing the full story.

but such is human nature, we often make assumptions around us based on the information available to us rather than based on all the facts, we often have to.

But surely if someone is actually committed long term and not living together, then others know about this.

But they’re married @OlaEliza

They’re more than boyfriend and girlfriend in the eyes of the law

Great point @storm11111

But they don't have a married relationship if they don't live together.

They live as bf&gf.

@OlaEliza so if people don’t ‘fully share their lives together’ then they’re not properly committed?
My DH lives somewhere else for more than half the week and he has friends I have never met. Does that mean we’re not properly committed?
What an odd thing to say.

For those who ask why it would bother someone what other people thought, the answer is that if people base your inclusion in their family on whether you are living together then it’s naive to think that wouldn’t be hurtful and cause resentment towards family.

If you’ve been with someone for a number of years then it’s not unreasonable to want to be included in family events and to not be treated as the new woman/bloke on the scene.

My own situation is that I’ve been with my partner for seven years. We got engaged five years ago and the plan was for him to move to be with me. However he works in.a niche industry and has been in the same job for over twenty years so moving wasn’t that simple. I wasn’t able to move because my DC’s dad lives here so I needed to be here to facilitate their relationship.

We decided that if something didn’t come up then I would move once my youngest left school. However four years ago I was diagnosed with a serious, life limiting condition which worsened around six months ago and my future prognosis is as yet unknown. My primary support currently comes from my family as they are retired but who live in a different place to DP. As such it now makes more sense for me to move back to my home town rather than to be with DP. He has said he will look for work there and has in fact started his own business here on weekends but which doesn’t earn enough yet for him to move here full-time. But there are no guarantees in life so we neither of us know how the chips will fall.

For anyone to suggest that he is purely a casual boyfriend is frankly insulting.

And of course people will say that there are exceptions to every situation, but the truth is that given few people know what those exceptions are, it is not possible to make snap judgements.

A married relationship can be all kinds of things. I know married couples who don't have sex with each other, are they 'not having a married relationship'? What an odd thing to say. The Queen has her own room. Are they not living a married relationship?

Allheart Obviously you need to do what is right for you. But if I had a serious life limiting illness it would be my DP who would take care of me. I would not move back near my parents for them to do this.