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Original poster

Remembering when living with a partner was frowned on!

152 replies

girlfriend44 · 22/04/2023 13:41

Does anyone remember when it was frowned on to live together with a partner. No marriage.

Words like Living in Sin. Living Over the Brush ? any others?

I remember in the late 80s i lived with partner and the manager where i worked didnt approve, made a comment. How things change? Does anyone know anyone who is still old fashioned about it?

OP posts:
UpToMyElbowsInDiapers · 22/04/2023 14:43

My PIL cut their older son pretty much out of their lives when he moved in with his now-wife before marriage. This was in ~2005. In ~2010 my now-DH and I spent most of our time going back and forth between each other’s flats and for all intents and purposes we lived together, but we kept a low profile and neither sets of parents knew. His DPs are deeply religious and conservative. Mine aren’t (at all!) but would probably still have felt a bit uncomfortable about us “living together in sin”.

Btw, I’m born in the 90s, in Canada, secular, liberal… but I also definitely grew up thinking that you get married before you move in together.

ComtesseDeSpair · 22/04/2023 14:44

I think there was a background / class element to it? Of my middle class friends whose parents went to university, most of them lived together before marriage - probably simply because they’d already broken free of parents and were living away from home as it was and felt less shackled to traditional expectations. Whereas my own working class parents and parents of friends who went straight from school into work and stayed living at home, lived at home until marriage, and wouldn’t have considered moving out until they were

Veryangryboy · 22/04/2023 14:44

It still is in some communities. DH and I did not live together before getting married, and that was less than 10 years ago.

My parents would have quietly disapproved of it but his parents would literally have disowned him if we'd moved in together before marrying.

IHateLegDay · 22/04/2023 14:46

My mum always taught me that I should never have sex before marriage.
When I was in my late teens, I wanted to buy a double bed for my bedroom but she refused to let me as she didn't want me sleeping with my then boyfriend.
I explained to her that whether or not I had a double bed, I was and would continue to have sex with my bf.
She was horrified but let me get the bed 😂

HikingforScenery · 22/04/2023 14:46

I know a lot of people who still hold that view now- young and old. Some due to religious views, others not.

UpToMyElbowsInDiapers · 22/04/2023 14:49

Oh, I’ve also heard what I consider to be perfectly sensible, normal, liberal, young or middle-aged people commenting that couples with a wedding gift registry are “grabby” if they’ve lived together before marriage. “Obviously they’ve figured out how to set up house”. I think these more traditional views are more common than people let on!

Original poster
girlfriend44 · 22/04/2023 14:50

muckandmerriment · 22/04/2023 14:20

Yes, I'm in my early 50s been with my partner 23 years. We have 2 kids now teens, never married for no particular reason but mainly because neither of us really cared enough about the institution of marriage to do it. My "in-laws" are very lovely but have never managed to find a way to be comfortable with my status in the family. They struggle to introduce me to friends and acquaintances. For example, at a recent family gathering the following was said by way of introduction "this is my daughter in law Mary and this is June". Mary being my partner's brother's wife, and June being me. Other than them and their generation, no one else cares!

no, nobody cares and no one elses business anyway.

OP posts:
Heroicallyfound · 22/04/2023 14:51

My then-boyfriend and I moved in together in 2005 and he had a visit from his evangelical Christian pastor to warn him against living in sin.

We didn’t go back to that church again.

StartleburpFearsneer · 22/04/2023 14:52

A woman tried to get my teacher mum fired because she believed she was living with my dad (she was). This was early 80s. She would drive past their flat every morning trying to catch my dad leaving for work. He had to get up early, jump over a back fence and cycle a much longer, different route than needed. Psycho.

StamppotAndGravy · 22/04/2023 14:53

My mum questioned why I needed a double bed in my first room as a graduate. She and my dad lived together before marriage in the 80s, but with two bedrooms and two single beds. I once asked my dad if he really thought his parents were that stupid and he said yes!

MintIceo · 22/04/2023 14:55

I was born in 1996 and have never come across this attitude. DP is Catholic and so are his parents... His parents had an annulment anyway and mother is remarried... They don't care at all about him living with someone without being married.

ZZpop · 22/04/2023 14:55

Two of my friends from university (in the 90s) got engaged when they graduated because they wanted to live together and her parents would have really frowned on it if they weren't at least engaged. They did marry but not for years.

My aunt in the 80s was referred to disparagingly as having a 'fancy man'.

AnImaginaryCat · 22/04/2023 14:57

Last wedding that (I knew) the bride was pregnant was in 1990.
The "honeymoon' baby was born, apparently, 3 months born early and everyone pretended to believe it was true because it was better than accepting they had sex before marraige.

But I think the attitude started dying out after that. Though do remember a bit of sniffing and tuts about living together (and not even engaged. Imagine!!)

Original poster
girlfriend44 · 22/04/2023 14:58

WateryDoom · 22/04/2023 13:51

Yes. My mother was horrified when (as an adult) I'd occasionally stay the night at boyfriend's flat. I was told "Everybody can see your car outside in the street and knows you are there".

This was the 80s.

so what mum, they are all doing the same lol.

OP posts:
KimberleyClark · 22/04/2023 15:03

I remember those days well. Moving in together was seen as very daring and declaration that you had no intention of getting married.

DogsDinner · 22/04/2023 15:03

I was born in 1966, and yes, I do remember it being called living in sin, and still being frowned upon by a lot of people.

My best friend got married at 18, and there’s no way her dad would have let her move in with her boyfriend beforehand.

I had another friend who got married straight after Uni, and she also insisted on marriage before living together.

Obviously people did live together before marriage too. One of my work colleagues moved in with her boyfriend, and I remember her saying it was a shock to her because she now had to get up early to make him his breakfast! That’s stuck with me all these years, because even back then I thought it was unfair.

Hopefully these days she’d tell him to do one, some things do change for the better!

dottypotter · 22/04/2023 15:05

I knew someone 1989 who was pregnant they were actually engaged and living together, she got pregnant and told her parents and they didnt like it that they werent married and were having a baby.

It wasnt so much the living together it was the baby out of wedlock. Her mother suggested that when they get married, which they intended too anyway that the bride should not wear white.
I can confirm the bride got married at 3 months pregnant and wore white and did as she wanted. The silly parents eventually came round.😅

HirplesWithHaggis · 22/04/2023 15:12

I met DH in the summer of 83, and moved in with him the next February. Told my mum I had a new address and she understood the situation. Then every phone call included pressure to get married (if we bought stuff for the flat that week, it would be "Ooh, you'd get all that if you got married..." ) and by June we gave in and got engaged. He rang to tell his parents, his mum asked for my address to send a card and when he told her, she slammed the phone down! 😁 I hadn't even met her by then. Blush

She was actually lovely to me, and she and my mum threw themselves enthusiastically into arranging the wedding that November. Well, I wasn't bothered! 😎

2catsandhappy · 22/04/2023 15:15

Not the same thing but, I recall my mums magazines in the 70' having pregnancy test adverts. Every model wore a clearly visible wedding ring on her left hand.

I got engaged before I lived with a man. At 21 I got married (different man) as I wanted children. I was terrified of my parents disaproval.

cptartapp · 22/04/2023 15:19

Yes. When I moved in with DH before marriage after several years together his parents summonsed him and asked 'what do you think your grandad would say?'
SIL who didn't move in with BIL before marriage was given £10k for their house deposit and all their wedding paid for. We got nothing.
This was late 1990's!

LaMaG · 22/04/2023 15:19

My cousin, after years of being single and disappointed as she really wanted a family, finally met Mr Right at age 40. About a year later she got pregnant and was over the moon. They decided to marry privately before the bump got too big and everyone was delighted for them. But when the baby was born about 7 months later her Mum (80s) went around telling everyone the baby was premature so no one would think it was conceived before marriage. Can you imagine, in about 2016!!! Everyone was only laughing at her making such a fool of herself.

skyeisthelimit · 22/04/2023 15:28

I remember it being frowned upon in the 80's. I live in a rural area, and in our primary school of around 40 pupils, there were only 2 single parents, both had never been married. Nobody would bat an eyelid about it now.

My friend's sister moved in with her boyfriend and this was quite unheard of at the time, as everyone else only lived together after marriage , it was simply not the done thing and the parents wouldn't allow it. Babies only appeared after marriage too.

There were older couples who were clearly mismatched, and I remember hearing people saying in hushed whispers "well you know they "had" to get married".

I remember my dad saying in the mid 80's that "no daughter of his would ever live in sin". Fast forward to 2002 and my boyfriend moved in within a few months of meeting in as we just knew that it was right (we were both in our 30's). (To me living together was as serious as marriage though, it wasn't something that I did lightly).

Both my grandmothers "had" to get married, back in the 40's.

PuttingDownRoots · 22/04/2023 15:33

This has reminded me how several of DHs elderly relatives were extremely excited over the birth of our DD as the first "proper" greatgrandchild/greatgreatniece. She has older cousins who were born to unmarried 😮parents.

Fortunately all the children were actually treated equally over time, it was just comments around the birth. I would love to know what they would have made of the baby conceived with a sperm donor to DHs single cousin!!

HirplesWithHaggis · 22/04/2023 15:33

Both of my grannies had shotgun weddings in the 30's, and an aunt in the 60's. Still remember her proudly displaying her 6 month bump in a blue minidress!

LaMaG · 22/04/2023 15:37

It was also considered scandalous for a girl and boy to be in a relationship for more than a few months as the fact they weren't impatient implied they had already done the deed. The phrase was "sure why would you buy the cow when you are getting the milk for free" . That was ireland in my mums time 1960s.