February is an interesting month. And past interesting I hateful I hate it. All of its attendant bullshit—Valentine's Mean solar day, impending tax deadlines and snowstorms—are really enough to brand a girl want to stab someone in the face with a stiletto. But instead of going to jail, allow's talk about why cohabitation is for suckers.

I've never committed to living with a long-term boyfriend. My relationships usually await like this: I start to actually like to a dude, we spend a lot of time watching MST3K and Kurosawa movies, he starts educating me on obscure hip hop or jazz records I've never heard of, and and then I start packing toiletries, an extra pair of shoes and a calendar week'south worth of clothing every fourth dimension I get over to his identify. That last 1 is the most important: I ever accept a go bag in instance I need to bounce and never encounter his face up again.

This is classic commitment phobia, I know. It is true that I don't like to commit to people, merely that's just because I think commitment is a very personal goal. At that place's no way to commit to someone if you lot haven't come up to terms with the things you want for yourself in life. Commit to beingness truthful to yourself and you lot will go far. At the end of the day, you can't trust anyone only yourself anyhow.

Naught is sexier than hustling so hard you don't need to move in with your partner to achieve the life you desire to live.

Merely my argument against cohabitation has less to do with being afraid of commitment and more to do with the fact that a relationship needs mystery to survive, and about couples in New York only motility in with each other considering information technology's more economic than living alone.

Allow'due south start with mystery, that thing that made her interesting in the first identify. How do y'all maintain that if you're constantly in each other's business organization, sharing email passwords, going to the bathroom with the door broad open and taking swigs out of the same OJ bottle?

You lot don't do that? Well, in my volume, if y'all live with someone and don't experience comfortable with over-sharing, y'all're probably not really in dearest. At that place is a delicate residue between wanting to maintain mystery and too feeling like you can be completely open up with your partner. To my mind, the best way to continue that residual is privacy and space. In other words, don't alive together.

In New York, about couples move in together for one reason: money. I would rather purchase a bottle of Sriracha and consume it with Nissin Loving cup Noodles for months straight and bargain with persistent constipation than move in with a dude merely considering information technology was better for my wallet. Fuck all of the, "why by the cow when yous get the milk for complimentary" bullshit. We live in an age when women are proud to enjoy sex. This is virtually priorities.

If your priority in a relationship is to relieve money, you lot're doing information technology incorrect. That'due south non beloved, that's laziness. It's what science calls "sliding, non deciding." Goose egg is sexier than hustling then difficult you don't need to move in with your partner to reach the life you want to live. As reported by the North ew York Times, 20-somethings are using cohabitation equally prophylaxis.

In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Projection, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, virtually half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, "You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, and so that yous could find out whether you really become along." About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.

Simply if we know one thing, it's that people in their 20s don't know shit even though they think they've got it all under command. Couples who live together earlier they get married are more probable to end upwardly unhappy and divorced. The Times likewise reports that it's not that people are simply less conventional about spousal relationship, the problem is cohabitation itself. "Couples bypass talking about why they want to live together and what information technology will mean," and equally a consequence, you get some very misguided expectations.

Women are more likely to view cohabitation every bit a step toward union, while men are more probable to see it equally a way to test a human relationship or postpone commitment, and this gender asymmetry is associated with negative interactions and lower levels of commitment even afterwards the relationship progresses to marriage. Ane thing men and women practise concur on, however, is that their standards for a live-in partner are lower than they are for a spouse.

I would rather buy a bottle of Sriracha and swallow it with Nissin Cup Noodles for months direct and deal with persistent constipation than move in with a dude only because information technology was better for my wallet.

When people motility in with each other before marriage, they aren't thinking, "Gee, this is the person I desire to spend my life with," because if they were, they would merely get engaged. They are thinking, "Wow, I'll salve and so much money and get boned without having put in that much work."

A good for you relationship is work. Don't cutting corners.

Bluntly, I don't even call up people need to live together once they are "married" (which, LOL become the fuck outta here with that newspaper mill. Loving someone should be what drives you to feel legally responsible for someone else, not a piece of paper. #realtalk.) Why non have separate homes? The cliche goes "absenteeism makes the heart grow fonder," not "I desire you lot all upward in my business concern then you tin run across how much porn I've been watching."

In these tough economic times, I know it's hard to resist the temptation to move in with your girlfriend, only you know what else is hard? Having to pack all of your things because you've been living with her for half dozen years, she wants to get married, only you're just not interested. I promise you packed a go bag.

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