stayover relationships

i came across an article that had a headline that was something to the affect of the relationships that young people have these days are 'slowing the path to marriage.'

apparently, research shows that stayover relationships are on the rise. stayover relationships are committed relationships in which the couple does not live together. somehow, this results in delayed marriages for couples who maintain separate households.

so why are people staying over at their boyfriend or girlfriend's house and then going home the next morning? control. for these young adults that are "going against the social norm," one of the most attractive aspects of delaying 'moving in' is that they can control their possessions and the pace of the relationship.

want my perspective??

randy and i live together, which most of you know. i moved into randy's place 2 weeks shy of our 2nd anniversary. in our relationship, it is tough to say how things would be different if we didn't live together now, especially in the context of stayover relationships because i've never really lived on my own. after graduating high school, i went to san diego for college and lived in the dorms with a roommate for a year. then my second year i was in an apartment with 3 roommates, some of whom were revolving (it was a hellish experience, but that's another topic..). when i decided to move back home after 2 years is SD, i moved in with my parents, which came with its own challenges. then after living with them for about a year, i moved in with randy and his roommate left. so i've never kept a household on my own.

liz - my first roommate

obviously i would much rather live with randy over any of the other living situations i've had. but would i ever want to live on my own? i think i would want to, but in the end i don't know if i could do it. i know people who live completely on their own with no roommates and love it. but me, i get lonely so easily, that i don't think i could do it. with randy's work schedule being so different from mine, i'm alone a lot in our place so i get enough 'me' time, but knowing he'll be walking through the door 5 hours after i get home from work is so comforting.

as mentioned above, the reason people delay moving in with their significant other is control. do i feel like i have no control? sometimes. but to be honest, i attribute that to gender roles more than i do the fact that we live together. the next step for randy and i would obviously be engagement. but do i get to decide when that happens? no, because randy and i are far too traditional for me to ask him to marry me; i never saw myself down on one knee, no offense.

i think the thing that gets lost in our relationship is the 'newness.' yeah we miss each other all day and it's nice when we both come home each night, but going on dates isn't the same, having dinner together isn't the same, and sleepovers aren't the same as they were when we weren't both under the same roof. it's so easy to become too familiar with someone when you live with them, and i think that's the part randy and i are navigating through right now. i've been living with randy for about a year and a half, and the honeymoon phase is definitely over. when i was bringing my stuff from my parent's house, i wasn't thinking, "i can't wait to ask randy not to fart in front of me and to do his laundry every week." but one of the best parts about being with randy so much is that i'm also living with my best friend. every night we laugh and talk and joke around and make fun of each other. sure we could definitely still do that if we weren't living together, but there's just something about creating a household together that strengthens our commitment to each other and warms my heart about our relationship.

so do i wish we had a stayover relationship? nope. do i think living together is for everyone? nope. do i think randy and i are delaying marriage? i sure hope not.