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Living with a significant other before marriage used to be considered “living in sin.”  With cohabitation becoming commonplace, our generation adopted the more harmless and much less fire and brimstone term “living together.”

When I decided to move across the country to be closer to my boyfriend, I never even considered moving in with him.  However, it seemed everyone else had.  In fact, they were shocked to hear we weren’t going to live together.

My boyfriend and I have been dating long distance somewhere between 8 months and 4.5 years.  Living in the same city sounds like a dream; living in the same small apartment sounds like a nightmare.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my boyfriend and somewhere in the future we’ll probably take that big step of occupying the same space on a daily basis.  (Although, I’m not sure what that would look like as his idea may be a sort of tented enclosure in an obscure region of Africa, whereas I’m partial to walls.)

My current preference against living together has little to do with moral or religious values.  It has everything to do with not wanting to deal with wet towels on my carpet and boy smell in my bathroom.  When I’m annoyed or frustrated or need to be alone, I want to retreat into my gender unneutral world of yellow sheets and fluffy, white comforters.

Now that I’m forced to think about this issue, I realize I have spent a lot of time claiming my independence as a woman, and I’m just not ready to compromise it.

Few of my peers would argue with the decision to wait to get married, yet they seem quick to judge my lack of intent to cohabitate.  On that note, when did my living situation become a public topic of discussion?  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised in an age when I track most of my friends’ relationships on Facebook.  Where’s the box for “in a relationship, but not shacking up?”

When did it become wrong not to live with your boyfriend?

(Photo courtesy of 00dann via Flickr)

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