Living Together Relation

Living together before marriage could be a good idea to explore partners’ regular activities like sex, level of expenditure, habit and routine. This article is going to explore pros and cons of living together relation. I came across this challenge on living together relation, It has been helpful to me in explaining some of the other reasons why living together before marriage is not a good idea. Living together relation is an easy way to try out the relation before committing to marriage, virtually living together relation has no planning, and it does not elicit the support of family where there is no ceremony and public display of commitment, no official pronouncement of love and responsibility so couple can enjoy freedom from the watchful eyes of their parents and surrounding. It is like a test drive before buying a vehicle, the trial period gives people to a chance to discover whether they are compatible for it or not.

The trend of living together relation is progressive in Nepal, young adult are choosing to cohabit first rather than marriage. There was a time when parents used to find partners for their daughter and son, now time has change with the advancement of education and technology, youth have started to choose their partner by themselves instead of parental choice. Living together relation is more advance practice in-comparison to love and arrange marriage. I am seeing lots of young couples are living together before marriage in big cities, practical problems like financial pressures or roommate issues can make such relation easiest solution, more girls and boys are moving in living together relation sharing an apartment and a bed without getting married as husband and wife does.

Marriage has lost its appeal to the younger generation because it means commitment, no doubt marriage involve lots of commitment but living together relationship is not always like honeymoon with wine and roses. The reality is hard; it is not good enough for anyone who feels deep down inside that their love is strong enough to overcome the entire problem with living together, living together is fine as long as both partners agree to be but no one cans credibly promises to have no feeling of remorse if the relation fails.

Many Nepalese students must have been gone through such experiences who are residing abroad for their higher education. Are you planning to go for living together relationship? If you are parent, what would you like to suggest your children?

Marriage is one of the oldest institutions in society; it has been designed for the long term run for the security and well being of the both partner and to maintain social order. During the past few decades; major social changes in western countries have led to change in the demography of marriage. Religious reasoning is a primary factor that oppressed live in relation, for religious groups agree living together before marriage is a violation of their moral belief system. From religious point of view such relation is mimicking to the planning system marriage.

In socioeconomic terms, living together relation is a necessary and viable survival strategy for people below poverty line. It is acceptable solution for roommate, sharing expenses will make things easier but it has short term advantages, it comes at a high long-term cost. Living together avoid dealing with some of the joint decision that married couples have to make, like money and property tend to be either his or hers not theirs.  Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that adult persons are free to live together if they wish but it is not clear about the issue of property in such relation female has to suffer more in comparison to male partner. There must be law as the Indian government has secured economic rights for female live-in-partner under the protection of women domestic violence.

Marriage people has to manage all the responsibility of family including children, relative while living in relation have no duties and responsibility, couple are free of any obligation and can choose to live life as long they please. If couple are not satisfied with their partner or get bored of seeing the same face every morning than they can pack their bags and move without any legal procedure or hassle while in a marriage they simply cannot move out without all the legal procedure. Many people enter a cohabitation relationship hoping they will be married soon however, living together is not always a stepping stone to marriage,  in such relation one partner expect the relationship to be permanent and the other partner may not.  There might be heart break but that is quite understood to each partner before entering in to a living together relation.

Definitely, there is more excitement and romance before marriage when marriage happened couple starts to possess each other as commodity and they take it as granted so the romance disappears.  The excitement exists in risk, the months turn into years and they find themselves under the same roof and naturally start thinking about marriage. The relation may help them to determine if they can spend the rest of their time together or not, such relation likely to have one foot out the door throughout the relationship. Those who live together before marriage have higher separation or divorce rate. Cohabiters without plans to marry were found to be more inclined to argue, hit, shout and have an unfair division of labor than married couples have. Most of such relation are standing on lies to parents and surrounding, It is difficult to keep the secret quiet; lies have to be told over and over again to cover up the truth, chances of parental disapproval is high. The premarital sex laid the groundwork for comparison, suspicion and mistrust; children of cohabiting couple who come from previously broken marriage get mixed messages and view their parent as having double stander. Such relation is unstable and broken relationship which traumatizes children for life.  Research indicates that those couples who live together before marriage have significantly lower marital satisfaction, more violence, worry, alcoholic problem, feeling of financial insecurity, and social fear than those who do not cohabit.

 A sociological research of Columbia University cited in New Women magazine found that “only 26% of women surveyed and a scant 19% of the men married the person with whom they were cohabiting.” A more comprehensive National Survey of Families and Households, based on interviews with 13,000 people, concluded “about 40% of cohabiting unions in the U.S. break up without the couple getting married”. Once of the reason may be that those who cohabit drift from one partner to another in search of the right person. The average cohabitant has several partners in a lifetime.

A romance will not be the same as having an ongoing relationship, Relationships takes time and work to develop and maintain, romance is a positive feeling toward another person. Good relation are built upon knowing and enjoying each other on social, recreational, spiritual, intellectual and communicative levels not only the sexual level. Sex can emotionally blind, real love can stands the test of time without the support of physical intimacy. The quality that holds a relationship together is honesty, openness, trust, deep friendship, spiritual intimacy and it takes time and effort to develop. The real trust grows in the context of the lifelong commitment within a monogamous relationship of marriage. Emotionally, physically and spiritually marriage is much more than just a piece of paper. The marriage is an ultimate solution which brings together not just tow people but also two families and two communities. Cohabitation is less stable in comparison to marriage. Cohabitation and marriage are more successful when they are built from sound understanding and financial foundation.

By Giri Bahadur Sunar

The author is martial artist, a meditation practitioner and a sociologist by profession

girithejorba@gmail.com