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<p>I didn’t either. I think any objection I would have would not be about morals per se, but rather whether that would limit the student unnecessarily in terms of social circle (does the world then shrink to just encompass the boyfriend or girlfriend, and is that healthy). I guess it would depend on the totality of the circumstances and whether the student has enough outlets outside the boyfriend / girlfriend so that it’s not problematic.</p>
<p>Isn’t that what bacchanals are for?</p>
<p>But seriously, I think sometimes parents project their own desires and needs on children without really giving serious thought to what is in their best interest.</p>
<p>My son sat down with me last night and told me this is his plan. He’s always been a great kid, and has dealt with anxiety issues since going to college. He’s a junior in college now. I told him it was a bad idea because he’d be focused on the relationship and not academics; he explained to me, calmly and rationally, how he knows this would be a good thing, and how he’s planning to do it, regardless of my feelings. He has never said such a thing to me. It threw me for a loop. His girlfriend is a year older and although he and I have been close always, I can see that he’s struggling with pulling away for independence, but THIS much independence? I’m terrified.</p>
<p>It would depend on the sequence of events and the situation. I would prefer the students to have their own places, in most situations. I’ve seen a lot of bad results of this sort of thing. My one son had an apartment with two of the residents involved with each other. My close friend’s DD who found a student’boarding house" became involved with a resident. In both cases, when the relationship went sour, it was a much bigger problem than it would have been due to the living arrangement. </p>
<p>Selfishly, I don’t want these kind of problems happening when I am still in the picture and my payments are what is running a lot of the show. The chances of these relationships working at their ages are small and living together just complicates the break up. I don’t want to get involved in these things but when you are on the lease and paying…you do. What it really comes down to , is that this is not something I want to pay for. If someone can go it alone and pay for it alone, that’s just fine, but having to ask Mama and Daddy for the funds to do this when they want no part of this is not right on their part either. </p>
<p>I don’t like them moving off campus for pretty much the same reason. The complications and the possibilities of problems go up, and my skin has gotten really thin about these things and I am getting too old and tired to deal with them. Been around those blocks too many times. Not a new and exciting prospect to me at all.</p>
<p>This thread is really old. And the main question was do I keep paying for college which isn’t your main question. Start a new thread.
Sounds like you have a great kid who is growing up leaps and bounds in all the right ways. And yeah, I’d be thrown for a loop too and would have to take some time to digest things. There isn’t anything terrifying here. He’s going to be focused on the relationship whether they live together or not. BUT…
The main concern (and I’d tell him upfront MY concerns hoping that something seeps in) is that if something/anything sours in the relationship (they are very young) is that it’s VERY hard to end the relationship gracefully. On EITHER of their parts. Finances/work (she’s a year older)/GF/BF…being just plain incompatible. Living together is just a sticky wicket. And those type of live-in break-ups have a higher emotional toll (like divorce).
It’s nice to know who is pushing the living arrangement–him, her, mutual.<br>
Planning on marriage? If not, then in NO way do this…it’s too hard to extricate yourself.
But…it’s not the end of the world.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s because I’m in my thirties and not living with my boyfriend of a year and a half (and I’ve never lived with a boyfriend), but I would disapprove. Strongly.</p>
<p>Statistically speaking, people who live together before marriage, especially before engagement, are more likely to divorce. “Playing house” is not a compatibility test; all it does is give one party 100% of the benefits of marriage with 0% of the responsibility of marriage. “Playing house” on your parent’s dime is just nauseating.</p>
<p>There was a great New York Times article about this; a psychologist noticed that a lot of married women had years of built-up resentment from the time the couple was shacking up. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html?pagewanted=all</a> My favourite quote:
A lot of people twitter about “Well, if they are having sex anyway, what’s the difference?” The biggest problem with cohabitation is that you stay in the relationship for the good of a roof over your head, not for the good of your psyche, soul, or academic life. That’s total crap, unless we’re to believe that women’s academic lives are just something they dabble in on the side, in between boyfriend-hunting. I’ve seen people get into fights right before finals or the holidays, and their lives are markedly easier when one of them isn’t packing up, moving out, or sleeping on a friend’s couch. </p>
<p>The last thing that some twenty-year-old girl needs is for her live-in boyfriend to dump her, then bring his new girlfriend over for sex every night while she cowers in the spare bedroom, trying to focus on her anthropology homework while turning up her iPod to tune out the sound of her ex-boyfriend boinking his new girlfriend.</p>
<p>I will also point out that there is an important difference between premarital and non-marital cohabitation. In the former, you’re living with the person you end up marrying; the latter involves shacking up with a whole series of people whom you’re not going to marry.</p>
<p>I have zero problem with people living together before marriage. In fact, personally, I think it’s extremely important. I have officially lived with my SO for a year and a half. Unofficially since we got together pretty much. However, I do think its parent’s money, parent’s rules. I think it’s sad to hold tuition money over a kid’s head but I’m all for making them pay their own rent. </p>
<p>As for the “studies” about loving together before marriage, many have been proven to be statistically insignificant or faulty. This is a huge case of correlation does not imply causation.</p>
<p>I think that ariesathena makes some excellent points. Many prefer to ignore the research but it still exists and I think it’s valid. My kids will make their own decisions about this issue if/when the time comes but I would not financially support this decision (getting back to the original question).</p>
<p>To answer the original question:</p>
<p>I would tell my child first, that if you’re old enough to cohabitate, you’re old enough to not need Mommy and Daddy’s tuition money. You’re not playing house on my dime. </p>
<p>The second thing I would ask, particularly of a daughter, is this: “Imagine that he breaks up with you and then brings some other girl over to your apartment for sex. Or imagine that you two get into a fight and he goes out, finds that sexy girl from his History class at a party, and takes her back into your bed for sex while you sleep on the couch or on the futon in the spare room. How well are you going to do on your finance midterm the next day? How would you do on finals, if you spent the three weeks before that fighting with the now-ex and trying to find a new place to live or a new roommate? If you’re not ready to be sleeping in the spare room while he bangs some other girl in your bed, why in the pluperfect hell would you shack up with him?”</p>
<p>Paying for a kid who hit a rough patch is one thing. Paying for an objectively bad decision that will likely end in drama-filled, GPA-killing disaster is another.</p>
<p>I am not in favor of college students who are having an intimate relationship officially living together for a number of reasons, but I don’t think that in the cases I have known, has it ever been a situation where it was not from a mutual agreement with both parties having other good choices of living arrangements. I am limiting the scenario to two college kids, who each had their own places to live who decide that they want to live with each other instead of having two separate living arrangements due to the hassles thereof. A big problem I have with this whole thing is that it is usually subsidized by parents or student aid or something other than the student’s own financial independence. One young man I know met his SO as a freshman, and after two years of a steady relationship, they lived together senior year, graduated, and then…no job, not place to live, at least not together. The young man’s family has a very small house and they are not going to give up a room for him to cohab with his SO, and the young woman’s parents are divorced and neither have room for anyone extra—she can live there until she is on her feet, but neither of the young people have families that want them living as lovebirds under their roof. So they can’t afford each other at this point in time, until one or both of them get a paying job. </p>
<p>I would not pull my financial support from the college track due to such living arrangements, but I would let my kids know where I stood on all of this. How much of a difference that would make, I don’t know. I would not like it, for any number of reasons, but it would not be the deal breaker for me to pull financial and family support.</p>
<p>It’s funny. In absolutely no way am I saying that this doesn’t exist, but I actually don’t know or know of any couples who broke up while living together in college. I hear horror stories about what could happen, but I’ve just never seen it or heard of it really happening.</p>
<p>Arisathena, in my experience, all of those scenarios would not even scratch surface for two young people hot to live with each other. It would not be conceivable to those I have known in that situation that anything like that would happen. I’ve known any number of couples “sneak living together” when parents refuse to pay, and some who have lost a year or two of school as a result. My DH’s cousin did. She didn’t finish college until she was in her 30s and, yes, it did impact her financial years and the course of her life, particularly in the those 10 years after she left school. </p>
<p>I give my son, so much per year towards college, and the freedom to use it as he pleases as long as he gets satisfactory grades and stays out of trouble. If he can’t progress through college in a way that is going to get his degree, and if he getting into trouble, then the funding stops point blank, and yes, it did come to that with some of mine, sad to say. But the reason wasn’t because I disapproved of the roommate. It gets too complicated for me to vet out what the relationships is with the roommate anyways. My one son was in a university apartment with some others including a female who was involved with one of the guys. The school allows mixed genders in their apartments if so requested, and these two requested it. With coed facilities abound and the fact that couples do not have to be of different genders, I’m not going to be sniffing out what’s going on in the apartment place. Too slippery of a slope for me to put my foot down.</p>
<p>Oh, Romanigypsyeyes, it happens. All of the time. It happened with the aforementioned couple and it was a very bad scene as the rules about moving out of university housing are quite stringent, particularly involving getting any money back and in the middle of the term. The same with my friend whose grad school PHD bound DH got involved with a fellow boarder in a boarding house arrangement in a very high rent area. When the relationship did not work out, the scene was very much as Arisathena described it.</p>
<p>This is not anything new, as there was a lot of SOs living together when I was going to college eons ago. And I just went to a reunion that’s edging to the big 5-0. And having gone to a small school, we all knew each other well. Less than half of the college lovebirds are together any more. I didn’t do any stats, but one classmate was telling me how abysmal our class and the ones immediately before and afterwards were in terms of marriage success, something anyone could see, but there were quite of few ex- cohabs at the reunions that did not pan out, and many of the break ups were not pretty. Of the ones who made it to marriage, about half, just eyeballing, are still together. [Sadly, one of the original couples who fell in love freshman year, lived with each other thereafter and married right after graduation, also yielded our first widow] </p>
<p>I don’t know the statistics as to whether living together worsens the odds or not, but most relationships of college aged folks end up as transitional. The maturity and self sufficiency are just not there yet as this is a very encased transitional period of ones life. The problem is that when you’ve officially signed a lease together is that the break up can be that much more traumatic. You can’t get away as easily, and then there is the messiness of who is going to pay for what when it is agreed that the living arrangement should end. There is that personal investment that can make it more heart wrenching, painful and ugly, than when you each have your own place to go, And that is a question I would have for someone who wants to live with college SO with parents, fin aid or scholarships paying for the rent. What exactly would the plan be if mid year, the relationship reaches a point where a break up is imminent? Who moves out? What about the security deposit? What about the rest of the rent payments for the rest of the year? Finding another roommate mid year is not always easy. Can these two afford to do this? </p>
<p>One of my kids’ teachers, got an apartment with SO, and life was good, until they broke up. She left, and he got stuck with rent he really could not afford, so the problem is not just limited to college kids. It’s just with many of the college crowd, there are other people’s money in the mix and they may not want to be investing in the relationship with the risks that come with it.</p>
<p>As I said, cpt, I didn’t deny that it did. I just don’t know of anyone personally it’s happened to.</p>
<p>I dont know of any couples ( of my older daughters friends, i am not so sure of who constitutes a " couple" with my younger daughters friends, who broke up during college either, not the ones who were attending the same school anyway. But I hardly know everyone.</p>
<p>My D who is still in undergrad has been living off campus since freshman year.
If her BF hadnt just graduated and is going to have to move to wherever he can find work, I wouldn’t have a problem with their living together if that was her decision.
I am still committeed to paying for her undergrad education, inc room & board.</p>
<p>She is an adult & is capable of deciding on her living situation, even if financially she is still dependent at this point. I dont feel the need to evoke a power play by issuing edicts that don’t have anything to do with me.
I look at it as I am dispensing a grant for tuition & rm& board. It is up to the recipient to decide how that grant is best spent keeping in mind the objective of eventual graduation.
:)</p>
<p>Full disclosure, I lived with H for four years before we were married. We celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary this June.
H also was not the first man I lived with.</p>
<p>As a disclaimer, I really hate the phrase “playing house”. I’m not 2. </p>
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<p>What? How do you figure? Living together is sharing utilities, rent, chores, etc. If you’re not doing that then you’re not living together… you’re mooching.</p>
<p>“Playing house” is not a compatibility test; all it does is give one party 100% of the benefits of marriage with 0% of the responsibility of marriage."</p>
<p>With lovebird students, I don’t think this is usually the case. What happens is that the couple is so engrossed with themselves that they lose a lot of contact with their respective friends and end up without living arrangements for the next year, and voila—living together is the perfect solution. There is no one either party wants to live with more than each other. They are spending all of their time together anyways, and this just simplifies matters. They won’t have to deal with roommates and distractions. Absolutely perfect. From what I’ve seen, it’s usually the female in male/female relationships that come up with the idea, though I don’t have a poll or stats on this. Now I am limiting this to college students, undergrads, between the ages of 18-23 who are not self supporting but living off of allowances from parents, fin aid and scholarships, maybe college savings. I don’t think there is any thought of taking advantage of anyone, or auditioning for marriage. It just seems to be the thing to do that makes the most sense.</p>
<p>In doing this, the couple is estranging themselves even more, most likely from fellow classmates and isolating themselves further from college world happenings, which may not be so fun for them anyways. In the throngs of love and lust, this seems to be ideal, idyllic. </p>
<p>Not saying there are not some relationships where one party isn’t taken advantage of, or if things don’t start shifting that way, but most of those college folks I know who live together and who are in a relationship really are in love, and oh yes, what a sweet intoxicating time that is. You can’t tell anyone much when they are in love like that. Is it just lust…maybe sometimes, but usually in such cases, you don’t want to live with the person. It’s that wonderful lust love that can come before the thoughts of things like marriage. Oh, yes, I 'm not young anymore, but I do remember the days, and those exhilerating feelings and trying to argue any logic into anyone feeling that way is like banging your head against the wall. </p>
<p>So, yes, I’m "ag’in it. I agree that the down side can be ever so much more painful, dangerously more so, and that’s after you have cloistered yourself away from your friends when you so need that emotional support if the relationship goes sour. And at that age, they often can and do. The student is leaving himself no good escape valve at at time when he is still not independent, self sufficient and ready to make a commitment. If the thing unravels it can be a disaster. A lot of at college break downs are caused by these high emotions coming down to a crash, and if you’ve committed yourself in terms of living arrangements and secluded yourself from a lot of the rest of the world AND financially invested all you have in the apartment you share…you have some problems. And it’s bit trickier to kick someone out when they have have the lease and every bit the right that you do to live there. So for all of the drawbacks, inconveniences, interruptions, living with your friends and having your own place even if it’s just an address cuz your spending all your time, nights and all with SO, is probably a better way to go when you are still in school and not pulling your own weight in terms of making a living yet. You still are not self sufficient. </p>
<p>But not for a moment, do I believe that this happens as a “compatibility test”. Oh no, Not in the type of love I’ve seen and felt.</p>
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<p>Often, off-campus houses or apartments are designed for 3, 4, 5, or even more people. So you get situations where two members of the group are a couple, but there’s no isolation.</p>
<p>I probably would argue against dating in college.
So distracting.</p>
<p>The model I see most often is couples living together (2 bedroom apt, 2 couples) junior year and then sometimes apart senior year. Affordable one bedroom apartments aren’t that common in my college town.</p>