A new study has shown that more and more couples in long-term relationships are choosing to stay over a few nights per week at each other’s home instead of cohabitating. Study Leader University of Missouri PhD student Tyler Jamison found the growing trend among college-educated men and women in their 20s.
The team noted that the appeal of these “stayover” relationships for young couples is keeping their independence and staying away from the big commitment that living together brings. They found that “live in” couples often have to deal with issues like apartment leases, shared household items, and other things that automatically bond people who live together when they break up. Men and women in their 20s are in transitional times in their lives and many do not want to be tied down to commitments in their personal lives.
Some participants in the study said they had no interest in every cohabitating in a romantic relationship outside of marriage, but do engage in stay-over relationships. Some couples even stay over at their significant other’s house seven nights a week, but maintain their own residence. They cited that if they can go home or tell the other person to go home, they are not cohabitating.
The study was published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships based on interviews with college-educated adults in committed relationships.
Jamison from the department of human development and family studies added, “This seems to be a pretty stable and convenient middle ground between casual dating and more formal commitments like living together and getting married… Instead of following a clear path from courtship to marriage, individuals are choosing to engage in romantic ties on their own terms -- without the guidance of social norms…There is a gap between the teen years and adulthood during which we don't know much about the dating behaviors of young adults. Stayovers are the unique answer to what emerging adults are doing in their relationships.”
Jamison describes the phenomenon as one that has a number of benefits but not many consequences, but some experts feel it's a reflection of the general degradation of U.S. society. “We don't want anyone hindering us from doing our thing,” said Aaron Turpeau, a licensed professional counselor and relationship expert in Atlanta. “You hear people say it all the time: 'You do you, and I'll do me.' Unfortunately, this obsession with independence leads to unhealthy human relationships.” He added that what results is a large segment of young people living on the fence, never committing one way or the other. “We don't value what we don't need, and we don't love what we don't value…I can say I want a relationship, but I don't need a relationship. I want a man, but I don't need a man. So we play house; we play marriage and as soon as we get tired, we go back to our own places,” he said.
Jamison will expand the research to examine unmarried parents, and suspects that people of all ages enjoy stayover relationships.
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