living together: yes or no?

someone asked me the other day how i felt about living with your partner without the promise of marriage. he was surprised by my response.

i prefaced my response by articulating my recognition of the fact that not everyone is as defensive about their lives as i am. so while i understand that what is best for me may not be best for everyone, i think that my reasoning may raise some good questions for him to ask himself before jumping into an apartment with his girlfriend too quickly.

most people think that i'm against non-marital cohabitation for conservative religious reasons. usually they think i just blindly believe that no one should live together because it implies sex outside of marriage and surely i would think that's an evil sin. they aren't exactly correct in their assumptions.

a summary of my beliefs in this arena:

1. i believe in gay marriage, so until that is acknowledged in all corners of the world then there will always be people in solid, beautiful, God-formed relationships living together without a marriage license. so, clearly the idea that living together outside of marriage is an evil sin is not an idea that i agree with.
2. i believe that the biblical stance on sex outside of marriage is less about the physical nature of the act and more about the mental and emotional implications of tying yourself to another person so completely. so, do i think that all sex outside of marriage is an evil sin? no. but do i think that there are very real implications for sexual relationships both outside and inside of a marriage? absolutely. (if you want to read more on this, check out rob bell's sex god, or, my favorite, lauren winner's real sex.)

now that we have that out of the way, let's get back to this blog.

i've heard a lot of great arguments in support of non-marital cohabitation. i get all of the postmodern "you have to know if you can live with the person, day in and day out" justifications and i understand that it really is important to realize what exactly you're getting into, but i think that's the very reason i don't think i could ever do it.

(are you confused yet? to sum up so far: i'm not against living together, i just don't think it's for me.)

i'm simply not strong enough to let someone so completely into my life without the guarantee that they won't disappear one day. and i know, i know...i know that signing a paper license makes no guarantees either, but i have to believe that standing before God, family and friends and declaring our commitment to one another makes walking away something very different from simply moving out of an apartment i shared with a guy i've dated for a few months.

as a creature of habit, the idea of living with someone day in and day out scares the heck out of me. i've been on my own for a long time now and i have my own particular way of doing things. creating new habits, new routines, new consistency with someone else will be hard work for me. really hard work. (are you appreciating yet just how much a hate change? because if not i can add another "really" with a capital R, or even all caps if that will make the message loud and clear.)

i think when you live with someone, when you offer your whole vulnerable self to that other person, that's an enormous risk to take. contrary to what some people may think, for me, it's not about the whole "your body is a temple" pre-marital sex stuff. it's about making sure that i'm prepared for the consequences, should an end come one day.

for example, here i am lying in bed, completely unsettled because my dog pete has chosen to sleep on the couch instead of cuddling up with me for the night. i can't get comfortable because "comfortable" for me now requires a warm dog curled up at my side whimpering through his nightmares.

what happens when comfortable means coming home every day to the same wonderful man to talk and laugh about our days at work? what happens when comfortable means sharing breakfast and dinner with the same person every day? what happens when cleaning the house takes half the time because he takes half of the chores? what happens when i depend on him to fix my car or remind me to make the regular six-month appointment with the dentist that i always forget? what happens when my stuff becomes his stuff and his stuff becomes mine?

wonderful happens, that's what.

but what happens when it ends?

that, my friends, is what makes me believe that i could never live with someone outside of marriage. because sharing life so intimately with someone else after having been so independent for so long will be difficult enough for me. having that all taken away? i think that's more then i could handle.