Between Life Stages

I've officially decided there must be a term for a couple who is between the stages of "Dating" and "Married/engaged". I, and many other young people, choose to live with their significant other but do not want to be formally married (at least not yet). In my case, it is because marriage means starting a family and we're not ready for that yet (I also recognize that not everyone defines marriage this way). We're content to be dedicated to each other. We consider ourselves spiritually bonded and see no need to conform to what society demands at this point in time. We do not view our lifestyle as "sinful" or 'bad", and that really seems to irritate a lot of people.

So, anyone have any ideas for what to call this point in life?

If I may tack on an addendum, I think the term needs to include older people who decide to live together without marrying so as to avoid complicating their respective estates.

That said, I think it will take some time for American society to regard living together as more than a selfish desire to have your cake without the effort of assembling it, so to speak.

Unfortunately, there's still the lingering suspicion that if you REALLY were committed to each other, you'd do "the right thing" and get married, dammit. Silly, but that's how it goes once a custom gets entrenched in people's thinking about what's right and proper.

So, after this little rant of mine, I'm curious as to why you wish to coin a term for your relationship. What difference would it make?

Common Law?

Naw, because that's a legal designation akin to marriage.

In states that allow common-law marriage, you're regarded as legally married whether you consider yourselves married or not if you meet certain criteria.

I don't remember what all it was in Kansas...there were three qualifications. One was referring publicly to your SO as your husband or wife, having both your names on a utility or bank account of any kind and something else.

In Kansas, if you want, you can apply for official common-law status which carries some of the privileges and obligations of full-fledged marriage.

Seemed weird to now-hubby and me (and none of the state's damned business!), so even though we qualified, we never applied. I suppose there might be reasons to do that, but we never thought there were any for us.

Also, there is no common law in my state, strangely enough. The reason why I think it matters, is mostly because I'm thinking of how to introduce my significant other to family, how to explain my living situation when asked without having to explain myself or deal with social stigma, mostly it would just make things easier ina society that has to have labels for everything...

Also, heres an interesting tidbit: my mom and my step dad got divorced after 7 years of marriage over what tehy consider to be stupid. They got back together and lived together until about four years ago, when they split up again. Here's the kicker: tehy're back together and still claim to be married, since they are Catholic. (The Catholic church, obviously, doesn't recognize divorce.) The really annoying thing is they have the nerve to tell me I'm living in sin.....but that's another topic.

Tameless_Heart wrote:Also, heres an interesting tidbit: my mom and my step dad got divorced after 7 years of marriage over what tehy consider to be stupid. They got back together and lived together until about four years ago, when they split up again. Here's the kicker: tehy're back together and still claim to be married, since they are Catholic. (The Catholic church, obviously, doesn't recognize divorce.) The really annoying thing is they have the nerve to tell me I'm living in sin.....but that's another topic.

Having been raised Catholic, I think I can understand their reasoning, weird as all hell though it is. Even though it's wacko thinking, that they feel entitled to label you as living in sin makes sense within their context.

The problem I have is that trying to "think like a Catholic" again makes my head hurt. Gotta resolve to quit doing that.

Tameless_Heart wrote:Also, heres an interesting tidbit: my mom and my step dad got divorced after 7 years of marriage over what tehy consider to be stupid. They got back together and lived together until about four years ago, when they split up again. Here's the kicker: tehy're back together and still claim to be married, since they are Catholic. (The Catholic church, obviously, doesn't recognize divorce.) The really annoying thing is they have the nerve to tell me I'm living in sin.....but that's another topic.

So. Does the state consider them married?

Tameless_Heart wrote:Also, there is no common law in my state, strangely enough. The reason why I think it matters, is mostly because I'm thinking of how to introduce my significant other to family, how to explain my living situation when asked without having to explain myself or deal with social stigma, mostly it would just make things easier ina society that has to have labels for everything...

There isn't common-law anymore in most states, I think I read somewhere. If I recall correctly, I think it was originally used in the U.S. in frontier times to designate couples who wished to be married whenever they encountered someone authorized to officiate. Anyway, that would certainly explain why it's been dropped in many states since finding someone to officiate is hardly difficult now.

The relationship labeling fixation that people have is just weird, IMO, but I know what you mean. You don't really want to introduce him as your lover since that often implies that it's primarily a sexual relationship with little or no commitment. "Significant other" also is often understood as simply living together and never intending to get married.

Of course, as I'm sure you've considered, you face the standard hassle of introducing any newly-coined term to people...nobody will know what it means without laborious explanations until and unless the term happens to catch on.

Seems to me a good course of action would be to smile politely but somewhat vaguely when questioned about what label applies to your relationship and to respond, "We're very close," leaving it to the listeners to figure out what "very close" may mean (as in "None of their business really.")

sacrificialgoddess wrote:

Tameless_Heart wrote:Also, heres an interesting tidbit: my mom and my step dad got divorced after 7 years of marriage over what tehy consider to be stupid. They got back together and lived together until about four years ago, when they split up again. Here's the kicker: tehy're back together and still claim to be married, since they are Catholic. (The Catholic church, obviously, doesn't recognize divorce.) The really annoying thing is they have the nerve to tell me I'm living in sin.....but that's another topic.

So. Does the state consider them married?

Not if they haven't gotten officially remarried somewhere since their divorce, the state wouldn't consider them married.

They're talking about the Catholic thing that a Catholic marriage is until death unless it's dissolved by the Catholic Church. Even though you get a civil divorce, the church still regards you as married.

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, I'm still married to my first husband since we both were Catholics and were married in a Catholic ceremony. Any civil marriage we might either of us have subsequently is regarded as adultery by the Catholic Church.

Weird, huh?

Actually, I should have said any marriage since it wouldn't matter if we were married civilly or according to some other faith.

The only way you get out of a Catholic marriage is to die or have it annulled by the Catholic Church, and getting an annullment can take years and years.

Tameless_Heart wrote:I've officially decided there must be a term for a couple who is between the stages of "Dating" and "Married/engaged". ... So, anyone have any ideas for what to call this point in life?

Shacking up.


Go for it girl... my wife and I shacked for a year (my wife says it was only 3 months...) before we officially got married.

Now do make sure y'all keep the finances separate: 1)yours, 2) his, 3) the household. Keep your credit separate and secure. Many a woman has ended up in a financial hole by letting her credit get tied up and dragged down by an irresponsible man... (not saying your fellow is, just the father-instinct in me rearing it's head and baring it's fangs).

You can tell my to sit in a corner now if you like (down boy, heel!!)

Samhain.

I gathered that the OP is seeking a more socially acceptable term than "shacking up" which certainly has connotations of being unwilling to buy the cow, if you get my reference. Anyway, where I live, you'd get a reaction you'd probably rather not deal with if you introduced your live-in SO as your shack-up.

Reminds me of a guy who was my next-door neighbor years ago. Shortly after then-hubby and I moved in, this guy came over to introduce himself and explain that the comings and goings at his place resulted from the fact that his fourth wife was divorcing him and moving out. He mentioned that when he told his aged grandma that they were splitting up, his granny's advice was "Think shack."

If the expression "Too much information" had been in vogue then, ex-hubby and I probably would have used it. We were a bit surprised by that particular revelation on such short acquaintance.

Thanks Sam *hug* I definately understand- and were doing just that. Keeping everything separate until we're ready to tie the cliche knot. We want to finish college and then do that, but that won't be for two years for him (one for me. I picked a younger man, heh...).

And yes, DotNOtinOz, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head with every post so far.

Thanks and love everyone. ^_^

I have three daughters and all of them have lived with men. We've never had a term for it. I've always introduced the man as "This is Susan's friend, Malcolm." If that person is close then they will figure it out fast enough, if they haven't already, and if they aren't then what concern is it of theirs?

Then when they've moved on to the fiance stage I substitute that. And sometimes (with three girls more than a few times) the men have disappeared from our lives to be replaced by others. I learned early on not to get too attached.

Best of good luck, TH!

Thanks Gilly. You do not seem old enough to have three daughters, btw. ^_^

My grandmother (old-fashioned, traditional) would introduce my ex as my 'friend'. We both found that offensive. We knew it was just out of awkwardness on her part.

What would you have preferred that she use, TED?

We would have preferred "girlfriend", at least. What I chose to use was "partner" - "This is my partner, ..." because we had a 'partnership'. We were, of course, friends, but it was insulting to us to make it sound like we were "just friends" when we'd worked so hard to be so much more. Of course though it couldn't be known we were 'living in sin' when introduced to the general public.

I thought a cousin of mine and his life partner handled such situations well when they first began sharing a home. He'd introduce his partner by that label to relatives that he knew were accepting of gay relationships. To those who'd have had kittens, he introduced him as his roommate.

That degree of flexibility avoided a lot of ugliness even though I expect they'd both have preferred to be aboveboard about the actual nature of their relationship.

Thankfully, we're getting ever closer to acceptance of same sex relationships.

Well, mine was for all general purposes 'conventional' in the sexuality sense, we just were 'unmarried and living together in sin'. Something my family had kittens about.

Partner actually isn't a bad choice of wording. Here though, people would automatically assume at least one of us had had a sex change operation (no offense meant to anyone who has btw!!!!)...

Haha! I wasn't the one who had the sex change. I admit I do think "gay/lesbian" when I hear "partner" off the bat, though it's nice when it means "life partner" of any gender. A lady friend who I thought might be lesbian told me a story about her 'partner', then said "he" - showing it worked well for their straight relationship, and it sounded nice. Some people choose to never get married, and it's weird hearing my friend talk about her "boyfriend" she's lived with for 25 years. To me, a boyfriend is someone you go to prom with, not a committed relationship. Then again, I guess I place far too much importance on the vocabulary when it shoudln't be so important.

I"m with you there Tiger. I over think words too much. (I should have been an English major....*sigh*)

TigersEyeDowsing wrote:Haha! I wasn't the one who had the sex change. I admit I do think "gay/lesbian" when I hear "partner" off the bat, though it's nice when it means "life partner" of any gender. A lady friend who I thought might be lesbian told me a story about her 'partner', then said "he" - showing it worked well for their straight relationship, and it sounded nice. Some people choose to never get married, and it's weird hearing my friend talk about her "boyfriend" she's lived with for 25 years. To me, a boyfriend is someone you go to prom with, not a committed relationship. Then again, I guess I place far too much importance on the vocabulary when it shoudln't be so important.

I think a lot of people are still rather uncomfortable that it's not that unusual anymore for people to live together openly--gay, straight, whatever. Not that many years ago in most of the U.S., it simply wasn't done. A gay or lesbian couple might have been able to claim they were simply sharing a home to keep down expenses, but they'd better "act straight" in public.

This underlying discomfort is part of the reason, I think, why we haven't as yet coined a term for "committed but not married" for opposite gender couples living together. We still largely expect them to be married whether they wish to or not.