Should you move in with your boyfriend? That depends. Do you know he’s “the one?” Does he feel the same way about you? If so, and your engagement is just a matter of time, I think it can work very well. That’s what Mr. HUS and I did when we both moved to NYC after business school. An engagement would have felt a bit rushed, but we knew it was coming, so we lived together for a year first. In fact, we pooled all our resources from the start in joint accounts, and never looked back. It worked beautifully, and it was a great way to start our life together.

Studies show that living together before marriage is correlated to a greater likelihood of divorce, except in cases where the couple has already decided to marry.

The belief that living together before marriage is a useful way “to find out whether you really get along,” and thus avoid a bad marriage and an eventual divorce, is now widespread among young people. But the available studies on the effects of cohabitation are mixed. In fact, some evidence indicates that those who live together before marriage are more likely to break up after marriage.

Within the last few months I have witnessed two very messy breakups between couples living together, and in both cases the loss was much greater for the woman. Why? Because both couples had lived together 5 years or more, originally as a trial run to assess long-term compatibility, and because sharing expenses looked appealing.

Ultimately, however, the men decided they did not want to marry their roommates after all. Now in their early 30s and quite successful in their careers, they have seen their sexual market value rise considerably in the last five years. The women, both 32, are well past their peak fertility and now feel at a serious disadvantage getting back out there. Both had been expecting a ring at any moment, in a far too common cocktail of denial and delusion. Both were devastated.

In All Over But the Lease, Natalie Kitroeff at the  New York Times highlights some horrific breakups between couples living together in the city. Moving in together in NY is often expedient:

With rents that can bring a checking account to its knees, living together can seem the only sensible option. But if the relationship goes sour in the middle of the lease, that decision can turn out to have been a wild gamble after all.

… In New York, where people platonically share windowless rooms with strangers in a trade for subway access, cohabitation and commitment do not necessarily go hand in hand. Living together is often driven as much by practicality as romance. And when the relationship unravels, one or both parties have to walk away from an apartment as well as a lover. 

It’s also a risky highwire maneuver. Here’s how it unfolded for one couple:

Ms. Seale said Mr. Byhoff came home one evening and announced, without much fanfare, “I’m no longer attracted to you.”

With that, lovers became just roommates, with a hefty helping of history between them.

…“It was definitely awkward,” Mr. Byhoff said. “It’s just like, you’re in the bed facing a different way. There is nothing else you can do.”

They continued living together in what Ms. Seale described as a “weird purgatory” for a month before she moved out and he took over the lease.

During that time, said Ms. Seale, who was freelancing as a writer and acting, she would walk the dog they had bought together for eight hours a day, to avoid being in the apartment. 

Breakups rarely coincide with lease renewal, so the crisis of unexpected disruption seems inevitable. In the cases I witnessed, one man ran out on the lease and stopped paying rent, while his ex scrambled to find a new roommate in a one bedroom apartment. Definitely awkward.

In the other case, the man owned the condo, and had been collecting rent from the woman for 5  years, though of course the equity appreciation was all his. He’s sitting pretty, she’s out of luck. He gave her 30 days notice and crashed on a friend’s couch during that time rather than endure and perpetrate painful ending scenes. She was spared that humiliation, at least.

Ivana Tagliamonte, an agent with Halstead Property, says she has seen so many breakups that they almost seem a rite of passage for young New Yorkers. “It’s a life cycle for a lot of young couples in their early 20s,” she said. “They move in together, sign a lease together, and then the relationship doesn’t work out.”

Nor is it surprising that when the young and in lease fall out of love, shared real estate sometimes becomes a weapon. Ms. Tagliamonte said the worst case she had dealt with involved a couple who were sharing a studio for which only the woman had signed the lease.

Toward the end of the lease, the rent payments were so far behind that Ms. Tagliamonte, on behalf of the landlord, went to evict the couple. But when she got there, she noticed that the closets contained only men’s clothing. She realized that despite being the leaseholder, the girlfriend had moved out.

It’s not necessary to set up house together to “find out if you really get along.” There were no surprises or major discoveries when I moved in with my future husband – we already knew each other very well and had long ago agreed that we were highly compatible. Living together as a “trial run” offers little reward for a woman who is able to support herself. She removes any incentive for marriage when she skips Lover and goes straight to Wife. Don’t forget the #2 reason men delay marriage, according to the National Marriage Project:

They can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying.

There are several other risks associated with living together:

1. Relationship Inertia

Couples who would not otherwise have married “slide” into marriage as a result of living together. It’s harder to end a relationship when you’re living with your partner.

2. Sunk Cost

“People may have a harder time cutting their losses when they think about all the time, energy, and money they put into the relationship, even cutting their losses will save them more heartache in the future.”

For women entering their 30s after years of living together, doubling down often feels like the only hope, even when hope is futile.

3. Opportunity Cost

It’s harder to meet someone new, and impossible to pursue someone new (or should be).

I highly recommend living together once you are both sure you’re on the road to marriage. I strongly advise against living together to see if you’re meant for one another. Take care of that before setting up house – otherwise you’re stacking the deck against marriage. Separating after cohabitation can feel a lot like a divorce. All pain, no gain.

Related posts:

1. Pre-Wedding Jitters are Common, But Not Benign
2. Cheat Sheet
3. Will He Ever Open Up and Let Me In?

Reader Apple left a comment today that I thought was brilliant re the timing of sex:

Really, it comes down to a woman having the balls to say: “I don’t care what your penis wants if you don’t care what my heart wants.”

The actual line I’ve always used in real life is:

“I don’t do casual sex. Sex for me is something that happens when I love someone and they love me. I understand that’s not how most people operate now, but that’s how I operate. If you don’t like those terms, I won’t waste your time.”

The first thing a woman should do is ask herself what outcome she wants from the connection. If she’s after casual sex, she can have it and fulfill her mission (though she is unlikely to have an orgasm). If she’s telling herself that all she wants is casual sex, goes for it and then catches feelings, she needs to realize she’s been an idiot, and stop pursuing the worst strategy ever.

In How Long Should We Wait Before Having Sex? TV persona and relationship expert Dr. Wendy Walsh has gathered the most current data on how the timing of sex predicts relationship outcomes. (H/T: J)

I. Researcher Dean Busby has found that waiting at least 30 days leads to better relationships. He studied over 2,000 married adults with an average age of 36, asking about when they had sex and relationship satisfaction.

Curiously, almost 40 percent of couples are essentially sexual within the first or second time they go out, but we suspect that if you asked these same couples at this early stage of their relationship – ‘Do you trust this person to watch your pet for a weekend many could not answer this in the affirmative’ – meaning they are more comfortable letting people into their bodies than they are with them watching their cat.

 Walsh summarizes his body of research:

Busby’s research shows that couples who wait to have sex — at least 30 to 90 days — rather than doing it in the early stages of the relationship have better relationship outcomes.

Postponing sex, even for as long as six months, is associated with higher relationship stability, higher relationship satisfaction, better communication and higher quality sexual relationship.

It seems that couples who wait have a better handle on issues that come up in their relationships. Because sex doesn’t complicate the relationship, they have better communication skills.

II. Researcher Anthony Paik found that exclusivity is linked to delayed sex.

In one of my studies, it turned out that the longer couples delayed sex the more exclusive the relationship. And if men engage in sex within the first month of dating they are 4.5 times more likely to be nonexclusive later.

Couples who didn’t wait but were each open to a serious relationship with one another from the start did as well as couples who waited – the problem is, that’s a crap shoot. Even if each party is separately hoping a hookup will turn into a relationship, there’s no acceptable way of sharing that information, since by definition a hookup is “no strings.”

One good indicator of intent is a person’s past sexual experience:

People with higher numbers of past sexual partners were more likely to form hookups, and to report lower relationship quality. Through the acquisition of partners they begin to favor short-term relationships and find the long-term ones less rewarding.

III. Mark Renegerus, author of Premarital Sex in America has also found support for the 30 day rule.

Couples who waited at least 30 days to have sex increased the likelihood that the couple was still dating one year later. Nearly one-quarter of those who waited 30 days were still together a year later.

As for those who were quick to jump in bed together, well, 90 percent of those couples didn’t even make it one year.

IV. David Buss has found that the more women a guy has had sex with, the faster he is to disdain a new sexual partner. 

Renowned evolutionary psychology professor David Buss at the University of Texas at Austin and Martie G. Haselton at the University of California, Los Angeles found that the more previous sexual partners a man has, the more likely he is to quickly perceive diminished attractiveness in a woman after first intercourse. Sex doesn’t lead to love for men. If the guy is a player, sex more often leads to distain for his partner.

Waiting is the most effective way of filtering out players.

Fortunately, the number of women who need to be convinced is shrinking. There is continued support for the claim that college students overwhelmingly prefer relationships to hooking up. In a recent editorial in the LA Times, sociologist and hooking up expert Lisa Wade summed it up:

It’s true that more than 90% of students say that their campus is characterized by a hookup culture.  But in fact, no more than 20% of students hook up very often; one-third of them abstain from hooking up altogether, and the remainder are occasional participators.

If you do the math, this is what you get: The median number of college hookups for a graduating senior is seven. This includes instances in which there was intercourse, but also times when two people just made out with their clothes on. The typical student acquires only two new sexual partners during college. Half of all hookups are with someone the person has hooked up with before. A quarter of students will be virgins when they graduate.

…The majority of students — 70% of women and 73% of men – report that they’d like to have a committed relationship, and 95% of women and 77% of men prefer dating to hooking up. In fact, about three-quarters of students will enter a long-term monogamous relationship while in college.

Wade points out that those relationships will begin via the hookup – the casual encounter is still the path to commitment in college. But it’s good to know that the majority of hookups are not intended to be casual after all. Kids are making out, dry humping, and getting busy with their hands without having sex, pretty much like we did back in the 70s.

Related posts:

1. Doing An End Run Around Hookup Culture
2. Does Hooking Up Lead to Relationships?
3. A Nice Guy Tells You How to Win His Heart

In a recent discussion the subject of crushes came up – does having a crush on someone other than your partner constitute cheating? Dr. Gary Lewandowski, author of the blog The Science of Relationships, has addressed this question in the post Is It Okay To Have A Crush On Someone Who Isn’t Your Significant Other?  Excerpts follow:

Is being “attracted to others while in a committed relationship… normal and unavoidable?

“There is reason to think that being attracted to others is unavoidable…We can’t really help making these judgments; it’s automatic. However, once we think about the other’s attractiveness more purposefully, we can revise our original reaction.

For people in committed relationships, those revisions are skewed towards making potential partners seem less attractive. This process, known as derogating alternatives, helps us maintain our commitment to our original relationship. Put another way, my single friends may think Anne Hathaway is hot, but since I’m married, I tend to think her big teeth make her unattractive.”

Are “crushes harmless if not acted on?”

“I’m not sure that you can consider a crush completely harmless. After all, you are expending emotional energy towards someone other than your current partner. Wouldn’t it be better to spend that energy on your current partner rather than on someone else? You also need to consider how your partner feels about this. You may think an emotional bond like a crush is harmless, but your partner may consider it cheating.”

If you’re in a relationship and attracted to someone else, then…is something missing in your relationship…?

“There is some good evidence suggesting that this is true. Being attracted to someone other than your partner, or even being more inclined to notice attractive others is what psychologists call attention to alternatives. Research shows that those with greater relationship satisfaction and commitment pay less attention to alternative partners.

So is it normal to have a crush on someone other than your partner? It certainly happens. If it does happen, you probably shouldn’t ignore it. Rather, the important thing may be to take it as a possible indication that your primary relationship may not as healthy as it could be.”

Obviously, all people in committed relationships observe attractive people in the environment. What varies is one’s personal response to that stimulus. This will depend on a person’s character, personality traits, and satisfaction in the current relationship. Your partner’s satisfaction is at least partly your responsibility, but character and personality traits were set long before you came on the scene. How can you filter out potential cheaters? Experts weigh in:

1. A key predictor of cheating is the attractiveness of potential alternatives.

If attractive people envy you, your mate has options, and having options makes cheating more likely. In Predictors of young dating adults’ inclination to engage in extradyadic sexual activities: A multi-perspective study, researchers also identified three other important factors:

• Satisfaction with current relationship: 

  “Respondents who reported that their relationships were “pretty happy” and “not too happy” were two and four times more likely, respectively, to have reported extramarital sex than respondents who reported that they were “very happy” with their relationships (Atkins et al., 2001).”

• Number of sexual partners: high N indicates a “learned advantage” at recruiting sex partners
• Level of dysfunctional impulsivity: the tendency to “leap without looking”

2. Individual attitudes towards cheating largely reflect attachment style.

People with an avoidant attachment style are less likely to name a particular behavior cheating, while those with an anxious attachment style are more likely to consider it off limits. The more dissimilar a couple’s attitudes towards what constitutes cheating, the more likely there will be relationship strife.

3. Sexual performance anxiety drives many men to cheat. 

For men, significant predictors of infidelity are personality variables, including propensity for sexual excitation (becoming easily aroused by many triggers and situations) and concern about sexual performance failure.

The latter finding might seem counterintuitive, Milhausen said, but other studies have also found this connection. “People might seek out high-risk situations to help them become aroused, or they might choose to have sex with a partner outside of their regular relationship because they feel they have an ‘out’ if the encounter doesn’t go well — they don’t have to see them again.

4. The emotional health of a relationship is the key predictor for female cheating.

For women, relationship happiness is paramount. Women who are dissatisfied with their relationship are more than twice as likely to cheat; those who feel they are sexually incompatible with their partners are nearly three times as likely.

for men, personality characteristics are so strong they bounce everything else out of the model. For women, in the face of all other variables, it’s still the relationship that is the most important predictor.

5. Hormonal factors play a huge role.

Paul Zak, a neuroeconomist and expert on morality at Claremont Graduate University, has developed a test for scoring men on their propensity to cheat. 

Dysregulated oxytocin release can be caused by either a genetic disorder or an insufficient amount of nurturing in the first ten years of life.

… A variant of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene was recently found to be associated with having an unhappy marriage.

… My lab has shown that high levels of testosterone change the brain’s cost-benefit calculation toward the current and self, rather than taking a long-term view that includes others’ needs.

a. Resting heart rate below 70: +1 point

Men who seek excitement like him tend to engage in all kinds of arousing events, including illicit affairs. These men have low resting heart rates. Bomb disposal professionals and parachutists also have low resting heart rates. These under-aroused individuals also commit more crimes–violating social norms gets them the excitement they crave. If your partner has a heart rate less than 70 beats per minute while resting, give him one point.

b. One point each for a longer fourth to second finger, more than average hairiness, and a long jaw.

c. Oxytocin malfunction:

How does your man respond to chick-flicks? If you spot a misty eye when the guy gets the girl at the end of the movie, or the little boy succumbs to cancer, he’s got an intact oxytocin system. If not, give him one point. If you have kids, does he dote on them? If not, give him one point. If you have a dog, how is he with it? Poor interaction with the dog earns him one point.

d. Failure to experience jealousy or mate guard: +1 point.

e. Interpersonal relationships:

If your mate’s dad cheated on his mom, he gets one point.

How often does he talk to his mother? Are they close? If not, he gets a point.

More generally, does he interact well with his siblings, cousins and friends? And your friends, too? Poor family relationships and few friendships suggest he may not be good at bonding to people, including romantic attachments.

6. Female hypergamy plays a role.

Women who wear the pants in the relationship are more likely to cheat:

The imbalance of power in the primary relationship has been associated with infidelity. Edwards and Booth (1976) found that wives who reported that they “get their way” more often during disagreements were also more likely to have extramarital sexual involvements.

An imbalance in education increases the chance of cheating:

…in a large U.S. national study of dating, cohabiting, and married women, Forste and Tanfer (1996) found that women who were more educated than their husbands were more likely to engage in sexual infidelity; but if the husband was more educated than the wife, she was less likely to philander.

7. Higher male IQ predicts higher value attached to sexual exclusivity.

Data from a large, representative American sample shows that more intelligent boys are more likely to grow up to value sexual exclusivity in early adulthood than less intelligent boys.  In contrast, childhood IQ does not affect girls’ value on sexual exclusivity in early adulthood.  The effect of intelligence on the value of sexual exclusivity is more than four times as strong among men than among women.

Satoshi Kanazawa believes this is a result of evolution:

Sexual exclusivity is an “evolutionary novel” quality that would have been of little benefit to early man, who was programmed to be promiscuous, he argues.

The modern world no longer confers such an evolutionary advantage to men who have several sexual partners – but it is only intelligent men are able to shed the psychological baggage of their species and adopt new modes of behaviour

Other “evolutionary novel” qualities that are more common among people of higher intelligence include liberalism and atheism, his study indicated.

8. Women are more likely to cheat on genetically similar men.

Since the Pill interferes with the female ability to suss out DNA dissimilarity, a man should never commit for life to a woman who has not been off the Pill for at least six months, according to Helen Fisher. 

I can think of no worse mating outcome than partnering with a cheater. Infidelity destroys lives. It’s worth dedicating 80% of your energy early on to evaluating the potential for it, and disqualifying anyone who appears to be a poor fit for monogamy. 

Related posts:

1. Vox Day’s Fidelity Survey Results
2. Cheat Sheet
3. Individual Traits Trump Sex Differences in Determining Relationship Success

I just finished reading Matthew Hussey’s Get the Guy, and I have to say it’s about the best book on dating and relationships I’ve ever read. I’m not alone – his rating on Amazon is a 4.8 out of 5. I strongly encourage you to buy it here. 

(Speaking of ratings, he’s adorable – sort of a cross between Ryan Gosling and Daniel Radcliffe.)

He started out running bootcamps as a dating coach for men, and it’s clear from his writing he is well versed in Game. However, smart guy that he is, he flipped over to running bootcamps for women, and has coached something like 100,000 of us at this point. And he’s only 26!

This guy is all about Girl Game, and he makes a great deal of sense. I agree with him on almost everything – my only nitpick is that some of his conversation starters sound really cheesy, but maybe when girls approach guys what they say isn’t actually very important.

I’ll be writing on several topics in the book that I found particularly strong or interesting. Today I want to share his explanation on how men view commitment, because it closely parallels a lot of the writing I’ve done here on short-term relationship guys vs. long-term relationship guys, cads vs. dads, etc. 

Hussey describes two distinct kind of men, whom he names Mr. Bachelor and Mr. Relationship. No matter what you do on your end, a man’s willingness to commit depends on the emotions he associates with commitment. These emotions may have any number of sources, but it doesn’t really matter – every man is either Mr. Bachelor or Mr. Relationship. It’s hard-wired, or baked in, or something, and you have no control over this.

For Mr. Bachelor, the idea of “settling down” conjures up an image of a bored couple sitting at home on a Friday night watching soap operas, or spending all day Saturday doing household chores. Committing to a relationship looks like the end of all the fun. This perception is reinforced because every guy has a friend who [describes this life].

Essentially, Mr. Bachelor suffers from FOMO, and Hussey describes his preoccupation with chasing variety, adventure and excitement in his 20s, figuring he’ll settle down and bite the bullet when he reaches his 30s. Predictably, in his 30s he realizes he still hasn’t surfed in Thailand or hiked in Nepal. And there’s still so much poon to slay! He figures he’ll still have it going on in his 40s, he should enjoy life while he’s still young!

In contrast, Mr. Relationship experiences these same desires very differently.

Even though Mr. Relationship might miss and even grieve his single life, he understands without a doubt that his perfect woman makes his life much better than it was before. 

Mr. Relationship loves sexual variety, adventure and excitement as much as Mr. Bachelor does, but Mr. Relationship associates these aspects of life with being in a relationship. To Mr. Relationship, having a steady girlfriend, fiancée or wife means having fantastic sex, since having a committed partner means having regular sex with someone who knows his every quirk and turn-on.

He views the woman in his life as someone with whom he can share amazing adventures and experiences. With her, he experiences companionship and the joy of going through life with someone who understands him at the deepest level. To him, relationships are the ultimate pleasure…the single life equals boredom, loneliness, and awkward ONSs with the occasional girl who doesn’t really know what turns him on sexually.

Hussey describes how two men with the same history will reflect very differently on their single days. Mr. Bachelor remembers the poker parties, the occasional unexpected ONS with a stranger, the freedom of not having to explain himself to anyone. Mr. Relationship recalls the endless weekends of boredom when there were no chicks around, the bad sex followed by the unpleasant morning discovery of a hungover stranger in the bed. He likes having girl stuff around the apartment. 

Mr. Bachelor and Mr. Relationship both have the same needs: sexual satisfaction, adventure, excitement. It’s not as if Mr. Bachelor needs more sexual partners or Mr. Relationship needs more intimacy and connection. It’s not that one guy needs a more adventurous lifestyle while another craves a more domestic lifestyle. The only difference between Mr. Bachelor and Mr. Relationship is the emotions they associate with commitment.

Let’s discuss. Here are some questions to start us off:

1. Do all men have the same “needs?” We tend to describe men as universally horny and preoccupied with sex most of the time. Does Mr. Bachelor actually want or need sex more than Mr. Relationship does? Does Mr. Relationship want or need connection more?

2. The data clearly shows that single men have sex less frequently than married men. Does Mr. Bachelor forfeit frequency for novelty while Mr. Relationship forfeits novelty for frequency?

3. Can these needs be met in different ways? Hussey suggests variety can occur both within and outside relationships.

4. How do emotions play a role? Do these divergent outlooks correspond with pessimism and optimism? Or cynicism and hope? 

5. Is Mr. Bachelor a good bet for marriage when he reaches his 40s? Or can no woman hope to hold his attention and suppress his “wanderlust?”

6. Should women who want to marry ever date Mr. Bachelor? If so, why? If not, why not?

7. Is there an analogous divergence of women? Ms. Bachelorette vs. Ms. Relationship? Or Ms. Career vs. Ms. Family? If so, how do these different types of women recall their single days?

Talk to me in the Comments!

Related posts:

1. A Relationship is Not a Commitment
2. The Relationship Between Love and Commitment
3. Tough Call: Sex Before Commitment?

A new study at Cornell University finds that college women judge promiscuous women peers harshly, and prefer friendships with less sexually active women. Surprisingly, this opinion is held even by fellow promiscuous women!

Up until now, research has focused on the fact that many women express liberal attitudes towards promiscuity in others, and generally decline to judge other women for having casual sex. However, in this study, participants of both sexes were asked to rank both a promiscuous target (20 sexual partners) and a non-promiscuous target (2 partners) on 32 different personality attributes as being desirable for same-sex friendship. 

(Note: “Two was chosen for the typical target as it is slightly below the median number of lifetime  partners for men and women in this age group in the U.S. Twenty was chosen for the highly permissive target based on data that 7% of women and 16% of men in this age group report 15 or more lifetime partners.”)

The study begins by summarizing previous research on the undesirability of sexual permissiveness in both sexes:

Related posts:

1. Slutty Men Know They’re Hot, Slutty Women Think They Are
2. Can Lysistrata Work For College Women?
3. 7 Reasons Women Reject Eager Men