The Pressure to Cohabitate
Steady Eddie's been talking the H-word ....
House....
as in "let's live together" and "what do you want it look like? do you want your own room?"
I just want to bang my head against the wall.
Thing is, I love having a man in my life, someone who makes me feel safe, who I can depend on.
I just don't want to live with him.
Call it fear of commitment. Call it wicked selfishness. But I really don't want to live with anyone. Not right now, at this point anyay.
When it comes to living with people, I've lived with husbands, boyfriends, and roommates. The best time I had was living with guy roommates. Sometimes they were a bit wild, but other times they were really the best. My roommate John was like an older brother--always looking out for me, easy to talk with, and never demanded my company. So when I spent time with him it was fun.
That's one weird thing about every female roommate I've had--they've always demaded that I be their bestest buddy. And that's one thing *not* to demand of me. I'm really self-sufficient, and there will be long periods of time when I'll be more like a hermit than a roommate. I've found that female roommates got offended when I didn't come out of my room and share tv time or other social time with them. Male roommates not so much. I also found that female roommates always wanted to know where I was going and when I was coming back. It was like they wanted to be a parent. Male roommates weren't all that prying--but didn't mind when I told them when I was going away, or going out overnight.
For the life of me, I will never understand why my female roommates were so bloody controlling and my male roommates were not so demanding--but I never felt lonely or that they didn't care.
Still, at this point in my life, I just don't want to live with anyone--roommate, boyfriend nor husband.
The problem is that, being in a relationship that's going on six years now, the question of commitment's coming up more and more. It's like--"okay, we've made it this far, and we're of a certain age, and we're apparently not going anywhere, therefore we might as well take things to the next level and cohabitate."
And I'm just *not* feelin' it.
It's not just that we have a small fundamental incompatability--it's that I really don't want to share my space.
Then again, I like a man in my life. I have never felt totally safe living on my own, without a man, with just my friends to rely on. It's like standing on one leg--totally unstable. I know it's got a lot to do with old family dysfunction--that even in the house with my parents I felt all alone and unsafe when I should have felt loved and protected.
The idea of living without a man freaks me out.
Why don't I get another male roommate? Well, middle age is a weird period in time to move in with someone who's not a significant other. What's very commmon among twenty and early thirty-somethings is just about anathema in middle-age. Middle age is supposed to be a time of being settled down--not one of goofing around and living with someone who's not a signficant other
The relationships between middle aged folks who do have roommates are more like landlord/lodger relationships, not like roommates. There's more of a protectiveness over things--and little room to move in one's own things.
That's part of the problem too--I've got my own "stuff" now, much more than I had when I was in my twenties and thirties. Too much stuff to just move into someone else's home and never unpack any of it.
So, I'm feeling a bit of pressure right now--like I'm being hearded into a canyon where I'm going to be stuck between a rock and a very hard place and I'm going to have to make a choice between my home and my life and a shared home and cohabitating life.
And I'm just not ready to make that kind of decision.
House....
as in "let's live together" and "what do you want it look like? do you want your own room?"
I just want to bang my head against the wall.
Thing is, I love having a man in my life, someone who makes me feel safe, who I can depend on.
I just don't want to live with him.
Call it fear of commitment. Call it wicked selfishness. But I really don't want to live with anyone. Not right now, at this point anyay.
When it comes to living with people, I've lived with husbands, boyfriends, and roommates. The best time I had was living with guy roommates. Sometimes they were a bit wild, but other times they were really the best. My roommate John was like an older brother--always looking out for me, easy to talk with, and never demanded my company. So when I spent time with him it was fun.
That's one weird thing about every female roommate I've had--they've always demaded that I be their bestest buddy. And that's one thing *not* to demand of me. I'm really self-sufficient, and there will be long periods of time when I'll be more like a hermit than a roommate. I've found that female roommates got offended when I didn't come out of my room and share tv time or other social time with them. Male roommates not so much. I also found that female roommates always wanted to know where I was going and when I was coming back. It was like they wanted to be a parent. Male roommates weren't all that prying--but didn't mind when I told them when I was going away, or going out overnight.
For the life of me, I will never understand why my female roommates were so bloody controlling and my male roommates were not so demanding--but I never felt lonely or that they didn't care.
Still, at this point in my life, I just don't want to live with anyone--roommate, boyfriend nor husband.
The problem is that, being in a relationship that's going on six years now, the question of commitment's coming up more and more. It's like--"okay, we've made it this far, and we're of a certain age, and we're apparently not going anywhere, therefore we might as well take things to the next level and cohabitate."
And I'm just *not* feelin' it.
It's not just that we have a small fundamental incompatability--it's that I really don't want to share my space.
Then again, I like a man in my life. I have never felt totally safe living on my own, without a man, with just my friends to rely on. It's like standing on one leg--totally unstable. I know it's got a lot to do with old family dysfunction--that even in the house with my parents I felt all alone and unsafe when I should have felt loved and protected.
The idea of living without a man freaks me out.
Why don't I get another male roommate? Well, middle age is a weird period in time to move in with someone who's not a significant other. What's very commmon among twenty and early thirty-somethings is just about anathema in middle-age. Middle age is supposed to be a time of being settled down--not one of goofing around and living with someone who's not a signficant other
The relationships between middle aged folks who do have roommates are more like landlord/lodger relationships, not like roommates. There's more of a protectiveness over things--and little room to move in one's own things.
That's part of the problem too--I've got my own "stuff" now, much more than I had when I was in my twenties and thirties. Too much stuff to just move into someone else's home and never unpack any of it.
So, I'm feeling a bit of pressure right now--like I'm being hearded into a canyon where I'm going to be stuck between a rock and a very hard place and I'm going to have to make a choice between my home and my life and a shared home and cohabitating life.
And I'm just not ready to make that kind of decision.
posted by Tish Grier at 8:00 AM
7 Comments:
I don't know why girl roommates are like that... but I had the same experience. Some of them were like that, some of them weren't though. If I wanted to sit in my room and read a book for 3 hours, they got all upset because I wasn't watching American Idol with them. Blargh.
And then they'd steal my food. *stab*
You're not alone in this. Whenever I think of getting married or into a serious relationship again, it's the living together that makes me cringe and waffle. I had brothers growing up, I've lived with roommates, I like living with guys that way, but living with significant others was just different. There was the expectation that I'd be the housekeeper, cook and clean up after them, etc. I don't like that. If I could live with an SO and somehow get beyond that I might do it again.
Thanks so much for both your input on this :-)
Believe it or not, I lived with female roommates who wanted to control what I ate! One told me I couldn't cook in the house because she didn't like the smell of food (but, oddly, grew broccoli sprouts, which have their own unique odor, shall we say...)
And its really different when you're living on your own and have to do all the cooking and cleaning, and when you're living with an SO and it feels like it's *expected*. The whole thing even changes when you go from living togehter to married! I've had that happen--where when living together all the household stuff was split, and afterward what I did/didn't do became a judgement on me as a wife. Sheesh! I just don't get it.
Shalom Tish,
The older we get, the more we appreciate our space.
I can't tell you how many women I know in the second half of their lives who are so tired of guys looking for wives (i.e. housekeeper/cook/sextoy).
B'shalom,
Jeff
Hi Jeff...
Oh, I don't mind the cook and sextoy part ;-)...the housekeeping I could do without...but what seems to be the issue nowadays is that when S.E. is ending his regular 9-to-5 day, I still have things to do and don't want him bugging me to spend the evening relaxing with him.
Not being able to deal with someone else's clock is what used to piss me off with 9-to-5 work anyway. that's like my *worst* time of day to be doing anything.
:-)
T.
Shalom Trish,
And then there's this from Sherry Chandler this morning.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Jeff...
wow! amazing that we'll spend half of our adult lives outside of marriage!
I remember someone saying one time that marriage is there to create stable homes for children. As I get older and further away from childbearing and childrearing, that there's something to this. This could, too, account for the rise in divorces after the children are grown and gone--the job is done, time to move on with life. And life can be too darned long to spend it with someone you just don't care about.
:-)
T.
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