This just in: urban apartments are small, commitment is hard, and social mores change over time. This research seems tailor made to give self-help authors something to make their readers neurotic about. If "How To Make Your Stayover a 'Stay-for-Good'" isn't a book now, it's being written as we speak.  

But turning it into some sign that "young people fear commitment" is ridiculous. I dated my girlfriend for a year, it slowly turned into a "stayover" relationship and we moved in together about a year ago. Wanting your own space is perfectly normal, and frankly, in our area having an apartment big enough for the two of us to share was a matter of luck. Before I lived with her, I had a lot of my stuff crammed into one room.

While I do think you should try living together by staying over at each other's places before blindly taking the plunge, it's amazing how many things we invent to avoid commitment. "Shacking up"? That's what people did in the '70s. I believe Fleetwood Mac talked about shacking up in "Go Your Own Way," a song from 30 years ago.

By all means, try cohabitating before moving in together. But after a while, you need to pull the trigger on taking the relationship to the next level. If he's spending most of his time with you, but still keeping his own place, that's usually a sign that he isn't fully ready to commit.

New relationship model? Oh, please. The Italians have been doing this since the 16th Century. How is this different from any other start of a relationship? Not many people move in together straight away, well not if they have an ounce of brain - it can take years before you get to that stage. 

It's just another bit of alarmist claptrap like "The Dumbest Generation," (look it up, but really, don't bother reading it). Grabs headlines, which is useful for the academic who published it when grant renewal or tenure time comes around, or, in her case when it is time for her dissertation to be reviewed (the article is her doctoral thesis) but means absolutely nothing in real terms.

This isn't a new trend. Folks have been doing this since the caveman days. I'm pretty sure Ug and Uga were alternating between caves (though mostly staying at Ug's spot...I mean it was Geico days). It's just more convenient for a sexually active relationship. People who aren't married apparently love to sleep together and want that access and closeness. Basically, until you get tired of one another, stayover relationships seem extremely normal. 

Folks still commit afterwards...I mean how ELSE would we get to a 50 percent divorce rate?

"This seems to be a pretty stable and convenient middle ground between casual dating and more formal commitments like living together and getting married,"

 

Yes, it's called a process. What's the alternative? Signing a shared lease on Date One and hoping for the best? Pregnancy by Date Three and figuring it'll be "all good" when the baby pops out?

I agree with my fellow dudes on this one: Its' nothing too new. It's a measured step, and in-step with what it means to be a  dating adult in 2011. Next year's article, Stay-Forever Relationships on the Rise: New study looks at couples who totally move in together.

I'm a huge fan of stay-over relationships. How else do you find out how well you click with some guy and his midnight Cup-o-Soup cravings before you sign a lease together? Here's my big tip: try staying over for three or four days straight and see how that goes. You get a much better sense of how well your routines fit together when those slumber parties are consecutive instead of every other night. But as the guys point out, at some point you have to bite the real estate bullet and make your stay-over relationship a stuck-together-forever relationship.