Boris Johnson and girlfriend Carrie Symonds are leading the UK’s fastest-growing couple trend – cohabiting.
They may be the first unmarried couple to live at Downing Street but they’re joined by 3.4 million British people who are living together outside of wedlock.
The Office for National Statistics revealed in a report on Wednesday that the latest figures show a 25.8% increase in cohabiting in the last decade.
The new prime minister has received flak for his decision to cohabit with Carrie. How odd that Boris Johnson might be judged for his choices, It’s almost like he’s the leader of the country.
All political shade aside, cohabiting is certainly a popular choice for the rest of us.
We asked some couples why they find living together so appealing while they feel ‘meh’ about marriage.
Charlie, cohabiting for a year
‘We’re polyamorous, so marriage isn’t really an option for us. We’ve been living together for over a year, first as his house and now at mine. It’s just the two of us living here, but intentionally with two spare rooms so we could potentially think about children or moving in other partners if that situation arose.
‘I think marriage isn’t valued anymore as much as it was. We’re not religious, and we trust each other. I don’t believe my belongings are his, and his are mine. If we split, he’d take his stuff and I’d take mine.
‘We don’t have the attitude of sharing everything, so there’s no need for an arrangement that would mean we would have to split all our stuff down the middle if we were to break up.
‘We’re quite independent – both writers, so wouldn’t want to take each other’s names.
‘Additionally, it would sort of imply that I was more important that his girlfriend or he was more important than mine if we chose to get married.’
Rae, nine months of cohabiting
‘I’ve been living with my boyfriend for nine months and I certainly would never marry him!
‘I’ve been married three times – (10 years, seven months, 23 years) and me and marriage just don’t get on. I hate the feeling of being trapped because of a piece of paper.
‘A lot of people find the actual wedding costs excessive so they buy or rent somewhere first, then marry. My son rented for 10 years before he brought and married his wife. I think I put him off marriage for life.
‘Marriage is so yesterday, it’s the kiss of death. I don’t know many couples that are happy, I think if you know you can walk away to find a better day, the mind relaxes and you find a way to work things out rather than think “s*hit, I’m trapped in this”.’
Lauren, cohabiting for four years
‘I met my partner doing what we love, volunteering for a Libertarian movement and the creation of a new country in Europe.
‘Both being Libertarian, we are not fond of how much control the government has on the everyday life of people.
‘As marriage is more of a religious sentiment for most people (we are not religious) and marriage is merely a signed paper issued by the government, we have no interest.
‘However, we are both from different countries; I am British and he is Czech, therefore, if Brexit was to happen, we may have some problems in the coming years and may be forced to marry just so we can stay together, which is sad.
‘I think Boris is getting flak because there is a portion of the population who are traditional, religious or both.’
Natalie, 18 months of cohabiting
‘We have been together for seven and a half years. For us, living together was always a much more meaningful and important step than getting married.
‘It took us a long time to do it because we met when we were both pretty young and happy living with friends, and then work commitments meant we had to do long-distance for a little while.
‘Moving in together has really taken our relationship to the next step – we share our lives properly and fully, which is amazing – even doing the boring stuff like chores and bills together has made us closer, and we’ve learnt so much about each other and what we both want.
‘For the moment we have decided that marriage isn’t for us. Neither of us really believe in the premise of it (the archaic, patriarchy stuff mainly).
‘We know that we want our future to be together, we know we want to buy a property and start a family – we don’t think we need to be married to do any of that. It wouldn’t add anything to our lives that we don’t already have, apart from the tick-box seal of approval from society.’
Emily, cohabiting for three and a half years
‘We have moved around quite a few places together trying to find our feet and for jobs, we finally settled now in Kent.
‘We aren’t getting married as it just isn’t on the cards right now, firstly because of money… weddings are so expensive.
‘I think we would rather use that kind of money on moving to a bigger place or a new car or something if we were able to save up that much.
‘There is so much pressure, I’m 28 and he is 30, everyone is always asking when we will be the next couple to announce a pregnancy or get engaged.
‘Not everyone understands that you don’t have to go through life in a specific order and ticking boxes of “life achievements”.’
Sara-Aisha, 17 months of cohabiting
‘We talk about getting married all the time (he’s asked me my taste in rings etc) but we have spoken about it and we want to get a mortgage first before we spend money on a wedding.
‘We are really lucky that we love our flat and it’s not that expensive for London (as an old boss of mine is the landlord) so we aren’t in a rush, we were planning to buy this year but now waiting to see how Brexit plays out, with prices going up or down etc.
‘We choose to live together because of our age and seriousness of the relationship, he’s 33, I’m 27, and we wouldn’t want to be living in a house share or with other people.
‘Also if I didn’t live with him I wouldn’t ever see him due to my work schedule.’
Aiofe, cohabiting for a year
‘Me and my boyfriend got together after he moved into my apartment share – so slightly different!
‘But we will be moving out together on our own in Oct after seven months of dating. As we’re so new, marriage is something down the road in two years time but we’ve agreed its something that’s still both important to us.
‘I’m an only child so I’m doing it more for my parents rather than myself.’
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