A reader of the site recently asked about how to handle being newly
married while living with a roommate. She found that her husband enjoyed
living with another person and spending lots of time with his friends,
while she thought it was hard to feel like a wife creating a new family
and it was difficult to get privacy with her hubby. After reading
numerous forums on various sites, you will learn that lots of married
couples do this, especially as newlyweds, to save money.
Obviously, having a roommate can help offset costs of housing or even
groceries, depending on how much you share with each other. Some married
couples have a single roomie, while others live with other couples. In
some cases, people who are still going to school might take in more than
one roommate at a time.
I can relate. I'm currently living in my husband's childhood home
in his native Italy with him, our son, his mom, sisters, their spouses,
and their children. There are 13 of us, and we each have apartments,
but we eat every meal together, and my in-laws spend most of their time
in the common area of the house.
This is my husband's reality. He has always lived with lots and lots of people. It's no big deal to him when we're in our home
in the United States (in which just the three of us live) to have
guests, who stay with us for months. It's not about money for us. In
fact, it costs us more to have them stay with us because we don't charge
them rent or have them pay for food or electricity/heat. They are our
friends, who need a place to crash because they are usually visiting the
United States from Italy.
We once had an Italian female friend of
ours stay in our basement in the States for three months when we hadn't
been married a year yet. (She ended up celebrating our first
anniversary with us, in fact.)That situation, even more than living with
my in-laws (which is family, so it's slightly different) taught me a
lot about marriage.
One of the major lessons I learned is that
married couples, especially newlyweds, should not live with other people
if they can help it. Our friend was quite respectful and never showed
interest in my husband. But she's an attractive, young woman, and she
and my husband grew up in the same place, have the same friends from
Italy, and went to school to learn English together. Sometimes, I'd get
left out of the dinner conversation. And they are both natural flirts,
which would get on my nerves. I would cook, clean, and keep up with my
full-time job, and I felt like they were getting to have too much fun
together. My husband was always in the main part of the house with me
and she lived in the basement and they are both good people, who didn't
show interest in a relationship with one another - sexual or otherwise -
but it brought unnecessary tension to our marriage in its earliest
days. I wondered, out loud on some occasions, if men and women can be just friends after marriage.
Of course, we overcame the jealousy
and inconvenience. And we're still great friends with our former
roommate. What I've learned from reading the forums is that having
roommates actually suits some couples. They find it to be fun and they
enjoy having company. Plus, it did help many of them save money. Still,
the majority seem to think roommates are bad news. Of the 234 votes
taken on the Weddingbee site, 198 were for "No way, we would ever take
in a roommate." The discussion that follows this poll
is an interesting one worth viewing if you are considering having
roommates or already have them. It includes a range of opinions.
Since most couples seem dead set against having a roommate, read "Roommates - What to Consider" to find out what to consider when deciding whether there is room for a roomie in your marriage.
By Francesca Di Meglio
Newlyweds Expert
