OP: moving in with gf and her parents...

1. You are going to have to pay rent sometime somewhere. Sleeping on a friend's couch is going to wear it and your welcome out sooner than later.

2. If you are going to have to pay rent to the girl's parents, you are going to have to pay rent for some room or shared apartment.

3. I would not "move in" together, rather you each sleep in separate rooms and make a no sex rule that you both live by.

4. Yes, working around the house, taking out the trash, doing your laundry and others, vacuuming, dusting, etc., are all worth money if they agree to assign an amount to what you do.

5. Grades may suffer with extra hours at work, so figure out how much extra you can work and not cut into study time.
Have a sit down talk with her parents and hammer out an agreement, then sign it and live by it while living in their basement.

6. If you are worried about grades suffering, consider how much they might very well suffer if you and the girlfriend spend too much time together in one of your rooms. Not a good idea. Concentrate on school work, it is why you are in college and being there is to plan and prepare for your future whether or not the girlfriend continues to support you or you move on to another girlfriend.

7. Think about the proposed arrangement this way: The landlady and landlord have a female college student rooming in their house. Now they plan to have a male. Behave above board just as you would if the girl was a stranger who happens to rent a room, also.

If you want to date, date--outside the house. It is not appropriate to live together nor have activities that will potentially be a distraction to your education and grades. These come first. Relationships are nice but keep them in their place--on the back burner.

dancingdoc2

Posted: 05 Oct 21:20

Thank you for your detailed response doc. I guess I was lacking in the details.

1. My GF's parents don't want me to pay a cent but I feel bad about it so I want to work more to pay them a proper rent. I think I will work more to pay them properly just so I don't feel like I'm being a freeloader.

2) If I accept I would be staying in the same room as my GF. The reason being is that my GF's sister and her stepfathers kids occupy all of the bedrooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors. My girlfriends room is the only bedroom in the basement.

3) I forgot to mention that we've decided to get married after graduation if we're still happy with each other. That's a big reason for my concerns since I really don't want to jeopardize our relationship.

We were having sex on the weekends. So if I do move in do you think it would be best to continue doing that and not allow sex to get in the way on the weekdays?

To be honest I think moving in would be the best answer however as I mentioned the issue with my studies and feeling like a freeloader come into play. Since it's still early on in the semester I can drop a course for a lighter course load but I need to decide by the end of then week otherwise I'm stuck with it. I didn't mention that until now since I thought I was past the cutoff but that seems not to be the case. To not delay graduation I could take classes in the summer as well.

In Vancouver housing prices have more then doubled in the past decade so rent in many places range from $1500-$2000/mth in places that are a reasonable commute time to school and work. So it's really unaffordable unless you're working full time. So I was thinking of trying to pay them around a $1000 a month plus helping out with whatever I can.

Thank you again for your response.

HybridEssence

Posted: 05 Oct 21:20

There is clear acceptance, even approval, of your sexual relationship. On the surface, very good because at about your present age most couples relationships do include sex. Their "advice" may seem supportive but it is also imposing on your relationship. Their sex life is none of your business and your sex life should be none of theirs. They will slowly become central to your relationship with your girl friend. Will this become normative for the rest of your lives.

Today, the typical age for sexual activity falls between 18 and 20 but age at first marriage is 27 or 28. In short, there is much premarital sex being practiced and it often involves more than one partner. Is the offer actually an attempt to "lock in" an acceptable son-in-law? Not consciously devious but perhaps in the back of their minds. You are correct in assuming that your moving in will change the relationship. In your case, not just with your g/f but with her entire family.

There is no easy answer but with your relatively younger ages, this is fraught with dangers. Think it through with an eye on the long term and simply a short term expedient. Personally, I had good sex education from my mother and, especially, an aunt. I would have been less receptive to specific suggestions from my mum. How about your g/f?

Good luck on this one. It may be a perfect solution; it may be the base for a slowly developing disaster. You may turn into "an old married couple" before the age that most educated couples become married. I do believe that I would explore alternate student housing.

Brandye

Posted: 05 Oct 21:21

Thank you for your insight Brandye.

Unfortunately affordable student housing is scarce. I believe the wait list to be excess of a year. I would need to either work full time or take out a large student loan in order to rent a place of my own until I graduate. The idea of going into debt leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well. An alternative would be to see if I can find a friend who has a spare room whom I can pay a partial rent with.

Like many things in life there isn't a clear or easy answer I suppose. I will need to get some more deep thinking on this since I need to make a decision soon. If not on the whole matter but if I will lighten my course load or not.

Once again thank you for your input Brandye.

HybridEssence

Posted: 05 Oct 21:21

I'm assuming that there is no on campus dorms available at this college and that there aren't any slums, which is all "affordable student housing" actually is, that need a roommate?

Because all of this open sharing of sex life is rather creepy, ya know?

How large is this "large loan" anyway? Debt, no matter how it tastes, does have a legitimate purpose. Consult at the college financial aid office.

Independence is a wonderful thing and you should not be in hurry to relinquish it esp at age 20.

EvilEvilKitten

Posted: 05 Oct 21:21

Dear Hy--My college GF, who I had lived with for about 8 months our senior year, had nowhere to live after graduation, and so MY parents offered to have us both move into their basement room. My mom and dad loved her, viewed her as a potential daughter-in-law, and approved of us together. In fact, they were a lot like your parents seem, only this was 40 years ago! In any case, we did live there for about 4 months together, and it was quite fine--in fact, my GF got along with my parents better than I did during our time together under their roof! We married shortly after moving out, and remained together for the rest of her life, so it was all good. My wife adored my parents (most of the time) and they adored her. I also had 2 little sisters living at home at that time, so the place was crowded--my then-GF/soon-to-be-wife helped my mom in the kitchen and garden and with laundry and other chores, but never paid them anything. We, obviously, shared a bed and bedroom, and my parents were also very (sometimes too) open about sexuality, which sometimes made me uneasy, but was so different from my wife's parents that she found it quite refreshing and not at all embarrassing or intrusive. We were in college in Boston at the time, and it was the same deal--student housing wasn't available, and there was nothing we could afford outside of that. She could not go home to live with her parents, so she was stuck with me and mine! It worked out well for us. By the way--if any one of MY 5 children (now ages 30, 29, 27, 22 and 18) brought a similar issue to me, I'd do the same as your GF's parents are doing--offer a place to live (in the context of a romantic relationship) in exchange for yard and house work and making my child happy.
Good luck--it sounds to me like you have wonderful set of potential future in-laws!
Michael

mikkiji

Posted: 05 Oct 21:21

Thank you for your replies EvilEvilKitten and mikkiji.

As hard as it is to believe there is very little in the way of dorms and affordable housing in general on west side of Vancouver. The average single detached home within 30 min or so of the school costs in the neighborhood of $ 2 million. Considering all the traffic congestion I would need to move 90min to 2 hours away from campus to live in a place that's under a $1000/mth. I've heard of seasonal workers and some students pay $1000 mth to have 6 ppl in a 2 bedroom apartment downtown. That would be a bad living situation not to mention only girls do that. Most of the students here either live at home with their parents or are wealthy foreign students.

Thank you for sharing your life experience mikkiji. I'm glad to hear that things can work out very well. Nevertheless I'm finding it very difficult to make a decision.

Thank you for all the input so far. It has been helpful.

HybridEssence

Posted: 05 Oct 21:22

When I was in college I lived upstairs in a private home (room and board) with two-three other guys. A lot of students get together and go together and rent apartments sharing in the rent and utilities. Who knows, local home owners may place their properties on a school roster so that they can rent and get some extra money from students. Check into this.

Craig's List here in Sacramento has a large section on rooms for rent. Hint...hint.

dancingdoc2

Posted: 05 Oct 21:22