Kit Schimandle, a former Cal Poly student, met her boyfriend during the first month of school, and by May they both decided it would be a good idea to live together the following year. By June, they had broken up but still remained friends, and for the next months, their relationship was on and off.
“I started dating someone else so it was really awkward, and then I brought a boy home and he got really pissed. I avoided it all fall quarter, but it was hard talking to my boyfriend with him around, and I didn’t want to move,” Schimandle said.
They put two beds in the room they shared in their Mustang Village apartment, but when the situation become too uncomfortable for Schimandle, she asked her parents to pay for the rest of her lease and moved into Poly Canyon.
“Now I don’t know why we both thought it was going to last,” she said. “We never didn’t get along, and that’s why we are still friends today, but we weren’t working together in a relationship.”
She said living together isn’t for everyone, and couples planning to move in together should have a back-up plan just in case things don’t work out.
After a couple chooses to break up, who gets the apartment becomes the next issue. McNamara Realty office manager Monica Guevara said they have rented several apartments to couples, and they have never had any difficulties with the partners trying to get out of their leases.
“Usually when that happens, they don’t get new roommates and they finish up the year. They are always aware of their lease terms so they don’t try to get out of it”, Guevara said. “It is life and not everyone stays together, but for the most part, we have had good experiences with couples, and no police have ever been involved.”
The number of cohabiting couples in 2007 was 6.4 million, a 22 percent increase from the previous year, according to USA Today. Also, the number of cohabiting couples made up 10 percent of all couples in the U.S., including married and engaged.
The data showed that half of the non-married couples now living together had never been married previously and were under the age of 30.
Despite statistics and research done by organizations like Columbia University that show only 26 percent of women and 19 percent of the men who have married the person with whom they were cohabiting, living together is something that many couples still consider.
After moving out and then back in with their families, Cal Poly journalism senior Alisha Axsom and her boyfriend Keith Santoianni were both ready to be on their own again.
“At least for me, I just really wanted to live on my own, and living with him was already like having a roommate, so it would be like living with a friend rather than someone random,” Axsom said.
They had been dating for a little over a year when they decided to live together. Santoianni said the idea came up casually, and despite having had a bad experience cohabiting with another girlfriend, he knew this time was going to be different. Axsom agreed.
“I was nervous at first ’cause I’d never lived with a boyfriend, but for our part it just felt natural just coming home, having him be there. It made it a lot easier to have our separate lives ’cause we knew we would be coming home to each other,” Axsom said.
When asked if the couple had had any problems since moving in, she said while they have argued, they are no different from any other couple. Santoianni said the biggest conflict the couple has faced was just deciding where to live.
“I grew up in Morro Bay and she grew up in Los Osos, and I hated Los Osos, but we moved to Los Osos,” Santoianni said.
Now as the couple prepares to move into a new apartment in Morro Bay, Santoianni said living with Axsom has worked out better than he had imagined. He added, “I wouldn’t see it any other way.”