Grandmothers would appear like such prudes these days. The culture prioritizes everything she would frown upon in relationships.
We are young and experimental. Younger folk want to explore the opposites of what their families showed them.
Who can blame this younger generation?
Many twenty-somethings have lots of traumas to work through. Several have been in therapy.
When you want something different, you act brand new.
I am happy to say this list is not about terrible dating trends. Instead, these are couples working on building healthy relationships. The hope is to find what works best for their individual needs and general partnership. They want to avoid gaining more trauma.
They also aim to skip repeating parental mistakes and emotionally scaring their children.
If you have adopted these practices — you are also letting go of the usual societal restrictions. You choose odd commitment styles which work for you.
Do you have these millennial and Gen Z couple habits?
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Relationship Testing
The pandemic pushed us further apart. The global recession left us no choice but to live together.
It is never too soon to move in with someone. Thanks to the world’s housing market.
If you aren’t earning several figures per month, house payments will force you to share.
“Roughly 20% of unmarried couples between the ages of 26–29 live together. This age demographic has the highest number of unmarried couples cohabitating, followed by couples between the ages of 30–34 (15.4%). Less than 7% of unmarried couples over 65 live together.” — Bankrate.
Of course, millennials and Gen Zs have put their positive spin on the situation. These couples view it as a relationship test.
Marriage does not equal happiness.
Couples prefer to test the union and co-parent if things don’t work out. Separation from this arrangement is also way cheaper.
In America, you are more likely to find cohabiting adults (82%) than married people (52%). After all, the quiet quitting stories I read. It is possible many married people are cohabiting, too.
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Professional Third Wheel
Millennials and Gen Z are not going to therapy as a personal assignment.
It is also a valued activity for couples. They want to prevent problems, not fix them later.
“In a 2017 study, millennials have attended couples therapy the most (51%). This figure got followed by baby boomers (48%) and Gen Xers (46%).” — Choosing Therapy.
Communication and mutually beneficial actions are challenging choices for young couples. Instead, of facing these hurdles alone, younger and modern couples seek professional help.
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Open minded about partner choice
We have become a diverse nation. Once people talked down this behavior as a trend. They claimed people were learning to prefer mixed babies.
But the practice of interracial couples continues to grow. First, it took media prominence during the BLM movement. Now? It receives recognition through the “adding spices behind their back” social media trend.
I am happy to see cultures blending and families accepting each other.
“The share of recently married blacks with a spouse of a different race or ethnicity has more than tripled, from 5% in 1980 to 18% in 2015.” — Pew Research.
“Ninety-four percent of U.S. adults now approve of marriages between Black people and White people.” — Gallup.
Love is love. That’s all that matters.
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Division of housework economics
“Who should do housework?” Will always be the internet’s greatest debate.
Young and modern-day couples don’t care about online opinions. Heck, they will go against the norm to go viral. But behind closed doors, these partners will have a fair division of house labor.
“The percentage of college-educated men cooking increased from 37.9% in 2003 to 51.9% in 2016. But men with less than high school education who cook did not change (33.2% in 2016).” — Nutrition Journal.
“A majority of women (59%) say they do more household chores than their spouse or partner, while 6% say their spouse or partner does more.” — Pew Research.
Views are changing.
Younger men want to be more involved in the home duties.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com