Life with Parents: Blessing or Curse?

Few couples want to live with parents after getting married. This was highlighted in a poll, which was carried out by Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) between 12/8/14 and 1/27/15.

In the poll people were asked: “Is it acceptable for you to live with your partner's parents?” Only 30% of respondents prefer to live with their parents or in-laws.

Number of respondents 32,099. From the USA – 54%, from Canada – 4%, from Britain – 13%, Australia – 7% and other countries – 22%.

Joint families were common decades ago, but modern society doesn’t favor them anymore. It’s not easy to live with parents as a teenager and it’s even more difficult to live with them as a married adult. Francesca Di Meglio, newlyweds expert, says: “People end up living with their in-laws for a variety of reasons. Either one of you is having financial difficulties and living together helps you save money or someone is sick and requires special care or your culture requires that you live together. Whatever the reason in-laws live together, it is never an easy life. You’ll probably get on each other’s nerves.” But she also believes that living with parents after marriage has also some advantages: “You can save money and help each other. When you’re working late, perhaps your mother-in-law will cook dinner. Maybe your father-in-law will fix the dishwasher or pick up the kids from school. Things certainly are easier if the in-laws are able-bodied and can pitch in. The biggest positive is that you all get to know each other well and can really become a family.”

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, points out that living with parents for a short period of time after marriage may be a wise thing to do. It may put some stress on the marriage but living paycheck to paycheck without any support and advice from parents may bring in even greater tension in relationships.

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.