There are only two reasons why I'd move in and live with another girlfriend. We're married and determined to fill a sweatshop with our nimble-fingered love critters. Or she cracks me in the head with a shovel, sews my mouth shut, replaces my eyeballs with marbles, and sits my stuffed body in the corner. Whatever you do, don't move in with your boyfriend. What? It's too late? Sweet Zeus, Odin, and Quetzalcoatl, winged serpent god of the Aztecs! I hope your cohabitation doesn't end the way two (two!) of mine did – with helicopters launching off the roof amidst tornadoes … Read More

The economy is supposedly in recovery, but layoffs are still prominent in virtually every industry. Many more people than usual can relate to a phenomenon usually restricted to the over-60 set: living with an unemployed spouse.

While being laid off and entering into retirement are far from the same, they both often leave one half of a couple with extra time on their hands, and plenty of pent-up energy that their significant other, coming home after a long day at work, can't handle.Read: 4 Reasons To Date The Unemployed

WSJ.com recently wrote an article that shared a … Read More

While recently having dinner with a dear old friend who has joined the married lot, we just had to ask. Come on, we urged. Is there anything about living with your woman that drives you berserk but that you'd never tell her about?

After a bit of prodding, turns out he did have quite a few domestic annoyances. But he viewed them as so mild and trifling that he never planned to bring them up at all. Much of what he said surprised us. We did a bit more informal polling of married folk and halves of cohabiting couples to uncover … Read More

You've heard it from cohabitants time and again: living with someone means making major lifestyle compromises—relinquishing half the bed, the closet, the TV remote, etc. But what about the microscopic adjustments that catch a couple completely off-guard?

The Washington Post just posted this chuckle-worthy piece on the annual thermostat war waged between wives who appreciate the summery climate and husbands who believe in the power of the almighty air-conditioning. Read: 5 Things I Hate About My Marriage

"This is a real phenomenon," said Kathryn Sandberg, director of the Georgetown University Center for the Study of Sex Differences … Read More

Before I got engaged, I used to think a couple's truest test of compatibility and readiness for marriage was living together. What could be more of a test, I reasoned, than successfully sharing the same space, splitting the bills, and delegating household chores while still enjoying each other's company and remaining sexually attracted to one another? That's why, when my boyfriend proposed after nearly a year and a half of co-habitation, I didn't hesitate in saying 'yes.' I'd lived with a boyfriend before—for over three years—and when that relationship eventually became more like brother-sister than boyfriend-girlfriend, … Read More

Men think they are 100% straight shooters. Even if we want to believe that the majority of men have perfect aim (which is NOT true), it's clear that most haven't made the quantum leap necessary to understand the difference between a latrine—which is, by definition, a toilet used only by men—and a bathroom that's in one's home, to be used by everyone who lives in the house, as well as by any visitor. Read: Sharing a Bathroom? Cohabitation Tips

Whether men agree with the following statement or not, nothing can change the reality of it: Leaving the toilet … Read More

Yes, I love my husband and family and wouldn't change a thing about our family unit. Now that I have made that obligatory statement, let me get to my point. There are certain issues that I have with the institution of marriage, which offers both wonderful benefits and incredible challenges, often in the same day. Here are the five things I hate about marriage.

1) Bathroom sharing. Frankly, there is no man on the planet with whom I would willingly share a bathroom (except perhaps an out-of-the-closet gay male with pathological OCD). In my experience, men have horrible toilet aim, … Read More

The master bedroom is the intimate heart of your household. When designing the master bedroom do so with awareness; the bedroom you share with your partner is a container for your love.

Creating a master bedroom with your significant other is a perfect opportunity to honor each other. The process of designing your bedroom with consciousness will deepen your lives and nurture your bodies, minds and spirits on many dimensions.

The following slides show some elements to consider when designing your master bedroom.

To learn more, read "How To Make Your Master Bedroom A Sacred Space."

Check out more at … Read More

Facebook to finances; housewives to one-night stands, if you weren't on top of YourTango this week, you missed out.Video: Facebook Manners and You In what one viewer calls, "the best video describing Facebook since EVER," see what happens when Timmy's and Alice's bad facebook habits clash.Feature: Love, Money & Commitment: The Life Of An Un-Wife Nationally known journalist, author and activist Judith Levine takes readers inside her relationship, and how she and her longtime beau deal with finances. Celeb Love: A-Rod Meets Real Housewife of NYC A-Rod and a Housewife? Say it … Read More

A marriage may or may not be a union of love. It is always a union of property. No matter how you conduct your affairs—joint or separate checking accounts; rooms, even homes, of your own—the state regards you as a unit. The day you sign the license, you and your spouse are taxed as one. And if you break up, you become half of one: it divides your wealth in two. Prenuptial agreements can prevent the foregoing, but prenups are not always enforced (and they never supersede child-support laws). Anyway, lots of people find prenups distasteful. Marriage, they … Read More