Pseudo Marriage

"...becoming serious about pairing up in their middle to late twenties and then start the rehearsals that will prepare them in their thirties for marriage."  Unhooked

My friend Paul enlightened me to the pseudo marriage. We were driving home to Delaware and he was telling me about the girl he started dating, and how she was really cool.  "She isn't down with the pseudo marriage." I had no idea what he was talking about.  Paul explained to me the new dating rules. When our parents were dating they had this concept of going steady.  We simply removed that step and went from hooking up to the pseudo marriage.  When someone finally decides to become official. They start to engaged in marriage like activities.  That range from family events, 5-7 night a week sleep overs, and the daily check in.  I thought about this...Paul may have something here.

One of my best friends Amanda spends about 70%  of her relationship of about four years attending his family functions. Every weekend its I have to go to Josh's step brothers girlfriends sisters baby shower or I have a wedding of Josh's step mom's niece.  I honestly don't know how she does it.  Family functions can be fun, occasionally but the non stop family outing can lead to insanity.

In my last relationship I found myself guilty of the check in call and the constant sleep over. I dont even know why we started doing it. It seemed that my exboyfriend and I couldnt do anything without the check in text or phone call. "Hey, just wanted to let you know I am home from the gym..."  I am pretty sure this made him crazy, and in turn it made me crazy. It became such a habit that when we didnt do it, I thought something was wrong.  The same for the sleep overs. 

Is it normal to live separately and spend almost every night sleeping (and I do mean sleep) together?   If that's the case why not move in?  Something I swore I never I wanted to do until I was married.

And so you have the pseduo marraige.