The Good Girl's Guide to Living in Sin by Joslin LInder and Elena Donovon Mauer

This post may get a little personal. It's only fair to give a head's up.

I have lived with a boyfriend previously and it went disasterously. First, my credit was not in the best of shape and in order for him t feel comfortable with the purchase of our house, he only wanted his own name on the mortgage and the deed. I couldn't afford to pay as much of the bills as he could so I agreed to grocery shop, use my savings to stock our new home with essentials, and clean the house. The first sign that this was all a mistake was the weekend after we closed on the house. The Ex spent literally a whole day picking up our second hand fridge while me and one of our friends painted. We painted all day. When the Ex discovered a full garbage can, he lost it, screaming at me that I was going to have to do MORE, that women can take out the garbage, in front of both of our parents. It went downhill from there.

During the week, I ate dollar microwaveable meals so that we could have steak and chicken on the weekends. I emptied my accounts trying to keep pace with what was expected of me. HE chose the couch I paid for. One month he spent $90 on shoes when I had less than that to my name. I raised his dog, trained it, and had to leave it when we broke up. I cleaned ceaselessly while also working and pursuing my master's degree. The dog would constantly track dirt on the white carpet and I would be yelled at and lectured about how I needed to take more pride in the house he bought me but every time he was angry about something else he would remind me that it was his house. I was miserable, lonely, and growing more and more withered every day. Then we broke up.

I am getting ready to live with someone again and I don't want it to turn out that way. First of all, this one is absolutely fantastic and I am smitten as a kitten. I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable in my house and I don't want to get myself into the same situation I was in before, where I never even knew what was being done to me until it was too late.

Honestly, this felt like a really solid book. It was well writen and had just enough humor without being corny. It had statistics and reasons why statistics can't always be trusted, even the ones that support the author's views. The chapters are well organized and easy to follow. Most of the advice seemed really good. The only argument I am making is that I have no intention of putting my man's name on the deed to my house until we are married and half of it is leagally his anyway. To me that just seems safer. I kind of liked the idea of a cohabitation pre-nup, but he has all of the nice stuff. Ha, ha. All joking aside, the book was peppered with real life experiences from real life women, good and bad ones. It brought some stuff up that I hadn't thought about and really did make me feel a lot better about the whole process.

One of the last chapters is about breaking up. I love love love that they included this chapter. Now that I am outside my previous experience by a couple of years, I can see that this chapter is well writen. I grew so much! And, just think, I was actually going to marry him! I couldn't have handled that! I was nuts! Two years later I have had a whole new range of experiences and I have even lived on my own. I can make my own decisions now and I have a full time job in a career I love. (I'm a librarian. Can you tell? I can't.) Adding this chapter really rounded out the experience.

So, if you are just out of cohabitation or just heading into it, I liked this book. Maybe you will too.