Live-in relationships are becoming more and more common in India. However, it is still a taboo topic of discussion in the society. And the very reason behind this is the notion of sexual relationship between the live-in-partners associated with it.

Though, whatever the society may perceive, living with your girlfriend or boyfriend 24*7 cannot be just about sharing sexual intimacy.

A girl with the user name Udita Pal has put some light on the subject in a post on question-answer site ‘Quora’. Her real life experience written in the online post seems to break many pre-conceived notions about the concept of live-in relationship in India.

Here’s what she wrote:

“I practically live with my boyfriend” and every time someone hears these words, they imagine monkey sex every time couple hit their room but living with your partner is much more than that. Once you start living with your boyfriend, you have more than just physical intimacy, there are nights when you wake up in his arms and then there are nights when he is scrolling down his emails. Some afternoons you go out on romantic brunches and in some, you watch movies on the bed. Being with your boyfriend all the time is extremely draining because after a certain point you cannot ask “What’s up?” anymore.

There will be days when you will argue about him spending hours in the washroom when you are on pee spree and then days when you will be seducing him into joining you into the shower. Some nights you will wake up to his phone showing Tinder notifications and some days he will be peeping into your WhatsApp chats. Some may not like it, some may find it irritating, but this is how relationships go. Life cannot be like a Sitcom where the moment you enter your place you take off clothes and hump. Some nights you will throw your bag and just crawl into bed with him and talk about life. Sometimes you will ask uncomfortable questions about the future, sometimes your alarms will go wrong and you will fuck up office hours, some days you will cook for them to say sorry about the other night and all but it will always be more than just having sex.

The very idea of living with boyfriend sounds romantic, but it puts so many restrictions on you and brings power to you at the same time. It triggers expectations of having a future with him and when that scale doesn’t match it leads to a lot of heated arguments and tears. Some nights you will wake up to him coding and it will be hard to make him go back to sleep. He cannot perform all the time; you cannot be in the mood all the time. Sometimes you ask questions you are not supposed to and there are some nights when you spend hours deciding what you will eat and last but not the least, sometimes, you will have to share your last piece of cake with them and you cannot help it.

This is what living with your boyfriend is like- A roller coaster ride. And living with your boyfriend is much more than sex.”

This post was first published on Quora.