Matt Wetrich leads a double life.

During the day, he is a second-year student in landscape architecture at Iowa State. In the evening, though, when most of his classmates return to the dorms or to an apartment shared with friends, Wetrich veers off the beaten path.

He returns to the house he shares with his girlfriend of four years, Ashley Traul.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 4.9 million unmarried men and women live together, or cohabitate.

This number represents a significant increase from the 500,000 Americans who lived together in 1970, which at that time represented less than one-half of 1 percent of the total U.S. population.

According to the 2000 Census, 1.7 percent of the population in Ames is living with an unmarried partner. This is less than the state average, which is 1.9 percent.

Today, the percentage of adults in the United States who cohabitate hovers at about 2 percent.

Iowa City is slightly higher than the state average, with 2.3 percent of the city’s population living together.

Wetrich, 23, and Traul, 24, moved in together 18 months ago, after Traul completed school in Minneapolis.

“At the time it was, economically, the most convenient thing to do,” said Wetrich, senior in landscape architecture.

Michelle Frisco, assistant professor of sociology, said cost considerations prompt a lot of college couples to live together.

“[Students say] it’s cheap. And, if you spend all of your time with a significant other, why not live together?” she said.

Cohabiting in the United States, once considered to be “living in sin,” has lost some of its stigma.

Frisco attributes current acceptance of the practice to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which prompted college students to revoke gender mores of earlier generations.

“People have always cohabitated in the United States,” Frisco said. “It just became more recognized once white, middle-aged college students started doing it.”

Traul, who currently works as an aesthetician in a day spa in Ankeny, said she wasn’t prepared for some of the “little things” that came with living with a significant other.

“There are little annoyances, like who puts the dishes in the dishwasher and putting the toilet seat down,” Traul said.

Both she and Wetrich said the living arrangement has placed undue stress on their relationship, especially since she is working full-time while he is enrolled at Iowa State.

“It’s similar to any other roommates in some aspects,” Wetrich said.

“But it gets a little harder when more emotion and feelings are involved.”

Cohabiting usually tests the waters before marriage, Frisco said.

Unmarried couples who live together are actually more unhappy than married couples, however.

Conflict is more prevalent and the relationship is more likely to end in breakup than end in marriage.

Cohabiting couples who marry are also more likely to divorce, Frisco said.

“A lot of people who live together act more like dating couples than married couples,” said Alicia Cast, assistant professor of sociology.

Couples who live together might be less committed to the idea of marriage, Frisco said. She said it’s also possible that married couples who don’t live together before the wedding ceremony divorce at the same rate as those who do, but it takes them longer to get there.

Wetrich suggested college couples live in separate places if it’s economically feasible.

Although both he and Traul enjoyed seeing each other on a daily basis, they will move to different appartments in the fall.

“I think it’s been a good learning experience,” Traul said.