I would like to hear what were the circumstances surrounding your final step to independence, and how everyone involved felt about it. Thanks!
(I’ll be back with my own when I’ve got more time).
I began leaving home at 14. It was very dramatic - I jumped out my bedroom window (without shoes) and moved to another town for about a month. One day I’ll write a book that highlights the characters I met in that rooming house - what an education for an extremely sheltered girl.
I went to a boarding school after that - so I hadn’t really left, but since my family moved whilst I was in school - I didn’t really live at home either.
I finally left at 17 and never looked back. I’m sure my leaving was an embarrassment for my parents, as it was still considered ‘running away’ (my older sisters left for marriage) but it was the best and healthiest route for me. I tripped often and hard in the early days, but boy am I resilient now!
I still lived at home while I attended community college. After getting my 3 year diploma I began looking for suitable employment and found none.
I worked for a year at odd part-time jobs: construction labourer, etc. until I finally got the call.
I landed a full time job 400 miles from home.
At the age of 22 I packed a single suitcase, borrowed $300 from my dad and flew and bused my way to a hotel room in a small town. Three weeks later I moved into a shared apartment, paid my dad back the $300 and have never looked back.
How did everyone feel about it? Relieved. I was finally on my own. I got along great with my folks, but I was beginning to be the 800 pound gorilla living in the basement, staying out way too late at night, and not quite entering adulthood the way they envisioned.
Went to college at 18. Went in the military at 20. Thus endeth the tale.
I worked a lot in high school so I wasn’t around much. I had my own money and vehicle. I got into college a few hundred miles away from home and went there. Most everyone in my family moved far away from my hometown while I was away so home didn’t really exist anymore. Home became wherever I was at the time. The end.
It was pretty basic now that I think about it. Is it supposed to be harder than picking up some of your stuff and leaving?
Let’s see. I graduated high school when I was 17. I already had a waitress job, and my best friend had a job too. We rented a tiny house together. I lived on my own until a brief period when I was 22 and temporarily moved back home for about 6 months. After I moved out that time, I never went back.
Everybody concerned was satisfied/happy with all these things. My parents were very laid back, easygoing people and so was I. We didn’t have any drama about any of it.
Went to college at age 18, stopped coming home for summer by about junior year. Around that point I was more or less “out” of the house; I went to grad school right after college, and after that moved in with my boyfriend (now husband).
I know my mom kind of winced a little when I would call my college’s city “home,” but I think she’s also pleased that she raised two kids who were able to get out on their own right off the bat, faced difficulties and overcame them, etc.
I was 18. I knew my parents were moving toward divorce. I woke up one day and my dad and some woman I’ve never seen before were moving stuff out of the house I grew up in. I lived there 13 years. No warning, no nothing.
Neither parent wanted me to live with them since they were both trying to get back into dating. I hadn’t graduated high school yet, but I was living on my own in a rented room.
The next couple of years after that are lost to me. I don’t remember them. Probably blocked them out.
Left home for college. That’s pretty much it.
In junior high school my girlfriend was a senior in college.
I moved in with her (just for the weekend) and we got more and more used to being togeth and then, one day I thought “Holy cow, I haven’t been home in a year!”
My leaving was a little traumatic for me. My father had always encouraged me to stay at home and concentrate on my studies until I graduated college, as it was cheaper all around. 5 months before I graduated though his new girlfriend moved in and convinced my father that I should move out. They took me out to dinner and told me I was going to have to leave. I ended up moving in with a boyfriend and it wasn’t a good situation. I’m still hurt that my dad just went along with his new girlfriend’s wishes like he did.
After high school, I attended college. For one year at the big State U … but I partied too much in my second semester and through a suggestion from my guidance counselor and a wish to not hit the real world yet, I did my next three years at a small satellite of the University that was 20 miles from my teeny-tiny rural home town.
After that … four years of college and no degree to show for it … my older sister had just polished up at beauty school and got herself a job and an apartment with a friend in the big city (Portland, ME).
I said, ‘Can I come?’
She replied, ‘I guess so.’
And off I went.
I graduated high school at 17, started college at 18. Lived in the dorms my first year, then moved into a shared apartment. For the first summer I went home and got a job–after that, I stayed in the college town and worked there. Never looked back, never lived at home again.
My parents and I get along fine, and I doubt they would have minded if I came back for awhile, but I had no desire to. I was always given the impression that it was normal to move out after school, and I agreed completely. Plus, my mother and I get along much better when we’re not living under the same roof. 
Let’s see, you were 13 (+/- 1) in Jr. High School, and your GF was 21 (+/- 1) as a college senior, and you moved in together? That just sounds creepy.
I’m hoping he meant “a junior in high school.”
I was just starting my first semester in college when my Mom told my schizophrenic sister and I that she blamed us for her failing marriage and that she was going to rent an apartment for us and pay the first month’s rent and then we were on our own. There was no way I was going to be responsible for my sister (who got violent when she was off her meds), so I found a cheap basement apartment in another city and got a job bagging groceries. My sister ended up marrying some asshole who put her in the hospital. My Dad is one of those stoic northern europeans who doesn’t say much and I think he was a workaholic around that time. I found out later that my Mom was having numerous affairs.
Thirty five years later we’re on decent terms again.
Holy cow. What does your mother say now about then?
When I was eighteen, I was living with my grandmother. She was paying for me to go to the local community college and taking me to church every time the doors opened. I was extremely unmotivated in school and annoyed in church. One day my boyfriend said, “I’m getting my own place and I want you to move in with me. Otherwise I’m breaking up with you.” I was so stupid, I said yes. Grandma was sad (and later on, so was I).
No, but I think it frequently is. The topic’s on my mind because we have children in our household who are about the right age. Neither of them seems ready to go, and there was a big ugly scene when the last one left, so I just wondered what different experiences people have had.
I had more or less flunked out of college after 2 years, and was back home going to a different college. One night my father blew up at me about how as long as I was living in his house I was going to behave properly (this was because I was trying to have an actual conversation with my mother instead of answering “yes, maam” and “no maam”). I didn’t say anything, but I moved out three days later while they were at work, leaving their keys and a note on the counter. At this time I was 20-1/2.
I’m not sure how my father felt; I understand my mother was worried about me. I didn’t speak to them for six months, until through my sister’s mediation we spent my birthday together. This period was probably the low point in our relationship.
Roddy
My mom’s job moved about 30 miles away from where it had been, and in LA, that’s a pretty big difference with traffic. She said there was no way she was going to continue living where she was to make such a long commute, so she was moving. And she said it was time I spread my wings. That was it. I was 20 at the time. I rented a room out of a house for $350/month and never looked back.