The Chicago Tribune investigates the complicated relationship between cohabitation, marriage, and divorce:
The “cohabitation effect,” as it is called, used to be blamed on the notion that those shacking up were unconventional risk-takers who were not as committed to marriage in the first place, while those who waited until marriage to cohabit were more traditional or religious types unlikely to divorce no matter how tough the going got.
Today, cohabitation is the norm, not some risque arrangement, and while the impact isn’t as pronounced as before, recent studies still show it can negatively affect a marriage. (While not everyone is after a ring, 75 percent of people who cohabit do intend to marry, studies show.)
According to a March report from the National Center for Health Statistics, which was based on the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, men and women who lived together before they got engaged were less likely to reach their 10th anniversary than those who didn’t.
One reason this might be:
According to Scott Stanley, co-director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the University of Denver, couples who move in together gather “constraints” — a shared lease, shared pet, shared cell phone plan, emotional attachments — that make it harder to break up if the relationship goes sour. Inertia can push a cohabiting couple to marry when otherwise they might have broken up…
Too many couples slide into cohabitation without discussing the implications and expectations for the future, Stanley said. The cash-strapped, the clingy and the more committed partners are especially vulnerable to moving too quickly and then getting sucked into an unhappy marriage, he said.
Sociologists, per usual, complicate the story and note that cohabitation’s contribution to a marriage is not totally clear:
[S]ome sociologists think there’s merit to the notion of cohabitation serving as a pre-emptive strike to a doomed marriage.
Cohabitation provides “deep insight into a person you can’t get any other way,” including fidelity and trust issues, said Paula England, professor of sociology at Stanford University.
Wendy Manning, a sociology professor and co-director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University, said situations in which couples live together and then break up might be seen as “premarital divorces.”
“Would we see more divorces if we didn’t see cohabitation?” Manning said. “I don’t know. It’s complicated, and I don’t think there’s one narrative and one story line. There are many different streams that are going on.” …
Jay Teachman, a sociology professor at Western Washington University who has studied cohabitation, said age (over 26) and education (a bachelor’s degree) are far more important predictors of marital success than cohabitation, which he believes has no effect on divorce rate — except for one group.
Serial cohabiters, those who have had more than one live-in romantic relationship, do have a significantly greater divorce risk, his research has found.
Comments 2
John Curtis — July 8, 2010
The are many advantages of cohabitation that no one talks about. Despite all the naysayers, cohabiting has become a new American institution. It is time to change the way we view cohabiters and help them develop committed relationship. Getting married does NOT ensure commitment, since among newlyweds, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women will have an affair within 2 years of getting married.
While marriage is touted as THE only way to truly have a successful, committed relationship, there are many distinct advantages to cohabitation that are often overlooked, a few of which are as follows:
1) Time-bound
One BIG advantage of cohabitation is that it is NOT until death do you part. Instead, it’s more likely bound by the one-year lease you have on your apartment or some other form of limitation set up in your calendar. It can be beneficial to talk upfront about the relationship’s “life-span!” You should consider declaring a particular date 6 or 12 months out, and then sit down at that time to evaluate how well the relationship is going. If things have been good, perhaps you pick a longer time horizon until you do your next check up. If things have not gone well, you’ll more likely find it easier to end the relationship…. the lease is up and so is our time together.
2) Maintain Individuality
One assumption of marriage, like the unity candle ceremony demonstrates during the wedding, is that two people become one. However, suppose you’re not ready to take this bold step. Cohabitation allows you to work on building a relationship without necessarily giving up your individuality. A “separate but equal” approach can help reduce the anxiety that you might feel if you were to “lose yourself” in the relationship. No relationship gets better based on how much you give up to be in it. Living together is a low risk method to see IF you can live with someone, full-time and not diminish your individuality in the process.
3) Eliminate Illusions
It’s been said the if “love is blind” then “marriage is an institution for the blind!” It’s normal that in the early stages of a dating relationship, each partner is trying to put their best foot forward. One of the real shocks that can occur after marriage is to discover that the person you married is not who you thought. Cohabitation affords you the time for the illusions to disappear and the real person to emerge. When this happens in marriage and the image does not match the reality, it can send a shock wave through the marriage and creates a sense of being trapped in a deception. Instead, by living together, while you may be shocked by the reality of your partner’s hygiene habits, lack of anger management, passive-aggressive sniping, at least you’re not trapped… see #1 above.
4) Practice Equality
Successful relationships are about many things including creating a sense of equality. In days gone bye, it was not expected that the man and woman were equals. The man ruled and no one questioned it, despite what may have been disastrous consequences. Now, however, “power with” vs. “power over” is one key to making an intimate relationship work. During the dating phase of a relationship, it’s easy to maintain a “balance of power!” He picks a restaurant, she picks a movie and next time the roles shift. Once you move in together, you have the chance to see just how equal you are with your partner. The question of who controls the TV remote, who cleans the kitchen or who does laundry is quickly answered. The outcome is an important piece of information for you to know about your partner. If you are lucky, your partner values equality and if he or she does not, at least you learned it before walking down the aisle.
While it has been said by many naysayers of cohabitation that you cannot “practice” commitment, I say bunk. Cohabitation has some real advantages over getting married, at least in the short term. The above are just a few.
Basiorana — July 12, 2010
For me, cohabitation was just an excuse to get married before it was socially acceptable. I cohabit with my fiance because there is a significant stigma about getting married young. By cohabiting, I'm basically married to him without people twittering about how I've thrown away my youth.
I like to point out that even 50 years ago, we'd just have gotten married. I know many others who are doing similar things for different reasons-- financial, familial, cultural, and social barriers to marriage.