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romantic tips for the romantically challenged |
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Cohabitation Before
Marriage: Good or Bad? |
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Dear Michael:
Do you think couples should live together 6 months
before they get married?
Karen Female 22
Toronto, Canada,
Together
1 year 2 months |
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The "live in" boyfriend/girlfriend idea,
failure is nearly 80%. |
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Dear Karen: Your question addresses prior to
marriage and I'm assuming you're engaged. This does
change issues and many couples will merge households the month
before the wedding to prevent dealing with the hassles after
the honeymoon. During this time the person moving in
will usually stay with a relative.
TOP
In most cases, actually living together
prior isn't recommended. You've got enough stress on you
preparing for the biggest change in your life, as does he.
Give each other some space to transition into your new life
spiritually, emotionally and physically. The quiet time apart
and away from each other will be welcomed. It will also
make your time together prior to marriage less stressful and
you can enjoy each other rather than the inevitable nuisances
of "married life" and mood swings stressful situations will
put on both of you. You've got the rest of your life to
enjoy and wrangle with these! Why rush it?
I see you're 22. Six months probably
seems like a long time but it really isn't. If indeed
you're getting married in six, hang tight where you are and
let both of you get use to the idea at your own pace.
One more thought, why do you feel it's
necessary to "practice' marriage first by living together?
Do you have some doubts? If so, not living together
first will allow you to find out if you do and explore those
on your own without being influenced or under the eyes and
pressure of your fiancé, his family and friends.
As for co-habitation in general, I've
written a few articles on this and the following on living
together outside of marriage.
TOP
My own numbers (85% failure rate among those who
live together before marriage), comes from my own research and
extrapolations of studies I've read in the past. Since I have
not published any of these, nor do I intend to publish them,
I'll direct you to some recent studies done by others.
TOP
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One study that you may find interesting was done by Bennett,
Blan, and Bloom (American Sociological Review, 1988, Vol 53:
127-138) entitled, "Commitment and the Modern Union: Assessing
the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent
Marital Stability."
The point made by the authors is that, overall, the risk of
divorce after living together is 80% higher than the risk of
divorce after not living together, which is already too high.
In other words, those who live together before marriage are
almost twice as likely to divorce than those who did not live
together. But they also point out that the risk of divorce is
even higher if you don't live together more than three years
prior to marriage. The longer you live together prior to
marriage, the less the risk of divorce until after 8 years of
living together, when the risk of divorce is equal to those
who have not lived together.
TOP
Another interesting study was conducted by Hall and Zhao
(Cohabitation and Divorce in Canada, Journal of Marriage and
the Family, May 1995: 421-427). They write,
The popular belief that cohabitation is an effective strategy
in a high-divorce society rests on the common-sense notion
that getting to know one another before marrying should
improve the quality and stability of marriage. However, in
this instance, it is looking more and more as if common sense
is a poor guide.
Their study showed that cohabitation itself was shown to
account for a higher divorce rate, rather than factors that
might have led to cohabitation, such as parental divorce, age
at marriage, stepchildren, religion, and other factors. In
other words, other factors being equal, you are much more
likely to divorce if you live together first.
TOP |
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general accepted belief in the psychological community
is that couples who live together prior to marriage,
(engaged couples leading up to marriage together the
last month or so are not included in this figure)
experience 2X the failure rate of the relationship,
(never marry) and if they marry, are 2.5 times more
likely to divorce.
Age plays a major role
in this. Under thirty, due to maturity levels,
income situations and lack of real-life experience
coping skills and an idealism often afforded to "live
in" boyfriend/girlfriend idea, failure is nearly 80%.
Most people who enter
into this situation once, learn the hard way and don't
do it again without "the ring" and "the vows".
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More Research &
Studies
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Balakrishnan, Rao, et. al., (1987)
A
hazard model analysis of the covariates of marriage
dissolution in Canada. Demography, 24, 395-406.
Booth and Johnson (1988). Premarital cohabitation and
marital success. Journal of Family Issues, 9, 255-272.
Bumpass and Sweet (1989). National estimates of
cohabitation. Demography, 26, 615-625.
DeMaris and Leslie (1984). Cohabitation with the
future spouse: Its influence upon marital satisfaction
and communication. Journal of Marriage and the family,
46, 77-84.
DeMaris and Rao (1992). Premarital cohabitation and
subsequent marital stability in the United States: A
reassessment. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54,
178-190.
Teachman and Polonko (1990). Cohabitation and marital
stability in the United States. Social Forces, 69,
207-220.
Teachman, Thomas
and Paasch (1991).
Legal status and
the stability of co-residential unions. Demography,
28, 571-486.
Thompson and Colella, (1992). Cohabitation and marital
stability: Quality or commitment? Journal of Marriage
and the Family, 54, 259-267. |
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DeMaris and MacDonald (Premarital Cohabitation and Marital
Instability: A Test of the unconventionality Hypothesis,
Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1993: 399-407), echo
Hall and Zhao. They found that the unconventionality of those
who live together does not explain their subsequent struggle
when married. There is something about living together first
that creates marital problems later. They write:
Despite a widespread public faith in premarital cohabitation
as a testing ground for marital incompatibility, research to
date indicates that cohabitors' marriages are less
satisfactory and more unstable than those of non-cohabitors.
TOP
Undoubtedly there are some self-selection factors that make
people who live together more prone to marital problems later.
But the gist of current research is that these factors are not
enough to explain the astonishingly huge effect. Simply
stated, if you live together before marriage, you will be
fighting an uphill battle to save your marriage.
If you like to spend your evenings hidden among the
periodicals of your local library, To Your Left are some other
studies that show how risky it is to live together
before marriage. Also Read:
Commitment
vs Cohabitation |
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