Research published in February of this year confirms previous research that has found that if you have an interest in marrying a person, you’re better off not living with them before you get engaged. Rhoades et al. (2009) compiled their study by phoning 1,050 individual men and women from different relationships and asking them to complete a brief telephone survey. Participants were generally younger (18 to 34 years old) and had been married for 10 years or less.
The majority of participants (91.8%) had never been divorced. Regarding cohabitation history, 40.5% reported that they did not live with their spouse before marriage, 16.4% cohabited only after engagement, and 43.1% cohabited before engagement.
After administering their survey — which included demographic information, relationship satisfaction questions, and the potential for divorce — the researchers crunched the numbers and found what previous research had also found: Those couples who had lived together before making a commitment to marriage (e.g., before getting engaged) reported significantly lower quality marriages and a greater potential for divorce than those who didn’t live together at all, or those who lived together only after getting engaged.
The researchers’ findings remained significant even when they controlled for other potentially explaining variables, such as length of the marriage, religiousness, and education levels. The researchers also did not find any significant differences “based on cohabitation history for the level of friendship between partners or for satisfaction with the sexual/sensual relationship.” In other words, having a closer partner friendship or increased sexual satisfaction didn’t change their findings.
What might explain the differences between the two groups — those who live together before they get engaged, and those who don’t? The researchers have some ideas:
These findings are consistent with the theory that some cohabiting couples may go on to marry partly because of constraints associated with living together (e.g., tangible investments, social pressure). Settling on marriage during cohabitation is a risk factor for having more problems in marriage.
Our advice? If marriage is your eventual goal in a relationship, it might be best to forgo the convenience of living together in the short-term and instead put off such living situations until you get engaged.
If, on the other hand, you have little intentions toward marriage or a long-term commitment with the person, feel free to shack up. Just be aware that doing so does put you at greater risk for an unhappy marriage if your intentions do change. It doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion, just something to be aware of (and perhaps take proactive steps to ensure the quality of the relationship is maintained after marriage).
Read the full article: Living Together First Can Spoil Marriage, Study Finds
Reference:
Rhoades, GK, Stanley, SM & Markman, HJ. (2009). The pre-engagement cohabitation effect: A replication and extension of previous findings. Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 23(1), Feb 2009. pp. 107-111.
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Is Cohabitation A Bad Way To Trial Run Marriage? « Camels With Hammers (7/20/2009)
8 Comments to
“Thinking of Moving In? Think Again if Goal is Marriage”
Although they controlled for various things, there are still other possible factors that may explain why people who are already more prone to unhappy marriages are more likely to cohabit before getting engaged (e.g. conservatism, other personality factors, cultural factors). I think it is premature to assume that the causality of a poor marriage stems from cohabitation before getting engaged, and so possibly not good advice that not cohabiting will change the course of one’s future marriage.
I also think that it is premature causality.
While reviewing results one could find that SD’s of people living with spouses before engagement and marriage are bigger than in other groups. There could be more variability in those results. I can imagine that there could be (at least) two groups of people: those who get married “because they already live together” (cohabitation effect) and those who are dedicated to the relationship and because of that live together and get married. If it is like this, there’s no simple causality. If that was the case, the people living together before engagement and marriage would be a bit more extreme (more satisfied or less satisfied, but less likely to be average etc.).
This is not the first study to come to this conclusion… as I said, this is confirmatory research, meaning the living together before engagement thing is a pretty robust finding at this point.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean you can’t live together before your engagement and not have a successful marriage. It only means that you may have a statistically higher risk of having your marriage end in divorce.
Maybe I missed it, but did the articles about the study or the study itself ever look at how long people were living together before getting married?
My wife and I were living together for 4 years before getting married, after which it felt as though nothing had changed (except for our tax situation)in our relationship - it continued to remain strong.
I can imagine people who live together for long periods of time (years) before getting married have a better relationship after marriage then those living together for a few months.
This would still be consistent with the theory regarding tangible items and social pressures. Those who live together for longer periods of time are likely doing it because of the intrinsic return they get from the relationship, rather than some outside force.
Likewise, couples living together for long periods of time may actually change their beliefs about their relationship, as they begin to re-question why they continue to be with that person. While they may have initially been influenced by extrinsic motivators, they may now be influenced by intrinsic motivators after re-consideration (ie “We’ve been living together for 3 years. At first I thought doing so would benefit me financially, but now I think I must truly had, and continue to, love him/her”).
But isn’t this making the basic statistical error of confusing correlation with causality?
The fact that there is a higher rate of divorce among those who live together before getting married than those who don’t does not demonstrate that the one is the cause of the other.
I’d hazard a guess that the folk who don’t live together before marriage tend to be religious, and that those who are religious tend to have a lower rate of divorce.
The reality is simply that most people do not take the decision to move in together as seriously as the decision to marry. Once they’re living together, marriage becomes the next step—a step that, as long as things are going ok, becomes easier to take than not to.
Then down the road they realize they never actually stopped to seriously consider whether or not they want to be with this person for the rest of their life.
Thanks for that. I find that explanation of the figures pretty convincing.
I’m wondering if there is a “time of onset” issue underlying these data?
For instance, can it be said that marriages last a certain period of time before divorces start piling up? And could it be that the higher rate of divorce among people who have lived together does not take into account their pre-wedding period?
So let’s say couple A marry and move in together, and then divorce seven years later. Couple B live together for three years, marry, and then divorce in four years.
Both couples last seven years, but the wedding date is given precedence, and taints the data?
Just asking. Thanks.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 16 Jul 2009
