Why cohabitation hurts healthy marriages
Morality Monday is a column written by the Cornell Review’s staff writers. It aims to provide values-focused commentary on social and political trends.
Today, approximately 70% of couples live together before getting married, a significant increase from just 11% in the late 1960s. Individuals cite testing compatibility, easing the marital transition, sharing expenses, deepening intimacy, or convenience as reasons for moving in together. The appealing logic of cohabitation is, however, shallow. Couples who live together before they are married increase their risk of divorce. Rather than fostering commitment, they destroy the essential foundations of marriage. This trend cannot be fully attributed to the fact that couples who choose not to live together tend to hold more traditional values, making them less likely to separate. Instead, the true cause is the expectations and patterns that cohabitation reinforces.
Couples who live together before they are married are more likely to fall into marriages of convenience. By its nature, marriage demands an intentional commitment stemming from more than the momentum of co-signed leases and shared utility bills. However, premarital cohabitation nudges people toward a wedding out of habit, obligation, and fear of being alone. This practice also pressures couples not to break up due to psychological and logistical consequences, such as having to find new housing. Individuals may feel forced to overlook incompatibilities they may have otherwise confronted.
On the other hand, the comfort of living with someone and a false sense of security can also prevent a marriage. Although comfort is alluring, it can be a deterrent to growth. Two individuals can live a pseudo-married life, sharing apartments, pets, and even Netflix passwords, but without a legal, financial, or moral commitment and no incentive to make one.
Living by oneself teaches independence. It teaches a person how to be self-sufficient. On the other hand, cohabitation may allow people to slip into dependence on each other to fulfill basic household chores. Had my parents moved in together after their college graduation, my father probably would never have learned to cook and my mother to pay her own bills. Independence is discovered and earned through solitude and self-reliance.
Also, it is important to have space away from your partner. As the saying goes “absence makes the heart grow fonder;” it is essential to have the opportunity to miss your partner and to anticipate living together. Many couples felt robbed of their honeymoon period after the wedding, since their day-to-day lives have not changed.
Additionally, there is substantial emotional risk involved in cohabitation. Many couples who live together have broken up. This burdens participants with substantial emotional consequences, making the breakup closer to a divorce than just a simple heartbreak. Living with someone prompts a change in one’s daily habits, syncing one’s routines and life with another person, often in subtle yet profound ways. This may not necessarily lead to growth, but instead accommodation and loss.
It is important to remember that marriage is a leap of faith, and you must go into the relationship with that mindset. Couples who live together before marriage have heightened their chances of divorce as they destroy the key foundations of their marriage. Marriage requires an intentional choice, uncertainty, and independence, all of which are hindered when couples live together before marriage. Marriage is a commitment that can not be sustained by convenience, ease, and comfort; hard work and sacrifice is required.
