Cohabitation in the Various Forms of Its Practice

In this piece, I am going to tackle the subject of cohabitation in the various forms of its practice. First, I’d like to ask whether cohabitation has become a replacement for marriage or simply the most common step before marriage. I’m going to answer this question in three parts, first by looking at people who are choosing cohabitation after a divorce, by looking at married couples, and, finally, by looking at younger people. Then, I’d like to ask whether cohabitation is healthy for relationships. In this section, I’ll address two cohabitation myths. Finally, I’d like to comment on what I think the Church actually envisions for dating and how cohabitation misses the mark once again.

Cohabitation: Replacing Marriage or the First Step toward Marriage?

A) Response to Failed Marriage

A report from 2017 by Pew shows cohabitation rates up 29% since 2007 (Stepler, 2017). When I think of cohabitation, I picture two 20-something individuals head over heels in love deciding to move in together after college. Actually, this is not so accurate. Cohabitation is replacing marriage most dramatically among middle-aged couples who have decided against marriage after experiencing a divorce. The report states, “Since 2007, the number of cohabiting adults ages 50 and older grew by 75%.” In fact, the report shows that “Most cohabiters ages 50 and older have previously been married, including a majority who are divorced (55%).” I think these statistics are revealing. Also, consider the fact that 40-50% of marriages are ending in divorce according to the American Psychological Association and that the divorce rate for people in their fifties and older has doubled since the 90s (Stepler, 2017). Cumulatively, this information shows that cohabitation is often the choice of adults who have given marriage “a shot.” Thus, to answer the question of marriage being replaced, we could look at people approaching middle-age who have definitely decided against marriage from experiencing it.

B) Cohabitation as a Step Towards Marriage

It’s another world when one looks at married couples. From their perspective, their years of cohabitation were the first step towards marriage and a bigger commitment. A 2019 article on The Institute for Family Studies reveals that as of 2015, 67% of married couples reported cohabitating before marriage (Stanley and Rhoades, 2018). This article goes on to talk about the high rate of divorce among these couples, but I will get into those statistics a little later. For now, it seems clear that for many couples cohabitation is not a replacement of marriage even though as we know marriage is on a rapid decline. A piece in the Atlantic entitled “The Science of Cohabitation: A Step Toward Marriage, Not a Rebellion” sites a Pew Research Center poll from 2011 which shows “60 percent of Americans who have ever lived with a partner before marriage saw their living situation as a precursor not an alternative to wedded bliss” (Fox, 2014). I include the title of this article because I think it’s so suggestive of how a married, former cohabitator would tell his or her story.

Single and Young

Finally, we come to the population of young singles who are choosing cohabitation over marriage. A US Census Bureau 2018 report states “Among those ages 18-24, cohabitation is now more prevalent than living with a spouse: 9 percent live with an unmarried partner in 2018, compared to 7 percent who live with a spouse” (Gurrentz, 2018). The Pew Research Center says that most unmarried people say “they haven’t found the right person” (Parker and Stepler, 2017). From this information, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that cohabitation is more like a step to finding the right spouse than it is the kind of rejection of marriage which, I think, we see among people who have tried marriage.

Overall, looking at these three groups of people, it’s not hard to see that in one way or another marriage is being replaced by cohabitation. It might start out as a step towards marriage, and in a lot of cases, it may actually be precursory to a marriage. However, because as we shall see cohabitating relationships do have higher chances of ending in divorce, even cohabitation that leads to marriage eventually may drive down the number of marriages later.

Why Do People Believe the Myths?

I believe we can pretty definitively say that cohabitation does not increase the chances of a marriage lasting. According to the Institute for Family Studies, there is a majority opinion among the public that living together prevents divorce although, as the Institute states “Regardless, we believe that there is considerable evidence that some patterns of living together before marriage are associated with increased risks for less successful marriages” (Stanley and Rhoades, 2018). There is another study by the same institute showing that marital satisfaction goes down significantly based on the number of sexual partners a spouse has before marriage. Yet, people continue to believe that cohabitation and sexual relations with more than one partner before marriage is healthy and helpful. So, why do people believe these things? To be fair, it’s partly because there is a lot of “bad science” that is telling them it is true. However, it’s not just that people are being misled. Actually, if people cared to look, they would find that even magazines offering popular wisdom are beginning to warn about cohabitation. In fact, the Atlantic article I quoted above cites several experts who advise thinking twice before moving in with someone.

Myth 1: Cohabitation Helps You Get to Know Someone

I think a lot of people want to cohabitate because it seems like a way to get to know the other person. However, there is really no guarantee of this. What may happen instead is that a couple avoids really getting to the big questions because they would rather not rock the boat. In Couples in Love, Fr. John R Waiss writes “A couple would benefit more by exploring each other’s likes and dislikes, interests, and hobbies or what each desires in forming a family . . . These things are what matter on a day-to-day basis in marriage. Yet physically involved couples often fear addressing such topics, because they are potentially disruptive to the relationship and the physical intimacies” (Waiss, 67). This is in a way akin to what Fox writes in the Atlantic piece about “cohabitors [who] ‘slid into’ a marriage with much consideration. Instead of making a conscious decision to share an entire life together, couples who shared a dog, a dresser, a blender were picking marriage over the inconvenience of a break up” (Fox, 2014). Of course, to Waiss’ point, it’s not simply inconvenience, it’s also about sexuality, which gets to another myth.

Myth 2: It’s Very Important to be Sexually Compatible Before Marriage

In even daring to tackle this myth, I feel humbled since I know others have written about it and with much more eloquence than I can. First of all, as I just pointed out sex can become a distraction to finding true compatibility. As Fr. Waiss points out sexual incompatibility is not the reason most people divorce rather it’s because “they have a lot of issues they haven’t worked out before marriage” (65). Second, as priests have pointed out to me, there are other means of testing physical compatibility which are not sinful. Attraction is already a pretty good indication of compatibility. Finally and most importantly, it’s not really sexual compatibility that matters so much as discovering “whether there is unconditional love on both sides” (Waiss, 64). Sex before marriage makes unconditional love very hard to occur. Though such sex outwardly professes “I am all yours,” “Nevertheless it is still a deceitful lie because it does not reflect the spiritual reality of a full commitment before God and the world. It doesn’t respect the totality of the gift that the other person is giving” (Waiss, 61). Premarital sex is a lie that damages both parties because although it is pleasurable it doesn’t give either person what they really want: the gift of the other person.

Let’s sum this up with a story that could as well be real. In an episode of a popular Netflix TV show which I won’t name, the protagonist who is an everyman type finds himself breaking up with his live-in girlfriend. After seeing a mutual friend tie-the-knot with his girlfriend, the protagonist realizes his present girlfriend just isn’t the one. He just can’t see them spending “forever” together as much as he likes her. By worldly standards, he’s done everything he should have. They’ve had magical experiences together and plenty of great sex. He’s puzzled by his realization but he can’t shake it. Actually, it’s a brilliant piece of writing because it shows in a nonjudgmental way that the protagonist has never really been thinking about “forever” with his girlfriend. He’s been skating by without asking the tough questions. Asking the “forever” question ends up breaking his relationship – it’s just too much for them. He goes abroad where he falls in love with a woman who is engaged to another man. Will he ever find the one? He’s asking the same question as 59% of unmarried adults. I think the point I get from this show is probably not what the producer intended. I see a world in which many people have gone into cohabitation with the “best intentions” only to find that the experience actually makes it harder to commit to someone.

What Should Dating Look Like?

The world speaks of “falling in love” and a lot of love songs use imagery and lyrics that suggest being a slave to love or the other person. It’s all about losing control and embracing the mad force of love. The Catechism tells us something very different. It says “Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC 2339). Later, it says “Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self” (CCC 2346). I actually think quite a few people think that cohabitation is going to make them more mature, more self-controlled, but actually the opposite happens. They’d probably do better to think of courtship as akin to friendship. The Catechism writes “Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion” (CCC 2347). I would propose that dating be more like a friendship than a romance because in the end romance probably does better if it is more like a friendship. The problem with cohabitation is that it almost tries to have both an intense romantic relationship and a friendship. It combines a roommate like situation that works better with a friend, with a de facto marriage arrangement. As most of us know, it’s not fun to get mad with your roommate, but it’s not nearly as intense or dangerous to the relationship, if things end up not working out as it is with a live-in lover.

Final Thoughts

I started out by asking whether cohabitation was replacing marriage. My answer to this question was yes. Whether it’s 24 year-olds deciding to delay or forego marriage or it’s divorced adults deciding not to remarry, cohabitation is starting to be the norm. Then, I asked whether this trend was good for relationships. I think I showed with both statistics and Church teaching that it does not make for bliss. I’ll just mention one more set of statistics. In recent studies, marital satisfaction among men with one partner was charted at 71% and at 65 % for men with two or more. For women, it was 65% vs as low as 52% (Wolfinger, 2018). Also, women with more than one sex partner were 30% more likely to divorce (Wolfinger, 2016). Of course, we know that cohabitation makes more partners more probable. Also, Church teaching helps us see why cohabitation is essentially a lie that leads to unhappiness and broken relationships and, yes, more partners. Finally, I asked what dating should look like and my answer based on the Catechism was friendship, a tall order for many, but the only way to be honest in a premarital relationship. My ultimate conclusion is that cohabitation appears to be a no-brainer to a majority of Americans, but is in fact destroying our relationships.