The Cohabitation Effect: Fact or Fiction?

Living together before marriage: do or do not?

I'm a Southern girl who was born and raised a Lutheran, and according to some co-workers, this is why I am against living with your significant other before marriage. According to an article written by Meg Jay for the NY Times, cohabitation in the US has increased by 1,500% with more than 7.5 million unmarried couples living together. And subsequently couples who live together are more likely to divorce than couples who do not. So, why do it?

The resounding response among those I asked was that you have to live with a person to truly know them. That everyone is on their best behavior until, apparently, you live together, at which point the real person you're dating comes out. I would hope you're not moving in with someone that you've only just started dating, that you move in together after at least a year, because in my mind living together is pretty serious. And if you've been together that long and they're still on their best behavior? Let me know where you met them, because I want to find someone like that.

I think that's where I fall on the other side of the fence on this debate. Serious. I understand some people live together because it's easier than having 2 rents or mortgages to pay, and if you are at each others house all the time...but that just sounds like a recipe for disaster. You're not living together for commitment purposes, mainly for convenience, so what's to stop one of you from calling things off and moving out the second the other leaves clothes on the floor or moves your spices?

I think nowadays, too many people take what used to be serious steps in a relationship with the mindset of, well, if it doesn't work out, I'll just move or we'll get divorced. There's an easy out that prevents people from working through things, and what once was sacred is now just, meh. Yes, I completely understand and see that that statement makes me the most traditional person, I am who I am. That being said, I can understand where my debaters are coming from, in a sense. You say you want to make sure you mesh with this person 24/7. Fair enough, but what I'm hearing is, you want to take the uncertainty out of a relationship. You want to see how they deal with conflict when one arises between you two? I'm sure there will plenty of opportunities to experience that when you're married. And ultimately, how long do you live together before you finally tie the knot? Do you set a deadline and, if you're still together when it comes, you get married? Or do you wait for a reason to end things?

Yes, I'm a traditionalist and I understand that I might be a dying breed. But I don't see the point of living with someone before marriage. Why buy the cow if you get the milk for free?

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Those Winter Sundays
By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

A dear family friend sent me that poem after my last post (see here: http://justemachance.blogspot.com/search/label/kate%20middleton) and I'm so glad he did. So many times it's the unseen, thankless acts that love is found in and so many times those go overlooked. Of course, once mentioned you think back and review/realize the little things in your life that were done out of love. Dinner on the table by 6, dishwasher unloaded, a dog taken out in the morning. He raises a good point, the unprovoked gestures and acts are most often the sweetest and most love-filled gestures out there. Those acts can be the simplest gesture, making the coffee in the morning or staying in on a Friday night, or the things that are larger in scale but slightly convoluted.

So the next time your sheets are washed or your car is full of gas, remember the love inside those gestures. It makes the little things so much more, and that much more special. And the next time you're wondering if the love is really there, just look back on those gestures to find your answer.

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