Cohabitation Poses Many Risks

Great piece by Duane Shepard on living together before marriage.
Check out the entire article here.

'Tis the season for weddings, but it's a little difficult to get starry-eyed at the nuptials when more than half of all American couples have lived together before walking down the aisle.

During the past four decades, the number of cohabiting couples has increased by more than 1,200 percent. What was considered scandalous just a few decades ago is now regarded as the norm. It's virginity that makes the news.

In their book, "Shacking Up: the Smart Girl's Guide to Living in Sin Without Getting Burned," sisters Stacy and Wynne Whitman capture the flippant attitude held by many of the nation's 5 million cohabitants: "By shacking up, you get to test out what marriage would be like. It's sort of like sampling a flavor of frozen yogurt before ordering a dish."

Should couples be encouraged to have a free, no-strings-attached trial period to see whether they're compatible? On the surface, this philosophy might seem to have merit. But despite the widely held notion that this burgeoning practice improves the quality of a subsequent marriage, the evidence shows otherwise.

What studies say

Thirty years of research and scores of studies now confirm what most of us have always known in our hearts to be true: Living together before marriage can be hazardous to your physical, emotional, financial, spiritual and future marital health.

Consider these findings:

» Cohabitation does not lead to marriage in the majority of cases. The median duration of cohabitation is 1.3 years.

» The risk of divorce after living together is 50 to 100 percent higher than for couples who have not lived together. (Axxinn & Thornton, 1992)

» Those who have premarital sex are more likely to have extramarital affairs. (Ciavola, 1997; Forste & Tanfer 1996)

» Cohabiting couples argue, shout and hit each other more than married couples. (Penn State University, Brown & Booth, 1997)

» Women are 62 times more likely to be assaulted by a live-in boyfriend than by a husband. (U.S. Justice Department, Colson, 1995)

» Cohabiting women have rates of depression three times higher than married women.

» Those who live together are at a higher risk for contracting sexually transmitted diseases, which have tripled in the past six years. (Ciavola, 1997)

» Premarital sex creates emotional baggage that lays the groundwork for comparisons, suspicions and mistrust. (Laumann, et.al, 1994)