If we're not getting married, what are we doing?
The secular case against cohabitation
I HAD A COACHING SESSION recently with a twenty-something couple. He’s active-duty military and thus rarely home, and she’s an emergency dispatcher holding down the fort. This couple isn’t married but merely “shacking up.” When I ask why they went this route, they answer the same way so many cohabitating couples do: It was the “convenient” thing to do at the time.
Things aren’t working out so well between them now.
Over the past 25 years, cohabitation has risen exponentially. In fact, the younger generation views cohabiting as the “next step” in a relationship, a sign of commitment and thus something to celebrate.
But what, exactly, is it celebrating? That someone has promised to share a bed with you, along with the rent, for as long he or she feels compelled to do so? How romantic!
The truth is, cohabiting works—until it doesn’t. Almost always, someone wants to know where the relationship is headed; and usually that someone is the woman. The prospect of motherhood makes this an inevitability.
Unfortunately, most Americans today, including parents, support cohabitation—in my opinion, because they don’t think deeply enough about it (and because humans love to go along with whatever the “thing to do” is so they don’t rock the boat). They assume cohabiting is harmless since the stigma of premarital sex is gone. But sex before marriage isn’t the problem with “shacking up.”
In fact, that’s why the parents who don’t want their young adult son or daughter to cohabit are at a loss. They haven’t developed a strong secular argument, unrelated to sex, for why cohabitation is a bad idea. They know how they feel, but they don’t know how to articulate it in a way that resonates with the younger generation.
This post is for those parents.
5 rock-solid reasons why “shacking up” is stupid
If you ask the average young couple who’s not engaged why they chose to live together rather than get married, they will likely tell you it was the “convenient” thing to do. And what they mean by that, usually, is that it’s cheaper to live together than it is to live apart—especially since they’re “sleeping over at each other’s apartments all the time anyway.”
On paper, it can be hard to argue with that.
But there are other, less obvious reasons why it’s a colossally bad idea to live with someone with whom the future is uncertain. Here are those reasons, in no particular order:
It’s a massive waste of time, especially for women. Cohabitation is costly for women. They are the ones with the biological clock. They are the sex that’ll be walloped with a desire to nest. The number of women I know of and whom I’ve coached who wasted years of their lives on relationships that went nowhere continues to shock me. You do not want to be the woman in her thirties who cannot find a good man to marry. This is a painful reality for many women today because no one told them not to waste time living with men who don’t want what they want.
You may save on rent, but finances will ultimately become an issue. No one should combine finances with someone to whom he or she is not married; it will become a legal nightmare. It is true that many (most?) cohabitating couples do not share finances. But if either partner hopes the relationship will become permanent (and this is almost always the case), finances will become a glaring problem. The couple will find themselves stuck, not knowing how to proceed, since they’ve created a relationship in which they’ve essentially been roommates. Getting married and becoming a financial “team” will feel much too daunting. Other cohabiting couples go the other way and choose to own cars or property together, which is a huge mistake since it can take years to disentangle if the relationship ends.
Living with someone will not help determine whether or not you’re compatible. If you date someone long enough, you will know whether or not you’re compatible. Marriage is a long business, and there’s no way to figure out in advance if your relationship will last. It depends entirely on your marriage mindset, or your attitude, as well as your level of commitment. My mother used to say this about marriage: “Things come out years later that you couldn’t have predicted!” She was right. None of us can ever know a person entirely until many, many years have passed—and sometimes not even then. It is impossible to overturn every stone, or to 100% guarantee you’ve made the right choice in advance. What young people really mean when they use this argument is that they’re scared the relationship will fail — understandably so, because many are products of divorce—and they think cohabiting will ensure their success. It won’t.
Cohabitation is not a “step toward marriage.” It’s a step back. There is nothing to celebrate when someone suggests moving in together. All that says is, “I’m not sure about you yet, but let’s see.” (This should be a major red flag for women, in particular, since men have no problem jumping in when they know they’ve found the right woman.) Ironically, living together can make it harder to know whether or not he or she is The One. The couple has been embroiled in “playing house” for so long they lack the objectivity they need to make a smart decision. They develop a mindset that isn’t conducive to marriage since they know they can always move out and move on. It is unlikely that, should the couple get married, they all-of-the-sudden adopt a different mindset for their relationship going forward.
Couples who do wind up getting married after cohabiting often do so for the wrong reasons. Research has shown that the greatest problem with cohabiting prior to at least being engaged is that couples slide into marriage, rather than decide to get married. Cohabiting with someone makes it harder to break up, and the inertia many couples feel means they often stay together longer than they otherwise would have if they had not been living together. Those who cohabit prior to deciding to getting married (prior to engagement, in other words) also report lower average marital quality and are more likely to divorce.
If you’re the parent of a young adult son or daughter who’s convinced cohabitation is harmless, I hope this post helps when you give your two cents. You may not be able to convince them, but you can at least present them with the mountain of evidence that they can then choose to ignore if they wish. That way you will have done your part.
I know that, to some, this position may seem old-fashioned. But that’s only because so many Americans choose to remain above the fray. Times may change, but human nature does not. Most women’s (not all, but most) desire to nest is inevitable, and it is then when their relationship will need to be reevaluated.
And this the worst possible time to make a decision about marriage.
To make a smart decision about whom to marry, which is the single most important decision any of us make, you don’t want to be up against the clock (says the coach who works with women who married the man they happened to be living with just so they could have a baby, and their marriages are now teetering on the brink of divorce). The time to make this decision is well in advance of baby-making.
Not everyone will succeed in doing so, but there’s nothing wrong with steering young people in the direction that’s best for them.
And cohabitation isn’t it.
Mostly, I would say a woman loses her “power” once living with a man. Hold out, Ladies!! You deserve the commitment! Make him work for what he wants!
As a mother of 3 young men, I find your advice especially helpful. The birth control pill changes a woman's pheromones and women and men are attracted to someone whom they otherwise may not have been, another wrinkle in this mess of becoming an adult and finding a mate. It is up to us to teach our children. Thank you!