Why are cohabiting couples more likely to divorce?

Meh…research is not always truth. The old ” don’t believe anything you read and only half of what you hear” comes to mind.
I didn’t co-habitate with my ex -husband and we divorced after 22 years. I have friends that lived together that are still together 30+ years later. No absolutes.

@Coloma Well, I know the research does not apply to all couples. It merely shows trends. But my question is why those trends exist, which they clearly do.

I have a friend that got married for a high school graduation present for there son. That was thirty-two years ago, they are still married.

Could be a number of factors, maybe familiarity breeds contempt, or perhaps living together beforehand leaves marriage as something of an anti climax, leaving the relationship feeling stale.

I believe it has something to do with taking the easy road and skipping the ‘get to know your SO’s essentials’.

Hubs and I are still together 13 yrs later. Living together first made me realize what I would be signing up for…lol

Just a guess, but I wonder if maybe it’s that the the cohabiting couples are by nature more tentative about commitment in general.

There are some people who tend to launch into commitments easily, with the attitude that the unforeseen will be dealt with as it comes. Other people really like to know exactly what they’re committing to before signing on. But (and this from a guy who got married within three months of meeting his sweetie) in relationships, you never really know what you’re committing to exactly. People change. Situations change.

If you’re committing to the version of the relationship as it has been so far, because you’ve test driven it and seems to be satisfactory, then you may feel all the more disappointed when all of that changes (as it will), as if this isn’t what you signed up for . If, on the other hand, you realize that no matter what the relationship is like at the beginning, the commitment is to work through whatever arises in the future, and whatever you both become, then that may form a less brittle kind of commitment.

According to Psychology Today, there are studies that refute this premise.

One of the big factors is that the initial step of cohabiting is not to confirm or commit to the relationship, but as a means of sharing costs. It is only after a time of cohabiting that it becomes “we might as well get married” is a decision to gain the benefits of marriage that are eluding a cohabiting couple.

So it is the act of explicit commitment to the relationship that seems to be the key factor.

Show us the facts. Where are the numbers to support your argument?

I would say it would be the other way round. You don’t know each other until you live together.

I think there is a lot of cross over between the “sex before marriage is a sin” crowd and “divorce is a sin” crowd. So just because the divorce rate is lower does not mean the satisfaction is higher.

@drhat77 I’ll second that.

@thorninmud and @zenvelo Good point(s). I think that the difference may lie in what the people expect out of the relationship when they agree to live together. Those that have a clear plan to get married and are living together for convenience in the meantime will probably fare better than those that have ambiguous feelings about the future of the relationship but get married because they “may as well.” I also think that the latter group of people are more likely to live with someone that is vastly different from themselves in terms of age, race, education, religion, views on life, etc. And research definitely shows that people tend to marry those similar to them, and those relationships tend to last longer. And if research lumps these two groups of people together, which they do, the results are sure to be skewed.

@elbanditoroso Did you read the details? As I said, I’ve seen this in all of my textbooks and it seems to be pretty well-researched. I can’t exactly send you my books. I could look it up and give you names of researchers, but I’m not going on a wild goose-chase for links, as my question isn’t whether this is true or not. Research has suggested this and this idea is pretty well known by psychologists and sociologists. I never claimed it was a fact and it certainly isn’t my argument that this is true.

Before marriage cohabiting couples really care for each other but once they get married the care slowly begins to disappear and then commitment is expected to keep them together.
Here are some of the reasons researchers believe to be the cause of divorce among cohabited couples
They may be more accepting of divorce.
They may be less committed to marriage.
They may have married for the wrong reason, e.g., pressure from family or having a child together.
They may think they know all there is to know about marriage already.
They may have too high expectations of married life and get disillusioned early in their marriage.
They often have poor conflict resolution skills.
They may not be able to handle financial decisions together.

I think this is a question that contains an assumption.

While this is just one anecdotal comment, I’m married 44 years and lived with my husband for a year before marriage. I would never marry anyone I hadn’t lived with for a while and learned about who they were when not on their bestest behavior and how they faced problems etc

Not even addressing the long term physical attraction and compatability.

There are a lot of studies quoted lately and when one delves into who did them, when they favor a ideological bent they usually are far from scientific. They have an agenda.

From what I remember, the percentage difference isn’t that big of a difference between people who cohabitate furst, and those who don’t. That being said, My feeling is that it depends on the attitude of the couple. If one or bith want to live together first because they are unsure they want to be with that person forever, I think that is a bad sign. If they want to live together first because they want to be together all the time and can’t see any end to the relationship, then that sounds better to me. If they are already engaged and move in before the wedding, I think that is probably more likely to succeed also. But, that is just how I see it, based on not having read professional opinions on the matter.

Both my kids lived with their wives before they married. One for at least 8 years. They just moved in together and then decided to make it legal although nothing really changed. I guess they wanted to make more a commitment.

I don’t see any difference other than offiicializing a commitment. It’s there or it isn’t. A formal ceremony, vows taken in front of a justice of the peace, or a piece of paper makes no difference. People can change over time and you either change together or you don’t.

It has nothing to do with a wedding and more about what we want out of life or if we find ourselves living with someone who isn’t the person we thought they were.

Trying to claim that one method has an effect on the future is over-simplification. Life doesn’t really work that way.

Those who want to say it does are basing their claims on an ideology not reality.

@MadMadMax I disagree. I think being married makes a difference usually. I won’t say always. I think the committment is stronger. Of course there are people who live together for 50 years, never married, who are just as committed as any married couple, but just in general I think marriage makes a difference. Having said that, I make zero judgement moral or any other judgement about people who don’t marry. I treat a friend’s boyfriend the same as I would a spouse, whether they live together or not for that matter. The legal document means nothing to me when I think of my friends and who they choose to spend their life with.

I was raised being told by my father to live with someone before you marry them, so I never had any idea in my head that there was something wrong with living together, quite the contrary. But, living together because everything is wonderful, is different than living tigether because you are unsure. Don’t you think?

@JLeslie: “I was raised being told by my father to live with someone before you marry them, so I never had any idea in my head that there was something wrong with living together, quite the contrary. But, living together because everything is wonderful, is different than living tigether because you are unsure. Don’t you think?”

I see no problem at all with a trial marriage – my husband and I were madly in love but younger than we hoped to be before getting married. Everyone has their own reasons for making these decisions. I’d think there were more reasons for decisions like this than stars in the heavens. No black and white to make everything so foolishly simple.

I don’t “think” it is my business at all.

@MadMadMax The OP asked for opinion and thoughts on the matter. I agree it is no one else’s business why a couple chooses to live together. However, it isn’t unusual for people to want to understand why some relationships work out for their own information, to better their chances and to avoid pitfalls. But, every couple is unique, so there is only so much that information can be helpful.

The kinds of experiences I had while cohabitating before marriage had a lot of potential to inform the decision to marry and to inform the subsequent marriage.

If there is a causal link between pre-marital cohabitation and elevated rates of subsequent divorce, it might just say more about the kinds of people who would cohabitate.
They may be more involved in their relationships and more willing to take bold personal steps – including separation when that’s the right thing to do, or shacking up.
[ I wouldn’t be surprised to find correlations to the same group of all kinds of other things like traffic tickets ]