How long did you date?

[Munchkin]

Originally Posted by glatt

I've heard that statistically speaking, people who live together before getting married have a greater likelyhood than the general population of getting divorced. I believe it..

I don't know if I believe that. Not trying to call you a liar. I just don't really understand why that would be the case. I mean, I would think that living with someone, you get to know so much more about them, and you would have a better idea of whether or not it woudl wourk out.

Originally Posted by glatt

I thinks it's because the kinds of people who would live together are also more often the kinds of people who might not be as serious about a vow of "'til death do us part." I think it's also that if you have to test the waters in order to be convinced that you should marry someone, then you probably shouldn't be marrying them..

Why is that?

[glatt]

It's hard for me to explain. Basically it has to do with intent. If a couple moves in together to test the waters, they know that they can always bail out if they don't like it. They are not promising to be together for the rest of their lives. They aren't being serious about it. If they start off with a casual attitude toward the relationship, they are likely to keep that attitude after they get married. A casual attitude toward marriage is not ideal if you want the marriage to last forever.

There are many people who live together and then go on to have great marriages. My wife and I are one such couple. But statistics say it's rare. A quick Google search turned up this marriage counselor's site, which says that 85% of all couples that lived together before marriage ended in divorce. That statistic may no longer be true, but I bet the number is still high. Do a Google search on it. There are a lot of religious sites you have to wade through, but there's some info out there.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by glatt

85% of all couples that lived together before marriage ended in divorce. That statistic may no longer be true, but I bet the number is still high. Do a Google search on it. There are a lot of religious sites you have to wade through, but there's some info out there.

I've read a couple articles on this and was surprised to find that no one considered that religion/social background plays a major role in this and that it really might not be the "living together" aspect that determines the divorce rate. Remove the "living together before marriage" factor and take two couples who are in a marriage that has turned unhappy. Who is more likely to get divorced? Which couple do you think is more likely to feel pressured to stay together? Did they even factor in what couples had children and which didn't?

I think that living together before marriage does not create more unhappy marriages that end in divorce, but rather that getting married quickly under religious terms has a higher tendancy to keep couples, even the unhappy ones, together, either through social/family/religious pressure or that they might be more likely to have children in the early stages of marriage that would encourage the couple to stay together.

Statistics are always fun to play with. In this case, I'd say someone really enjoyed themselves.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I've read a couple articles on this and was surprised to find that no one considered that religion/social background plays a major role in this and that it really might not be the "living together" aspect that determines the divorce rate. Remove the "living together before marriage" factor and take two couples who are in a marriage that has turned unhappy. Who is more likely to get divorced? Which couple do you think is more likely to feel pressured to stay together? Did they even factor in what couples had children and which didn't?

Statistics are always fun to play with. In this case, I'd say someone really enjoyed themselves.

I think that living together before marriage does not create more unhappy marriages that end in divorce, but rather that getting married quickly under religious terms has a higher tendancy to keep couples, even the unhappy ones, together, either through social/family/religious pressure or that they might be more likely to have children in the early stages of marriage that would encourage the couple to stay together.

I've had very similar thoughts. But the 85% number is such a high number, I don't think it can all be explained by the points you made. There has to be some sort of mixture of the two possibilities. But I agree with many of your points.

Even though the numbers can be questioned, I think throwing the warning out there is helpful, because I think marriage is important, and anyone entering in to marriage should be thinking about things like this. I always encourage anyone getting married to enter into premarital counseling. The counseling can do much more than living together can to reveal potential areas of incompatibility. It can also give the couple tools they can use to help work though conflicts that come up during the marriage.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by glatt

But the 85% number is such a high number, I don't think it can all be explained by the points you made.

I think it could. Very easily, in fact. Harley even states this in his reply letter about living together:

If either of you slips up, the test is over, and you are out the door. Marriage doesn't work that way. Slip-ups don't end the marriage, they just end the love you have for each other.

I agree there are some good points in the article and I do think there is a big difference in how a relationship grows in living together, but I would not weigh heavily on these statistics. Hey, the divorce rate in 1950 was 2.6 for every 1,000 couples, much lower than today's rates. People were also getting married at a very young age on average. So, should we encourage people to get married in their teens, again?

There is a correlation between cohabitation and religious view, so I don't doubt that the statistics play the way they do because of it.