It seems, to many, like the sensible thing to do: Move in with your boyfriend or girlfriend, spend more time together, save money by splitting the rent and see if you can share a bathroom every morning without wanting to kill each other.
But if you were Scott Stanley’s kid, he’d beg you not to do it.
Stanley, a University of Denver psychologist, has spent the past 15 years trying to figure out why premarital cohabitation is associated with lower levels of satisfaction in marriage and a greater potential for divorce.
My husband and I have been warning our unmarried female friends about this, not in such elegant phrases as used by Dr Stanley, but using the old phrase “he’s not going to buy the cow when he can get the milk for free.”
I wonder if studies like this take into consideration varying circumstances of co-habitation. For example, the year before we were married, I lived with my husband and his family. I had my own room, did my share of the chores, and was basically treated like a member of the family (I was attending university full time and my parents lived 2 hrs away, I had no car, and couldn’t afford to live on-campus).
We just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this month.
Of course, I think some people may not consider this “co-habitation” since I was really living with the whole family, not just him…