Living Together?

This is a segment I took directly from this book by Kevin Leman that my wife and I are reading:

From early sex, today's dating darlings typically advance to "shacking up," or living together without being married.  The number of unmarried couples who live together in America increased by close to 1,000 percent between 1960 and 1998.  Whereas cohabitation before marriage was an anomaly in the early 1900s, today, over half of all marriages include some form of premarital cohabitation.

Supposedly, this living together is a form of trial marriage, a way of gathering vital information about a partner's character, but guess what?  This so-called "weeding-out" process actually works against the intended goal of lifelong, fulfilling marriage!  Instead of pulling weeds, it plants them!

A recent Penn State study found that couples who live together before getting married have poorer

communication skills when trying to solve a problem than those who didn't cohabit prior to marriage.  Study coauthor Catherine Cohan suggested that cohabitants "may have less invested in the relationship, leading them not to try to develop their skills."

Numerous studies have shown that cohabitation results in hurting women and men who have suffered numerous relational breakups, creating an ever-growing distrust of future relationships.  Such "quasi-commitments" actually weaken the mutual dedication and perseverance that is all-important for a successful marriage.  It's not too surprising, then, when Popenoe and Whitehead point out that only one in ten last five years or more.  Sadly, every one of these failed, cohabiting relationships makes you a little less fit to enjoy a lifelong, satisfying marriage.

I have counseled thousands of couples, before and after marriage.  Some of them have lived together before tying the knot.  Others never moved in together, but spent their share of time heating up the sheets.  Still others managed to stay of out bed and kept their own address until the day they got married.  Without equivocation I can say that if you want a marriage that takes you from your twenties until the day you die, that fulfills you and inspires others, that results in kindred-spirit communication and soul-mate loyalty, having sex before marriage and living together before marriage will take you in the wrong direction.  That's not the best way to find your true love.