Q. Should I move in with my boyfriend before we get married? It seems like a smart move, because you want to really know a person before you commit to life together.

A. Most cohabiting couples who hope to marry see their arrangement as a good test run, a way to make sure that they are compatible before tying the knot. After all, who wants to go through a divorce?

Aside from all the spiritual factors regarding premarital sex, we should take a look at what researchers have found about living together before marriage. Two researchers summarized the findings of numerous studies by stating that "expectation of a positive relationship between cohabitation and marital stability . . . has been shattered in recent years by studies conducted in several Western countries."(1)

What the studies discovered is this: if you do not want to get divorced, do not move in until after the wedding. Why is that? Consider the following facts about cohabitation: Most couples who live together never end up getting married, but those who do tie the knot are almost twice as likely to divorce as couples who do not live together before marriage.(2) Overall, couples who cohabit before marriage have a divorce rate of about eighty percent,(3) and non-virgin brides are sixty percent more likely to end up divorced than women who enter marriage as virgins.(4) Couples who cohabited prior to marriage have greater marital conflict and poorer communication, and they made more frequent visits to marriage counselors.(5) Women who cohabited before marriage are more than three times as likely to cheat on their husbands within marriage.(6) The U.S. Justice Department found that women who cohabit are sixty-two times more likely to be assaulted by a live-in boyfriend than by a husband.(7) They were also more than three times as likely to be depressed as married women,(8) and the couples were less sexually satisfied than those who waited for marriage.(9)

From a standpoint of marital duration, marital peace, marital fidelity, physical safety, emotional well-being, and sexual satisfaction, cohabitation is not exactly a recipe for happiness. Even USA Today reported, "Could this be true love? Test it with courtship, not cohabitation."(10) You may assume that if the couple had lived together a bit longer, they would have ironed out the difficulties and not had these problems in marriage. The studies show the opposite: longer cohabitations are associated with a higher likelihood of divorce.(11) Even if you don't think that your boyfriend would be abusive or that you would get depressed, the divorce rate speaks for itself.

Like all of us, you dream of a lasting love. If you are serious about making this relationship work, save your marriage before it starts and don't move in until after the wedding.
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1. William G. Axinn and Arland Thornton, "The Relation Between Cohabitation and Divorce: Selectivity or Casual Influence?" Demography 29 (1992): 357–374. As quoted by Stanton, Why Marriage Matters, 57.
2.Larry L. Bumpass and James A. Sweet, "Cohabitation, Marriage, and Union Stability: Preliminary Findings from NSFH2 [National Survey of Families and Households]" (NSFH Working Paper No. 65, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995).
3.Kim Camplisson, "Celebrating Christian Marriage," The Southern Cross (newspaper of the Diocese of San Diego), 26 April 2001, 8.
4.Katherine A. London and Joan R. Kahn, "Premarital Sex and the Risk of Divorce," Journal of Marriage and Family 53 (1991): 845–855.
5.Elizabeth Thompson and Ugo Colella, "Cohabitation and Marital Stability: Quality or Commitment?" Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (1992): 263. As quoted by Stanton, Why Marriage Matters, 57; John D. Cunningham and John K. Antill, "Cohabitation and Marriage: Retrospective and Predictive Consequences," Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 11 (1994): 90. As quoted by Stanton, Why Marriage Matters, 58.
6. Koray Tanfer and Renata Forste, "Sexual Exclusivity Among Dating, Cohabiting, and Married Women," Journal of Marriage and Family (February 1996): 33–47.
7. Chuck Colson, "Trial Marriages on Trial: Why They Don't Work," Breakpoint, 20 March 1995.
8. Lee Robins and Darrell Regier, Psychiatric Disorders in America: The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (New York: Free Press, 1991), 64. As quoted by Stanton, Why Marriage Matters, 66–67.
9. Marianne K. Hering, "Believe Well, Live Well," Focus on the Family, September 1994, 4.
10. William Mattox Jr., "Could This be True Love? Test It with Courtship, Not Cohabitation," USA Today, 10 February 2000, 15A (www.usatoday.com).
11. Thompson and Colella, "Cohabitation and Marital Stability," 266. As quoted by Stanton, Why Marriage Matters, 57.

Q&A came from pureloveclub.com