Posted on 03/01/2006 7:09:06 AM PST by ZGuy
In the United States, living together instead of marrying has become the norm for couples -- half of young adults aged 20-40 are cohabiting instead of getting married. Cohabitation has increased nearly 1,000% since 1980, and the marriage rate has dropped more than 40% since 1960.
Some see substituting living together for marriage as an insignificant shift in family “structure.” Those who are better informed realize that the shift has disastrous ramifications for the individuals involved, as well as for society and public policy.
The faulty reasoning leading young adults to make such a poor choice must be exposed. Here are four myths surrounding the shift.
Myth No. 1: Living Together Is a Good Way to “Test the Water”
Many couples say that they want to live together to see if they are compatible, not realizing that cohabitation is more a preparation for divorce than a way to strengthen the likelihood of a successful marriage -- the divorce rates of women who cohabit are nearly 80% higher than those who do not. In fact, studies indicate that cohabiting couples have lower marital quality and increased risk of divorce. Further, cohabiting relationships tend to be fragile and relatively short in duration; less than half of cohabiting relationships last five or more years. Typically, they last about 18 months.
Myth No. 2: Couples Don’t Really Need That “Piece of Paper”
A major problem with cohabitation is that it is a tentative arrangement that lacks stability; no one can depend upon the relationship -- not the partners, not the children, not the community, nor the society. Such relationships contribute little to those inside and certainly little to those outside the arrangement. Sometimes couples choose to live together as a substitute for marriage, indicating that, in case the relationship goes sour, they can avoid the trouble, expense and emotional trauma of a divorce. With such a weak bond between the two parties, there is little likelihood that they will work through their problems or that they will maintain the relationship under pressure.
Myth No. 3: Cohabiting Relationships Usually Lead to Marriage
During the 1970s, about 60% of cohabiting couples married each other within three years, but this proportion has since declined to less than 40%. While women today still tend to expect that “cohabitation will lead to marriage,” numerous studies of college students have found that men typically cohabit simply because it is “convenient.” In fact, there is general agreement among scholars that living together before marriage puts women at a distinct disadvantage in terms of “power.” A college professor described a survey that he conducted over a period of years in his marriage classes. He asked guys who were living with a girl, point blank, “Are you going to marry the girl that you’re living with?” The overwhelming response, he reports, was “NO!” When he asked the girls if they were going to marry the guy they were living with, their response was, “Oh, yes; we love each other and we are learning how to be together.”
Myth No. 4: Cohabiting Relationships Are More Egalitarian Than Marriage
It is common knowledge that women and children suffer more poverty after a cohabiting relationship breaks up, but it’s not so well understood that there is typically an economic imbalance in favor of the man within such relationships, too. While couples who live together say that they plan to share expenses equally, more often than not the women support the men. Studies show that women typically contribute more than 70% of the income in a cohabiting relationship. Likewise, the women tend to do more of the cleaning, cooking and laundry. If they are students, as is often the case, and facing economic or time constraints that require a reduction in class load, it is almost invariably the woman, not the man, who drops a class.
So What’s the Conclusion?
A mass of sociological evidence shows that cohabitation is an inferior alternative to the married, intact, two-parent, husband-and-wife family. Increasingly, the myths of living together without marriage are like a mirror shattered by the force of the facts that expose the reality of cohabitation.
Dr. Crouse is senior fellow of Concerned Women for Americas Beverly LaHaye Institute.
So in your universe, it's OK to kill them? No soul=animal, not human...
bump for later read
1.) Zero self esteem
2.) 100 percent arrogance 3.) The continued path to intense depression and fear.
Sorry I started living with my boyfriend at age 29 I am now 45 and experienced none of those feelings and don't regret it at all. My friends who live with their partners never regreted it and never experienced those either. They are quite happy living together and their relationships are mature and stable. BUT every human being is different of course.
My experience has been decidedly different.
Please explain this as I am trying to parse this sentence but I don't get your meaning.
LOL!
And that works for you.....
Many people do not realize the implications of modeling that environment for children. I am not trying to offend you I just get the sense that when they grow older neither will respect any values you hold deeply because of your lack of willingness to formally commit to being a "family" in which they feel they would want to belong. Children desire boundries, continuity and safety. In the back of childrens minds they know when they do not have it, and when they do.
I am curious, did you have a sense of continuity in your home growing up?
Can I ask a question: Why don't you want to get married?
I have no problem admitting that the little voice in my head told me that things were spiraling out of control. Would I call it sin? Well, I'm a Catholic sir, and I believe there are more grevious sins than living with a woman.
In retrospect, I would certainly have reconsidered, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it sinful or wrong. It just showed us both that we were incompatible in our living arrangements. We're both still good friends to this day.
$2100/month child support here. I don't mind paying the support, I do mind that there is no way to insure that even so much as a single penny ever gets to the kids.
Alimony is over, thankfully. That I did mind!
Give it a rest!
We can't be responsible for the choice of others.
They get to choose their own hell...
BUMP
I'm sure there are but that one is not inconsequential.
Ah. Good. I'm not the only one.
Precisely.
A woman with self-esteem would not allow such living conditions.
I lived with someone for 5 years, then married him. I'm not sure that living together is a good trial run for long-term marriage. You can test compatability in terms of sex, living habits, chore division, etc. But you can't anticipate everything like the effect of children, aging parents, changing health, etc.
Still, I think ruling out certain basic incompatabilites before marriage gives marriage a better chance. I never felt like I was walking on egg shells. We got married because it seemed like the next logical step if we wanted to have kids and pool our money. I remember thinking we were at the point to decide if we would move to the next stage of life together or if we needed to move on separately. Evenutally I was the one pushing for a decision because I was ready to move on with life.
I guess it's normal in a relationship for one person to be more goal oriented than another (push to buy 1st house, get started on home repairs, plan vacations). Funny, I would have thought in most cases its the woman pushing her partner to decide if they should get married or each start over. Biological clock ticking, you know.
Unfortunately, after about 11 years marriage, it became apparent that this was not going to work in the long term, for many reasons that we couldn't anticipate. However, children, not the marriage license, have made separation/divorce impracticle. Now in our 22nd year of marriage (and 27th year together) I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as my youngest child is in high school. It's civil enough, but not what I want out of marriage.
I'm not sure I would ever again give up my own house/apartment to live with someone. I might co-habitate, but I would want a place apart available. I've gotten used to my privacy within my own home. I not sure I would ever marry again, though I won't rule it out.
Actually, you can't draw but on one account, you can't add up all your spouses. You would draw on the one that paid the most.
And I think that this idea is ABSOLUTELY JUSTIFIED. Even if you do have issues with your husband's ex. Most people on FR are all about the mom staying home with the kids, but yet they are all over Ex's who get some of the poor widdle divorced man's Social Security. If I spent 20 to 25 years at home raising kids, with no taxable income and my husband decides to take off with the town floozy, I should have no retirement??? I think NOT. I should be entitled to half his SS because I supported HIM and HIS children throughout our marriage. Why does system not work for you?
Now that being said, if the wife has worked in her life, and her Social Security is greater than the half she would get from HIS, she would draw on her own.
Interesting chicken/egg take.
Did I miss anything?
Yeah, you missed the fact that what is under discussion is not just two different personal opinions about relationships--"the way I see fit" vs. "the way you see fit." What's at stake is the way civilized people have regulated their family lives and reared their children down through history. Social conservatives believe we should not cast aside the patterns of the past if we risk losing the benefits society gained from those patterns. One of the main benefits of regulating sexual behavior within marriage was the security which that arrangement afforded the most vulnerable members of society--our children. It is abundantly evident now that widespread cohabitation has weakened the bonds of marriage and endangered the physical and psychological welfare of children. That's why I have no problem whatever calling it "bad behavior."
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