Saturday, October 24, 2015

Cohabitation. Good or Bad?

So I have heard a lot about cohabitation and if it is a good thing to cohabit before marriage or if it is just a bad idea all together. This topic has been studied over and over. but why? It is because the hypothesis of those testing it are always proven incorrect.

Pros: Most of the hypothesis are pro cohabitation because it was believed that living together before marriage would enhance the relationship and could prevent marriage problems in the future. Seems about right. 

However, a statistic came out that stated that 3 out of 5 marriages that began with cohabitation ended in divorce. Wait. What? How is that possible? 

Cons: Some of the problems that no one really thought about is that cohabitation is not a commitment like marriage is, there could be a lack of trust, and patterns are established. 

Patterns are established when individuals continue to be individuals with a new roommate. People are just in their own ways and don't sway from that. For example, when a couple that was cohabiting gets married, have their own seperate things like cars, insurance, bank accounts, and just different ways of life. Our teacher told us of a story of a couple that he saw that were having problems in their marriage and the man said that he is worried for his pregnant wife, and my teacher asked why and the man stated that he is worried that she will not be able to pay her half of the rent because she is not going to work as often. 

The story of the worried husband taught me an important lesson that even though marriage is more of a risk to blindly begin to live together after marriage, it is something that helps us become one. When hard times come we work together to fix it because we are now sharing bank accounts, cars, talents, goals, hopes, and dreams. We are committed to each other and our other half. I know that my husband and I have a long way to go in enduring through life, but we are bound together in all aspects of life, and that is what I believe makes a successful marriage. 

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