Posted on 12/01/2004 2:16:21 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Well, yes and no. The cohabiting mindset is precisely the opposite of the mindset presumed by a vow of "for better, for worse." Cohabiters are the kind of people who believe marriage is comparable to buying a car. Test it out well before you buy, and then, if it doesn't live up to initial promise, trade it in at the first opportunity.
"Falling in love" is just that. People who quit looking and focus on things they like to do and people they like to be around somehow seem to "find" the right person.
There is no boogie man far left behind that tree. These kids are being more responsible than anyone ever thought about being in 1970. For women, that "old maid" at 21 stigma has finally gone away. For 26 year old men, the whispers that they had to be gay otherwise they'd be married are gone too. Makes me very proud of these kids that they wait before getting married so quickly. The alternative is to be married at 18, divorced at 21 with 3 kids and a completely destroyed family. Anyone of marrying age in 1970 can name countless people at that time that had trashed families because they were too immature to be married. Many of these kids saw their parents and their friends' parents divorced and saw the devastating effects on the kids. They don't want that for theirselves or their kids and/or would be ex-spouse.
In other words, cohabitation has nothing to do with the probability of divorce. Attitude does. A person with the correct attitude is no more or less likely to get divorced if they cohabitate. The only thing you can really say is that people with the wrong attitude might be more likely to cohabitate than those with the correct attitude toward marriage.
If you have the wrong attitude, not cohabitating won't help your odds any more than if you cohabitated. HINT: It isn't the cohabitation that causes the split-up.
I wasn't impressed by the website either, but then again, I've been with the same woman for 14 years. Something the guy that runs nomarriage probably can't even comprehend.
Perhaps the point being made is that a person with the correct attitude is less likely to cohabitate in the first place.
If you believe in "for better or for worse" (and not "let's just try this out and see if it works" which is the attitude implicit in cohabitation), if you take the time to learn about the character of the person you are marrying without complicating it by having sex and living together, if your moral values are such that you won't cohabitate before marriage, somehow, for some strange reason, you're less likely to get divorced.
LOL, I've thought the same thing. I think it could work if both people understand what they're getting into, and if marriage itself is very important to both people. I'm not seriously considering this, am I?
You totally do not get it. The kind of people who have a "marriage is for keeps" attitude and are therefore most likely to make a marriage work are not the kind of people who WOULD shack up. The shack-up attitude is the opposite of the marriage attitude!
Thank you! I was afraid I was talking into a void.
Nah ... we just have to remember we're decent people and our time will come.
(In a super secret way, I want to get married just so I can start to get paid back for all the money I had to shell out on wedding gifts in the past few years ;-))
Actually, it is you who do not get it. All you keep saying is that there is no causal relationship between shacking up and getting divorced, only a correlation. Which I agree with.
But it necessarily follows then, that choosing to shack up has no impact on the probability of one getting a divorce. The only reason there is even a correlation is that the study in question was across multiple independent populations with relevant uncontrolled variables.
There's nobody to blame for this. It's just evolution. With women going to school and putting off marriage it's just the way it is. I waited until I was 37 before I found the right one. It's called choices now. Women have more choices.
Your point would make sense if human beings were billiard balls bouncing around on the table of life. But we are moral beings, and we can choose to do what we know or suspect we should not do. We can also avoid decisions we may be inclined to make because we suspect we will become better people by avoiding them. In other words, the choices we make affect our character, and our character is what comes into play in our subsequent behavior.
On the cohabitation issue specifically: We can choose to be the kind of people who would not shack up even though we might wish to. And in making that choice, we can at the same time make it more likely that we will be able to succeed at honoring a marriage commitment. On the other hand, we can set aside the suspicion that shacking up may not be a good thing--perhaps slack off the home training we received on that point--in favor of what seems to be the easiest way for us at the time. And when we do that, we diminish our chances of making a good marriage later on.
That's been my experience, too. 31 and single. :-(
Thank you for the comment and I would sugest that when the time is right you will find that someone special when you don't expect to. Most of the people with successful marriages that I know never expected to marry and they did not live together to test the relationship. With regard to having a professional career, I can relate to you about one coworker in a previous job that focued on her career in the Engineering department, who did not date much and did marry after she was 33. I first met her when she was 24 and focused on work only. I understand she has been tremendously happy the past few years. Just keep sticking to your core values and faith and you will find a companion looking for the same. If you truly wish to share your life with another person you will find a way to compromise on the little things that are not that important in the end because you will never ever find a perfect human being on earth. That is when love helps us overlook others flaws that make each person special. Love grows and evolves over time as a marraige grows, but the core values and sharred faith is what nurtures and helps sustain commitment to another person.
Oh jeez, I used to get the same thing. I finally said to myself one day, "Hey, why should I sit around waiting for somebody else to make me happy, and who cares what anybody else thinks?" So I started doing things I was really interested in, on my own, and wouldn't you know I ended up meeting an absolutely wonderful man - I wasn't even looking at that point. I was 36 when I got married, but it was well worth the wait.
I guess the moral of the story, as cliche as it sounds, is to be happy with yourself. Pursue your interests and appreciate the blessing that is your own existence, and regardless of whether you find that person or not, you'll be content.
Possibly, because people who live together first, tend to go into it with the attitude that they can always walk out if it does not work. I think many times they take that same attitude into marriage.
You're making an assumption that I'm not happy. I said I get peeved when people make assumptions about my single status and subsequently offer unsolicited advice. I pretty happy as is. I'm not waiting for Mr. Right to come along and make me happy.
I don't mean to offend, but I get a little tired of people offering up their stories based on their experiences.
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