Cohabitation: A Trial Period Before Marraige?

Cohabitation: trial period before marriage. Marriage is frightening for everyone. Marriage can bring about fears such as promises and fears related to sharing everything with living together. This may make one or both parties vulnerable. The common way to eliminate these fears and vulnerabilities is cohabitation. For many people, cohabitation seems to be a transitional period for couples to adapt to each other's life before marrying. In fact, cohabitation is standard in the United States.

This is reasonable as living together is a good "testing period" for marriage. If the trial period is not smooth, it is obvious that the couple will stay together, will not marry. Therefore, these unpleasant cohabitants may not last long. This "trial period" can prevent many people from having annoying divorce. In times not so contemporary, cohabitation is not an option because it is not popular in society. Because of the sex role in these processes, this leads to many unpleasant marriages and unrealistic expectations.

Especially when a couple lives together as a trial marriage, the idea of ​​cohabiting before marriage is not a good plan. There is no evidence that you can improve the chances of marriage succeeding by living together. Indeed, in current research, we can not recommend cohabiting, as the divorce rate of living persons is prohibitively high. Cohabiting relationship is far from stable marriage, 40% of living-in marriage collapses before marriage, the risk of marriage divorce started by living together of couple increases by 40-85% (some facts). If living together before marriage is a test of compatibility of marriage, the statistics will show opposite result. Living together is not an informal marriage but a relationship formed by loose coupling.

A living partner can choose to spend more time or live together to save living expenses. Many couples believe that living together is a "trial" of marriage. Today, about 28% of men and women live together before the first marriage. In contrast, 18% of men and 23% of women are married without living together (US Census Bureau, 2010). The vast majority of living together will eventually lead to marriage; only 15% of men and women live together and will not get married. About half of cohabitants will be transferred to marriage within 3 years (US Census 2010)

In the 20 years from 1996 to 2016, the number of cohabitants has more than doubled. Many cohabitants behave like couples except names. Other living conditions include "trial marriage" (if successful, it may lead to marriage) and short-term or indeterminate relationship. In many cases, living together will delay marriage, both husband and wife will build an economic foothold. In the same 20 years, the number of single parent families has increased by about 20%. In the past, parents of a single parent family may have become widows due to war, childbirth or illness. Today, due to changes in social attitudes and development of reproductive technology, there is a high possibility that a single parent is separated or divorced, and the number of people who choose parenting is increasing. A parent may ultimately form a rebuilt family reunited with another individual parent