'Living Together' - A Statistical Risk, Experts Say

Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. I Cor 6:18

This week let's do something a little different - let's look at some issues that have theological implications. The following articles have been taken from the 'Baptist Press' and they are all hot off the press...
Does living together before marriage increase the chances for a successful marriage? The answer may surprise some.

Between 50 and 60 percent of all marriages begin with the two partners cohabiting and many of those couples no doubt believe they are making a wise move up front. But living together before marriage actually increases the chances of divorce in a first marriage - 67 percent of cohabiting couples eventually divorce, compared to the normal 45 percent for first marriages.

That and other myth-busting facts form the core of a new book by Mike and Harriet McManus, :Living together: Myths, risked & Answers" (Howard Nooks), with a foreword by Chuck Colson. Cofounders of the organization Marriage Savers, the couple have invested much of their lives trying to help strengthen marriages and push down the divorce rate.

The biblical warnings against cohabitation, the book says, are affirmed by statistics showing it's a bad idea.

"Men and woman cohabitate for different reasons," Mike McManus said in a conference call discussing the book. "Women see it as a step toward marriage. They think they can audition for this job. Men do it because they like to have the ready availability of sex and having someone share their living expenses. Women should heed their mother's advice - - if you give away the milk, he won't buy the cow."

The number of cohabitating couples has soared in recent decades, from about 439,000 in 1960 to more than 5 million today. About 10 percent of couples who married between 1965 and 1974 lived together before marriage. Today, that number is more than 50 percent.

Couples who live together not only are significantly more likely to divorce after marriage, but about 45 percent of them will break up before marriage, studies show. Cohabitation, McManus said, has a high failure rate because it's based on selfishness.

" 'If you make me feel loved, then I might marry you. If you make me happy, then I might marry you,' " McManus said. "Love and marriage is an investment, and cohabitation is a gamble. Cohabitation is conditional; marriage is based on permanence. These are radically different psychological premises. True love is selfless - seeking to serve the other person. Cohabitation is based on selfishness - 'How will this relationship satisfy me?"

He added that no studies have ever shown cohabitation to benefit relationship.