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Growing up it seemed most Christians did not cohabitate. Now it seems that more Christians are deciding to cohabitate before marriage. Does the decision to have sex often lead to the decision to cohabitate? Is it often a financial decision? Does it seem like Christianity is becoming more open to cohabitation?
we were both raised in christian homes and have been together for almost 6 years and lived together for 5 years. It was a money choice for the most part. we were having sex before we moved in together so that wasnt really and issue. we moved in together after 9 months because well to be honest we were young and stupid haha. but looking back we have come so far together we wouldnt really change anything.
None of the above for us. I work as a teacher and as such, I am continually getting colds! My mum was going through chemotherapy and I was not able to stay at home and jeopardise her wellness. At the same time, FI was looking to move out of his living situation so it just made sense for us to move in together. He's my best friend as well as my FI so it works well for me 
I'm well aware our situation is a little more on the unusual side though!
From a Catholic-Christian perspective, cohabitation is not approved of by the Church even though it's pretty common in society now. It's not the physical living together that's the "problem," it's the implication that the couple is having premarital sex or that they are putting themselves in the temptation to do so by sleeping in the same house/bed every night. However, if an unmarried couple really is in a bad financial state and cohabiting is the most affordable thing to do, it's permissable, assuming they aren't sleeping together. Hope I didn't offend anyone, and hope I answered your question from a particular branch of Christianity's perspective! :)
We're not cohabitating or sleeping together before marriage, and we're both Christians. Statistically speaking, couples who cohabitate prior to marriage are far more likely to get divorced later on:
We didn't live together, so I can't give a reason from personal experience. I respect other people's life choices as long as they respect mine, though! :)
I am a Christian and I know what the Bible says, but we did indeed live together before marriage. We were making a move across the state (about 5 hours) because I landed my dream teaching job, and SO was coming with me. It seemed really silly for us to each have an apartment just for the sake of saying we didn't live together before marriage. We did have sex before marriage, as well, which I also do realize contradicts biblical principles, but we did it anyways.
Please don't tell me I'm a sinner; I am just being honest with everyone. I fully respect every couple's personal decision as to what's right for them.
Sent from my Android
my fi and I are living together before.marriage but we are not having sex. We sleep in the same bed, we live in the same house, we have devotion together every morning.
My fiance and I have been living together for 2 years and it was a financial/practical decision. We are both medical students and if we didn't live together I wouldn't see him at all! I honestly believe that our relationship would not have survived if we didn't move in and it really made us realize that we could do it for the long haul! We are also both Catholic but admittedly aren't "practicing" Catholics, however we are having a Catholic wedding; mostly to appease our families.
My parents are divorced and didn't have sex or live together until they got married, so I thought I would do the opposite, haha. Everybody's case is individual and unique. "Statistics" can basically be found for any scenario you want (I know from being in the medical field). Everyone is basically going to defend their own choice when it comes down to it.
@MrsStrawberry24: That's pretty cool that you guys have so much self-discipline. :)
more than anything, our decision to wait until marriage for sex is why we don't cohabitate. the pressure and desire is bad enough without living together! the financial potential of just one household is oh-so-tempting as well, though. so so tempting. these days, it seems that waiting is not as common. without some firm belief or thought that there's a reward, making that sacrifice may feel a bit irrational to some Christians. maybe?
@UK Bride: this is because couples who do not believe in cohabitating do not believe in divorce.
I do believe in cohabitating before marriage, and of course, respect those who believe otherwise!
@Gabrielle123: Agreed. I know more probably plays into it, but my sister is extremely unhappy with her husband, but I think she will stay with him for life because she firmly believes divorce is a huge sin.
@UK Bride: Do you happen to know the page number for that part of the study? I flipped through pretty quickly and didn't see it.
Nevermind I did some more looking at found it!
I do think that couples who have sex are more likely to cohabit. My husband and I are practicing Catholics, and waited until we got married to have sex, so it would have seemed weird to live together too (we did live together for about a week before the wedding, mostly because it was stupid for him to pay a month's rent for one week of living apart, but we were so busy with wedding stuff we barely even saw each other).
I don't really think that conservative religions are becoming more "open" to cohabitation; I think that young people are tending to take what my priest calls a "cafeteria" approach to religion, where they pick and choose the things that appeal to them. So they choose to believe in God, maybe go to church, but also choose not to follow the church teachings on sex (just an example). I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but I think it is why we see more people who are religious but cohabitating.
@brideatbeach: Thank you for your honesty. It seems like you have a healthy point of view.
The rest of the responses were also informative. I have been with my boyfriend for over three months. This is my first serious relationship. I have dated other guys but this is very different. I have never loved another guy before. Both of us are virgins and planned to stay that way until marriage. I can't promise at this point we won't have sex or live together before marriage. It may sound bad but that is where we are.
I can't buy into the idea that everyone was meant to save sex for marriage. I believe sex is a very important aspect of marriage. I just can't say sex is so important that everyone should save it for marriage. My feelings might have a lot to do with being in love for the first time. I can't imagine us not being married.
I'll just pipe in as a statistics student. There is a correlation between divorice and cohabitation but that does NOT mean cohabitation causes divorce!!!!
There is most likely another factor causing these things to happen.
I shall give an example. I am very mildly religous (for reference).
I opted to co habitate, I also firmly believe in divorce and would if I had to under the right circumstances. People who choose to cohabitate may often be less religious and more likely to divorce than those who are religous (and are strongly opposed to divorce). So it is not cohabitation that causes divorce it is (in my example) how religious one is.
@MrsStrawberry24: You sound like me! We are also living together but not sleeping together. Honestly we have not had sex, nor do we want to before our wedding day. I think it's do-able and am interested to know I'm not the only one who has done this.
I also come from the belief sex does not equal love, love does not equal sex. If you both strongly believe against doing it before marriage, it CAN work out. I think there just needs to be the same level of commitment on both sides.
@MrsStrawberry24: My FI and I have chosen to do the same thing. With both of us attending college and saving for a wedding we couldn't each afford our own apartment, but we both have poor home lives and it wasn't good for our mental health to live with our parents, so we moved in together, but are still waiting til our wedding night.
@vmec: I completely agree with you on both your posts.
I would just like to add that while many people seem to think that cohabitation before marriage is more likely to lead to divorce, m FI and I have found that we've already worked through a lot of issues that married couples go through in their first year of marriage, and so we feel more prepared than ever to handle any marriage problems. Just another perspective on it :)
it was definitely a financial decision for us. with our lowly incomes, it's either live together or be homeless.
ultimately i think it's the decision to cohabitate that lead to sex (not the other way around).
@rosworms: From a non-religious point of view, I don't know anyone that hasn't had sex before cohabitating. I understand that it's different if you plan to wait until your wedding night, move in together for other reasons, and then succumb to temptation. But I would venture to guess that for most unmarried couples, relgious or not, sex comes before living together. Maybe it doesn't make sense coming from a vastly different background and belief system, but sex is a far less big deal to me than living together, probably because of the other entanglements that come with cohabitating. To me, moving in together was a major step in the direction of marriage, whereas sex was a passionate desire that came much earlier in the relationship.
And again, I wasn't raised religiously, but I have plenty of Catholic and Christian friends who have similar stories when it comes to relationships.
@vmec: Thank you! Correlation does not equal causation. 101 of any statistics class!
We are living together, and getting married in the Catholic Church. I have felt strongly about being honest and up front, about it.
We've had mixed reactions about it. Originally, we were being married by a younger priest (I'd say early 30s), who was very casual and didn't blink an eye when we told him. He is now unable to do the wedding, but now the man who's doing it is older and much more conservative, and he was much less casual and 'cool' about it. He definitely got preachy, and to be 100% honest, I was pretty annoyed with that. I KNOW that it's not the Church's preference, but it is very common, and was the right decision for us. We just had to muddle through it, and hopefully, it'll be ok.
@vmec: I didn't mean to say that cohabitation causes divorce--I was just pointing out the significant correlation as it was a definite deterrent for us. The study was just a CDC report on general societal trends, so it's not like they were trying to prove a religious point.
Every person has the right to choose whether or not they cohabitate before marriage, and I'm not looking down my nose at those who do! If anything, I tend to not tell people that we've chosen to wait because we're the odd ones out. I just thought I'd toss in one of the major reasons we chose not to since that seemed to be what the OP was asking for.
@UK Bride: I did not suggest that the reason behind the correlation was religion or some other religious point. If it had been the study would have studied the divroce rates between couples who are religious, and couples who are not and how that impacts decisions to cohabitate before marriage.
I'm simply clarifying that a correlation is NOT causation. There are several people who would read that study and draw that very conclusion. And it is those same people who are more likely to throw in the "well, since you live together and I don't, you're more likely to break up than I am" argument in ones face. Ive seen this on multiple relationship forums and am not saying bees here have done this but it's not uncommon.
@UK Bride: While I respect your decision, basing that decision on incomplete data that obviously lacks the context of religion and societal stratification as factors seems an uneducated decision. Taking something at face value just to justify a belief is never a good idea. Scratch beneath the surface to fully inform yourself.
I don't think this post was meant to cause a stir---I think it's just examining the trends and the reasons behind them.
That said, our choice not to live together wasn't based on stats or numbers. Just our personal beliefs. And as I mentioned before, it's what was right for us, but that's not to say what's
"right" for me is "right" for everyone else of course. Not the case at all. :)
From the standpoint of this being directed to Christians, I think that all of those things listed by the OP are "symptoms" that lead to cohabiting, but in essence the real reason is a weak/superficial/or "religious" relationship with God. Because as we focus on our relationship with God we will naturally move away from things like pre-marital sexual actives, we will rely on him for financial security as opposed to us fixing it regardless of what our circumstance looks like, and we won't make decisions based on what those around us are doing but being prayful in wanting to do what God says we should be doing.
From a pyschological & sociological standpoint, completely removing religion, studies have found numerous negative effects of cohabiting and that those that waited till marriage were overall happier and had much more successful marriages... because only marriage can create the secure commitment needed for that kind of intimacy (not just physical but overall relational) Many cohabiting relationship have been found to have much more emotional strain and things like co-dependence that creates unhealthy behaviors.
From my personal experience and thought I feel like with a time like we're in now where there's a 50% rate of divorce, I wouldn't want to do anything that has been found to have negative consequence on the quality and lifetime of marriage.... Divorce is a terrible thing to experience and I wanted to do everything DH and could to create the best foundations for our marriage.
Disclaimer: Now I'm not saying that if you cohabit you're doomed to divorce or unhappiness so please don't jump all over me, but plenty of studies have shown that it does definitely raise the difficulty level... which can still be worked through and can last and be successful... it's just a different and at many times harder road.
I told my FI, there is no reason y I need to move in with him before the wedding. In fact the aprtment he lives in now is the worst!!!! We plan on having him move beofre the wedding and then after the wedding I move in.
Im nervous though. I have NEVER been good at change. Im one of those people who needs secuity.To feel safe.
@amnystik: thankyou.
@crayfish: I feel like you've just told me that while you respect my decision, you think it's uneducated... which sort-of negates itself. We're not idiots who looked for a random, unrelated study to back up archaic beliefs--you'll be hard pressed to find any data anywhere that would say cohabitation is actually beneficial for marriage. From a religious point of view, I believe that there is a good reason the Bible discourages people from living together, and that study I posted was one example of many, many other studies done that came to the same conclusion we did: cohabitation is not going to improve our chances of marital success. I chose to post one that was vague and non-religious so that people wouldn't flame me for posting biased data. I work as a research assistant at a university, so I do know how to scratch beneath the surface (and I do, believe me!).
Please don't torch me for this! I honestly don't think that everyone who cohabitates is, as Amnistyk said, "doomed to divorce or unhappiness," but personally, I don't think I think these studies are worth taking into consideration.
My husband moved cross-country to be near me right before we got engaged. He was unemployed and didn't know anyone in town but me. We felt God called us to live apart until we were married, we wanted to honor our parents who also felt we should live apart, and we wanted to follow the rules for our pre-marital counseling. So it was really important to us to find my hubby a place to live.
Unfortunately, no one wanted to rent to someone who didn't have a job, and he only needed a place for 6 months until we got married. My fiance stayed with me for a few weeks while we looked and looked (with our parents' knowledge) and we were literally praying every day that God would provide a place for him to live. I honestly believe it was a test to see if we would fight to obey God. There was SO much reverse pressure for us TO live together because its "normal," or because it would save so much money, or because being engaged was "good enough." It was seriously tempting...it would have been SO easy to live together, and to this day, I think a lot of our family believes we secretly lived together during our engagement.
But one day we saw a small Post-it up on a bulletin board, advertising a small room for rent. We ran over there to check it out, and it was an elderly bachelor who went to our church, renting a room less than a mile from my apartment! The rent was exactly what we could scrape together, he let us rent month-to-month, and even loaned my husband a bed to use.
I guess the point of my story is that if you feel that God has called you to live apart before marriage, then stick to your guns. Even if the odds are against you, even if you don't think you can't afford it, even if you're not finding the right place to live, stay faithful because if God has called you to something, He will provide a way for you to do it.
FI and I cohabitate but are abstaining until our wedding night :)
As far as whether or not cohabitation leads to higher rate of divorce? I personally believe that a lot of couples who live together before marriage don't take the marriage very seriously when it occurs. Which is why the dovorce rate is high. However, on the other hand, a lot of people in this world don't take marriage seriously. Leading to the divorce rate we have now of 50%.
FI and I both come from broken homes. We both have seen the destructive power of divorce. We live together because it was the only financial solution for us. And by living together, we have already conquered the task of adjustment, which will make newlywed life that much easier :)
Am I the only one who thought it was strange that it said both that levels of divorce for younger people were remaining constant, yet cohabitation led to higher divorce rates? Given that cohabitation rates are skyrocketing, these two statements seem pretty contradictory. Maybe I am reading it wrong?
I believe (at least one of the studies like this) the study suggested that couples that make the decision to cohabitate and look at it as a step towards marriage, as opposed to couples that fall into cohabitating without an agreed upon goal, have approximately equal divorce rates as those that wait to cohabitate until marriage, suggesting that there are other factors going on beyond just cohabitation.
Two facts that are rarely brought up in discussions about co-habitating before marriage:
(1) If the cohabitation is limited to ONLY your future spouse, there is no significant effect on divorce rate (which basically means it's the perpetual co-habitators that skew statistics)
and (2) If the co-habitating couple engages in pre-marital counseling before marriage, the divorce rate is also lowered
I grew up in a very strict & sheltered household where beliefs about things like this were forced upon me. As I got older I realized that each couple has a different situation and it's up to them to decide what's right for them.
FI & I decided to move out of our parents house & into our first apartment the same week we announced our engagement. In our situation, our parents were stressful and were draining us financially & emotionally. Not to mention the fact that I either had to share a bedroom with my 80-something great aunt or sleep on an air mattress in the basement. FI was in a dangerous situation with his parents who were also handicapping him financially (on purpose). Overall it was a really BAD situation.
Anyway fast forward to now. We've been living together for 4 months and our wedding is coming up in 6 weeks. We are so happy that we had time to get all of the living adjustments and stuff figured out and out of the way (i.e., budgeting, bills, etc.) so that will not be a stressor in our first year of marriage.
I think it just depends on the couple and their personal situation. We have now found a wonderful church that we can call home together. Our pre-marital counseling sessions are fine too, but honestly we have already covered all of the stuff they are teaching us on our own.
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