Relationship: What Science Says About Cohabitation?

What is good for the goose might not necessarily be good for the gander and this is the case when it comes to cohabitation. It works for some and it doesn’t for others for reasons that vary based on the type of couple involved. Several researches have ruled cohabiting as unhealthy with evidence pointing that couples who cohabit before getting married eventually get divorced. You may ask, ‘how will I get to know this person and how they are at home if I don’t live with them?” A good response will be, will you actually want to move in with someone you don’t know? Under normal circumstances, you can get to know a potential future partner without cohabiting with them.
Eventually what leads to most divorces is not things like their in-house habits, but things like abuse, cheating and a host of other habits they most likely won’t display at home. Asides a higher possibility of divorce in the future, a few other things research also point out as reasons why cohabiting isn’t advisable include;

Higher Possibility Of an Unhappy Marriage: A review of 10 cohabitation studies found that those who cohabit prior to marriage show a significantly lower marital quality and have significantly higher risk of marital dissolution at any given duration. Couples who lived together before marriage also separated more often, sought counselling more often and regarded marriage as a less important part of their life than those who did not live together before marriage.
More Frequent Disagreements, More Fights And Violence: Three studies find this to be true. Pennsylvania State University researchers found that those who live together were more negative and less positive when resolving a marital problem and when providing support to their partner. They also found that husbands and wives who had lived together before marriage were more verbally aggressive, less supportive of one another and generally more hostile than spouses who had not lived together.
Ripple Effects: Ultimately when people cohabiting start having kids, there is less stability for their children. Cohabiting partners contribute largely to the number of children from broken homes which may also by extension contribute to social vices such as rape and other forms of abuse.
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