Love and Sex - Yes; Marriage - No
According to recent studies there has been another interesting impact of our latest recession. The percentage of couples living together outside of marriage has gone up dramatically in the last two years. A growing number of folks have given up on marriage all together and are saying yes to love and sex, but no to ever getting married. Most of the couples who have moved in together, however, plan on getting married one day and they believe that living together before marriage is a good and even necessary testing ground for marriage. The fact that living together can save money has sped things up in the current economy. Unfortunately what those couples don’t realize is that they are making a huge mistake. What they don’t understand is that numerous studies have shown that couples who live together before marriage have a divorce rate around 85%. The authors of one study concluded that the risk of experiencing divorce after moving in together was 80% higher than the risk of divorce for couples who had not lived together. Many of you know personally the pain these breakups create. Couples have often questioned me about these studies, and wondered why living together, which sounds and feels like such a good idea, could be so harmful to their future. While I’m sure there are many reasons, I believe the primary one has to do with commitment and the different mindset each circumstance brings. When living together the premise is we will stay together as long as we are in love and things are going well, but if things go badly then either of us can walk away. It is sort of like the difference between renting a house and owning one. When renting you don’t feel ownership. If the yard looks terrible you are not going to invest a lot of your own money into it. If something breaks you call the owner to come and fix it. If you don’t like your neighbors, or you get the chance to rent a better house closer to work, it is easy to move. When you own a home, however, you think about where it is and the cost a lot longer. You are willing to make ongoing investments and upgrades in the home. Often when a couple that has been living together gets married, little changes besides their legal status. They don’t realize that they still carry forward into marriage the same mindset they had when living together; “if this gets ugly or really hard, I’m out of here.” The reality is every marriage hits hard times. Every couple goes through a disappointment phase when that new love phase wears off. Every marriage takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. Couples who lived together before marriage often find that one partner or the other is not willing to sacrifice and make the necessary investment to make the marriage work. The truth is God is all for love and sex, but the only way to experience a relationship to the fullest is God’s way, and that is in a monogamous marriage. God should know, he is the one who created us in the first place. If you lived together before marriage do not despair. Sit down together, talk, and recommit yourselves to your marriage. If you are single, decide today to not live with anyone until you are married. And all of us can renew our commitment to work though problems in our marriages and not give up. Marriage is a great gift if it is done God’s way.
