Cohabitation

    So far in this semester in my family relations class we have talked about family trends and the APA brief from the court case of redefining what marriage is (court case making same sex marriage legal). These were both really interesting topics to learn about in class and I hope I can convey similar knowledge to my readers. 

    In class we talked about trends of families. Those trends include birth rates going down, marriage rate going down, divorce is decreasing, non marital births are increasing, age when married has gone up, cohabitation is increasing, employed moms with kids under the age of 6 is increasing, and living alone is increasing. Divorce rate is only going down because people are getting married less, and people are getting married less because couples are choosing cohabiting instead of getting married. Plus if that cohabitating couple wants to get married later on they are 3 times more likely to get a divorce compared to just getting married instead of cohabitating. Cohabitation, by the way, just means two people in a sexual relationship that live together but are not married.

    I read an article that talked about this one couple who were living together and they were super happy and they went on this vacation and the guy proposed. When he proposed the girl just freaked out and said she just saw herself being a housewife and being stuck at home and no longer improving career wise. So she said no to his proposal. She told him she just didn't see any benefits of getting married. They still stayed together over many years but they never married. Then one day when she was enjoying some time with a couple of kids she suddenly had the feelings of wanting what she saw. She wanted a family and wanted to be married. So she went up to her boyfriend and talked about it, hinted at it some. The guy just shrugged and just quoted back what she said to him many years ago when he proposed, "what's the point, there's no benefit of getting married". In truth he just said that because he was hurt. She wanted to get married but by that time it was to late, he was done with her and they broke up. She had rejected him before and her wanting to be married now just hurt him. She waited too long and missed a chance at a life with someone she loved. Sadly enough she could of had it all, or at least had a better chance at keeping what she had if she would have committed to her lover when he proposed. When reading that story I just thought, well if you got married when he first proposed then you would have been in the same relationship you were in when cohabitating, except you would have been more committed to each other, and once you wanted kids you could of had them. There was no requirement when married for the women to have kids, stay at home, or getting rid of your career. Those choices are all up to you. I'm just saddened that this women didn't see that. They could of had it all but their choice to cohabit instead of getting married caused their break up. 

    When I think of cohabitation and why people do it I come up with the reason of having all the benefits of a marriage, like being with someone you love, sex, being happier, reduces stress,  but not being totally invested like you would be in a marriage. It seems like a low risk high reward system, and that sounds good on paper but it's not really true once you look deeper. If you have all those benefits like being happier and being with the person you love, why would you want to lose that? Cohabitation just makes losing those benefits a lot easier. Marriage on the other hand just makes you more committed and I'm sure all of us would want to be in a long lasting committed relationship compared to a long lasting relationship. The difference is just having better chance at lasting longer in a relationship, and once you find someone you love that's pretty all you could want in a relationship. 

    There are plenty of articles about the benefits of being married instead of being in a cohabitation relationship, but these are just my thoughts on this topic. 

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