Cohabitation and the Gospel of Grace

The New York Times Sunday Review had a guest article that popped my eyes.  Meg Jan, a clinical psychologist at UVa, was the author.  In the article, she summarizes the growing body of research that studies the impact of cohabitation on people and their marriages.  She then illustrates that research movingly by placing it in the context of real lives that she has worked with in her counseling practice.  Her perspective is by no means faith-based, yet it expresses well, and with independent research, what I have observed over decades of pastoral ministry.

When Jennifer started therapy with me less than a year (after her wedding), she was looking for a divorce lawyer. “I spent more time planning my wedding than I spent happily married,” she sobbed. Most disheartening to Jennifer was that she’d tried to do everything right. “My parents got married young so, of course, they got divorced. We lived together! How did this happen?”

That belief (that cohabitation before marriage is a good way to avoid divorce) is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.

Jennifer said she never really felt that her boyfriend was committed to her.  “I felt like I was on this multiyear, never-ending audition to be his wife,” she said. “We had all this furniture. We had our dogs and all the same friends. It just made it really, really difficult to break up. Then it was like we got married because we were living together once we got into our 30s.” Click Here for the entire article.

 A "multiyear, never-ending audition to be his wife."  Ouch!  This is just another way of saying what I have observed:  Cohabitation starts a relationship off on a performance-based foundation.  "We're just trying it out."  "We want to see if this works."  Crudely: "If the cost/benefit analysis of sharing space and sex is favorable to me, then I will consider going further."  But understand that the "cost/benefit analysis" will continue once it is set in place.

Continue that is unless there is a deliberate, purposeful change of the relationship.  I don't mean simply a change of marital status, but of heart and motivation.  There needs to be a change from performance to grace.

This is about more than being married in a church building, or going to church services or associating with church-based behaviors and things.  It is about a heart that has been transformed, and is being continually transformed on ever deeper levels, by the grace of Jesus.  It's about a heart that is being changed by what God has done, and what has been announced in the good news of the Gospel.

In his book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller speaks of marriage from the perspective of the Gospel of grace.

What, then, is marriage for? It is for helping each other to become our future glory-selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us. The common horizon husband and wife look toward is the Throne, and the holy, spotless, and blameless nature we will have. I can think of no more powerful common horizon than that, and that is why putting a Christian friendship at the heart of a marriage relationship can lift it to a level that no other vision for marriage approaches.

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!’” Each spouse should see the great thing that Jesus is doing in the life of their mate through the Word, the gospel. Each spouse then should give him- or herself to be a vehicle for that work and envision the day that you will stand together before God, seeing each other presented in spotless beauty and glory.  (Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (pp. 112-113). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.)

I am beginning to see that I have too often spoken of marriage as a matter of commitment.  I have stated or inferred that if people simply had more commitment, they would have better marriages.  What I am coming to understand more clearly though, is that the marriage commitment of a husband and wife can best thrive when planted in the soil of the Father's commitment to each of us through the Good News of the Gospel of Grace.  As I grow to trust and live in His sacrificial love for me, I am empowered to love another - in this case my spouse - with a love that moves beyond the "cost/benefit analysis" of performance and to the power, beauty and joy of grace.