Testing For Marriage? Or For Divorce?

I suspect all of us have family, friends or co-workers who are living together with the intent of one day getting married.  All of those that I listen to tell me that they approach this arrangement as a “test marriage” – a way to see if they have what it takes to make a lifelong commitment.  As it turns out, research is piling up evidence that co-habitating is more like a “test divorce.”  It is an arrangement that sets in play patterns of relationship and behavior that dramatically reduce the probability of being married for ten years into the future.

Jared Wilson is a favorite Gospel blogger of mine.  His recent post entitled “10 Things Young Singles in Romantic Relationship Ought to Know” is right on target. 

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?”