No matter how much you love each other, there is a good chance that your relationship will end up one of the statistics, and come to an end. With close to one out of every two marriages being lost to divorce, non-committed relationships would seem even more easily broken.
Surprisingly, relationships that exist outside of marriage last longer. More people stay together when they are free to leave, than they do with a legally binding contract hanging over their head. But just because they stay together, it doesn’t mean they have solid healthy relationships that will stand the test of for better or for worse.
So while live in relationships may last a little longer than traditional marriages do, when compared to the marriages that do stay intact, they don’t make the cut. The act of getting married may seem like a legal formality to some, but there is something about the formality of it that creates a stronger foundation than any other type of relationship. It’s also true that most of the couples that stay together long term, without getting married, eventually do get married, at some point, or break up.
There is obviously something to, taking things to the next level, when it comes to relationships, considering nobody really has to get married anymore, if they really don’t want to. There is no longer the stigma that goes along with being unmarried and living together, or unmarried and having kids, as there once was. It is now more acceptable than ever to cohabitate and produce children without every saying one “I do”.
Still, millions of people tie the knot every year. One of the things to weigh in on the equation, when trying to calculate the odds of any given relationship making it to the forever mark, is if the couple lived together before they got married. Marriages that start off as shack-ups have higher divorce rates than those who don’t.
The couple who doesn’t live together before marriage have already proved how committed they are to each other, and to getting married. They have taken the time to get to know each other, and want to take the big step of marriage because they plan to honor their commitment, no matter what. People who want test runs before they take the plunge are really just saying that they are willing to walk away and not look back if something they don’t like comes up.
Relationships who hit rough patches also stand the test of time better when everybody lives in their own place. It’s really about being apart and then coming together for no other reason, but that they want to be together.
There are a lot of ways to play house, but when it comes to relationships, there is nothing like having the real thing.