Cohabitation Test Drives Marriage

Sharon Weldon and Brad Hutchinson had an "instant connection" when they met at the International Bar-B-Q Festival in 2005.

The 36-year-old Henderson woman was soon driving to Owensboro, Ky., every day to be with Hutchinson, 29, who works in his family's barbecue restaurant.

After a month of that, she moved in with him.

"We weren't even thinking about getting married when I first moved in," Weldon said. Within six months, though, they were engaged. They are planning an outdoor wedding in June with a local minister officiating.

Jeff and Karen Glenn, now 41 and 48, met at work, dated three years, and lived together about one year before they were married by a justice of the peace in a local church hall in March.

"I wanted to be with him all the time," Karen Glenn explained about her decision to move in with her then-boyfriend. "We just spent so much time together anyway."

After going through a divorce, he was cautious about remarriage, Jeff Glenn said. He wanted to make sure he and Karen really knew each other and would stick together.

"I wanted to make sure she saw the real me, and I was hoping I was seeing the real her," he said.

He thinks all couples should live together before marriage. "It would be cheaper in the long run. You wouldn't have to pay for a divorce."

"Whether we are married or not, he was mine," Karen Glenn said. "I don't believe it takes a piece of paper down at the courthouse to say we're married."

Not Uncommon Anymore
While 40 years ago, such arrangements raised eyebrows, today, cohabiting is nothing unusual.

About two-thirds of people entering marriage today have cohabited with their partner or with someone else before marriage, said David Popenoe, professor of sociology and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

In 1970, about 500,000 couples in the United States were living together outside of marriage, said Brad Wilcox, assistant professor of sociology at University of Virginia. In 2004, it was 5 million. "It's become the common way most people first enter into a union."

Some of those relationships last a few weeks, Popenoe said. Some last many years.

Several local ministers said many of the couples who ask them to perform wedding ceremonies these days are already living together.

Most religious groups still preach against that and any sexual relations outside of marriage.

But with these couples, said the Rev. Dale Carden, superintendent of the Owensboro District of the United Methodist Church in Owensboro, Ky., the question is how to take the reality and "administer grace."

"I had rather marry them than see them living together," said the Rev. Ferrell Isenberg, pastor at Crosspointe Baptist Church.

Some pastors say they require weeks or months of premarital counseling before they will perform the ceremony.

Some say they ask or at least encourage couples to separate for a period before the wedding "to bring some freshness or newness to the ceremony," as Isenberg puts it.

Why try a trial marriage?
Cohabiting has become more common today for several reasons, sociologists say. Couples are marrying later but are unwilling to postpone sex that long.

They see unmarried celebrities in Hollywood living together.

And many have witnessed the effects of divorce in their own family. They still respect marriage, but fear divorce more.

Hutchinson and both of the Glenns said their parents divorced. Both the Glenns, who are supervisors at the Opportunity Center, and Weldon have experienced divorce themselves.

Weldon shares custody of her 13-year-old daughter with her ex-husband. Karen Glenn has three grown children.

Hutchinson has never married before, but lived with another woman for about a year. He says the experience dissuaded him from marrying at the time.

If she had lived with her first husband first, said Karen Glenn, who was 16 when she married in the 1970s, they never would have tied the knot.

Cohabitation is most common among working class
and poor Americans, Wilcox said. In the past, people married right out
of college or high school even though they owned nothing, he said.
These days, many see marriage as part of reaching a certain status in
life, a sign "you have arrived."

And finally, some see living together as a trial marriage. Others do it for convenience and economics.

"One challenge facing couples is one partner has one objective
in mind, and the other partner has the other objective in mind," said
Wilcox, who is doing research on cohabiting with the Institute for
American Values, a nonpartisan think tank in New York.

No Antidote to Divorce
The tremendous irony is, despite
popular perception, there is no evidence cohabiting helps anyone avoid
divorce or enjoy greater satisfaction once married, Wilcox said.

Research shows, in fact, those who cohabit are actually more likely to divorce, he said.

"The one exception to that," Popenoe said, "is people who are
engaged and committed to each other." In other words, "They have a ring
and a date" for the wedding when they move in together, he said.

The big question is why. Is it the cohabiting that makes
couples more likely to divorce? Or are these the people who would have
been more likely to divorce to start with?

The jury's still out on that one, Wilcox and Popenoe said.

"Generally speaking, people who have cohabited have had more
sexual partners," Wilcox said. A number of studies have shown those who
have had more sexual partners before marriage are more likely to
divorce, he said. It could be they are less committed to marriage in
general, he theorizes.

"The other explanation is cohabiting gets people off on the
wrong foot," Wilcox said. They go into it with the attitude they are
test-driving a relationship.

"None of us is perfect," he said. A "consumeristic mind-set" is
going to make a person more likely to see his or her partner's faults,
Wilcox said.

"We know that people who have a more sacrificial approach to
marriage" tend to divorce less and experience greater marital
satisfaction, Wilcox said.

The Rev. John Vaughan, pastor at St. Stephen Cathedral, said he thinks cohabiting cuts down on communication.

Sex "can get you along for a while, but if that's all you've got, that's not going to sustain you," Vaughan said.

Also, "people who (cohabit) clearly are saying you don't have to
be married to have sex," Vaughan said. "Well, if that's the mentality
you have," even when the couple marries, the partners are more likely
to stray, he said.

Why Marry?
With so many alternative lifestyles accepted these
days, who do people marry at all? "Most Americans," Wilcox said, "still
see marriage as a unique expression of commitment and fidelity."

Some may march down the church aisle out of pressure from
family and friends. "And there's still a sense, particularly among
college-educated Americans, that kids deserve a married mother and
father," he said.

"Really, the only difference when you marry is the name change," Weldon said.

"And the tax break," Hutchinson said.

He says he and Weldon want to marry, though, for "the sense of permanency, better peace of mind."

"A deeper commitment," she said.

"I'd hate to think of marriage becoming obsolete," Karen Glenn said. "I think it's a good thing."

If Jeff Glenn had never decided he was ready to marry her,
however, "I would have been with him as long as he would have me," she
said.

"People have to search their hearts and find the best thing for them."

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