Dating, Si; Cohabiting, No?

Last updated on: March 7, 2017 at 8:42 pm by Patheos Daily Reflections

Dating, Si; Cohabiting, No? 2017-03-07T20:42:40+00:00 Patheos Daily Reflections

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

WRITTEN BY MAX LINDENMAN:

Yesterday, I was impressed to see so many readers celebrating the royal wedding as a validation of marriage. At First Things, Meghan Duke takes a slightly different approach: she sees it as a rebuke to the practice of permanent cohabitation:

“It’s probably best that they live together before making a commitment,” one random fellow interviewed by the AP opined. According to anonymous “Royal commentators,” cohabiting on and off with his girlfriend has put Prince William “in a better position than his father to make his marriage work.”

It’s easy to see the argument: This is a practice run and everyone knows that practice makes perfect. It’s a time to figure out finances and who will do the dishes four days a week, to learn conflict negotiation and perhaps even get a jump start on parenting. According to the National Marriage Project’s 2010 State of Our Unions report, a rapidly increasing number of couples take this approach. Today, more than 60 percent of first marriages are now preceded by a period of cohabitation.

The trouble is, cohabitation isn’t really practice for marriage. As any athlete can tell you: As much as you train, it never completely prepares you for the race. You’ll never perfectly simulate in practice the nerves and adrenaline that kick in at the starting block. The race and practice are simply not the same experience, and neither are settling down and what used to be called shacking up.

As Dietrich von Hildebrand recognized in The Nature of Love, the value of personal love is not simply determined by the objective value of the beloved, but by the contribution of self the lover is willing to make to the beloved, how far he “is willing to go to fulfill the demands of a particular situation. The point at which a person says, ‘it is impossible,’ and at which the obstacles seem insurmountable to him so that he feels excused in his conscience is reached sooner by some and later by others.”

Without meaning to, Hildebrand makes a case — maybe not a good case, but a case — for cohabitation. Let’s agree that marriage is a permanent committment. Let’s also agree that some matches really are impossible — this is why people don’t choose spouses at random from the telephone directory. Who wants to live with a drunk, a nag, a sulk, a spendthrift, a Nintendo addict? During a courtship, canny lovers can conceal these deal-breakers — at least to a point. Living together, sharing a bathroom, it becomes impossible. Cohabiting, then, makes less sense as a form of practice than as a trial run. Playing house, as Duke calls it, might not tell you if the match is tenable, but it can at least provide some clues as to whether it’s untenable.

That’s my logic, anyway. Its strength is hard to test; as far as I know, no one’s compiled data on bad marriages avoided. The very idea sounds strange – kind of like Dan Quayle did when he said, “I demand credit for the things I did not do.” Duke reports that statistics suggest cohabiting does little good in those instances when the other partner does turn out to be a keeper:

At best, the State of Our Unions report suggests, the jury’s still out. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that cohabitation among engaged couples did not adversely effect marriages, couples who cohabitated before engagement were more likely to report lower marital satisfaction, dedication, and confidence as well as more negative communication and greater potential for divorce than those who lived together only after engagement or marriage. “What can be said for certain,” the report concludes, “is that no research from the United States has yet been found that those who cohabit before marriage have stronger marriages than those who do not.”

I haven’t read the study, so I don’t know whether it’s longitudinal in nature. If it represents no more than a snapshot of a particular point in these couples’ lives together, I’m disinclined to give it too much weight. The couples who cohabited would have gotten more used to one another — to playing house and its charms — than the ones who didn’t. Exhaustion — buyer’s remorse, the seven-year-itch, ennui, Weltschmerz, ἀκηδία, and every other shade of discontent so delicate that only Europeans have a name for it — would naturally set in earlier. Give the non-cohabiters a few years; they’ll catch right up.

By now, readers must have guessed that I have a certain soft spot for cohabitation, despite the Church’s prohibitions. I have to admit that I do, and for a very unscientific reason. The most stable, mutually supportive relationship I’ve ever been privileged to observe is the one between my mother and her boyfriend. They’ve been living together since 1994 and have no plans to marry. Without ever having quizzed them on why not, I doubt I’ll do them any injustice by guessing they’re afraid that formalizing their commitment will. cause it, somehow, to sour. “The piece of paper changes everything” — everyone’s heard that before. If, at its worst, it sounds superstitious, it may express, at its best, genuine self-knowledge.

But here’s what makes them exceptional: they dated for ten solid years before sharing a living space. Neither one was in any hurry to surrender her autonomy. At the very least, each could be sure that the other was not a clinger or a sponger. Maybe that’s the missing piece to the puzzle — if people can live apart, they can live together.

Elizabeth tells me I must sign my name, so I remain, & C., Yr. most humble, obedient servant,

Max Lindenman, Deputy Anchoress

Previous Post

April 29, 2011

Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World

Next Post

April 30, 2011 Beatification Link Roundup

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Shema" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Wait Hear Pray Obey