August 31, 2009 • 19 mins
Today, the majority of couples choose to live together before marriage, but some studies suggest that this may increase their chances of divorce. Tune in as Molly and Cristen take a closer look at this topic in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, very welcome to the podcast.
This is Kristen and this is Molly. So Molly, Um,
(00:21):
wouldn't you say that? In comparison to our mother's generation,
the relationship arc, if you will, from meeting someone to
marriage or long term commitment, etcetera, has changed. Probably, Yes,
there's an extra step in there because it used to
be that, you know, there was a period of you know,
(00:43):
you'd meet and then you would court, and then there'd
be the engagement in the in a wedding. Probably, um.
But for us there's an extra step in there. There's
the meat updating and then the cohabitation. Yes, yeah, famed
on sitcoms and movies. Yeah, you kinda kinda try it
(01:05):
out before before you buy it. If it's not referred
to as the next step, you know, I'm ready to
take the next step, the next step. Let's move this
relationship forward. So you're moving together and then maybe you
get engaged, maybe you don't, maybe break up whatever, but
at least you didn't get married. Yeah, I think that.
You know, our generation might have had sort of that
first set of parents that got divorced. Who are you
(01:26):
know people around our age saw their parents get divorced.
So I don't want to make that mistake, So I'm
gonna try it before I buy it. Yeah, I mean,
you know in olden days the famous expression I didn't
really want to say, because I don't like this expression,
go for it, Molly, why buy the cow and you
can get the milk for free? Oh Molly, I thought
you were gonna say, living in sin that's my personal fame.
(01:46):
Well that's another one. You know, ladies who did that
were either very simple as sinc I'm not talking about
my view of the um so they were simple or
just foolish because they were giving away all the free milk, yes, um.
Whereas now whereas now, you know, we think we're being
a little bit wiser by preventing that trauma divorce by
(02:08):
you know, not making things legal. Yeah. Absolutely. And you're
not in the minority if you do, uh cohabitate before
you are married, because, according to a very new study
from the Journal of Family Psychology, upwards of sev of
US couples these days are living together before marrying, and
if you want to compare that to how it used
(02:29):
to be, only half a million couples did that in
nineteen sixty. We're up to the millions now. Yeah, so
it's very common. So the question is, you know, is
that is that really a good idea? Yeah? Have we
made any progress by designed to do this step before
the big marriage? Right? Are we preventing divorced down the
road by kind of figuring out whether or not we
really like living with this guy or girl before we
(02:50):
make the final commitment? Um? And bad news, guys, According
to that same study in the Journal of Family Psychology,
it's not the best idea. Yeah. Yeah, it's still gonna
be sad down the line. Yeah. What these researchers are
saying that is they think they don't think that the
actual act of living together, you know, the testing out
that free milk or whatever you're talking about, Molly, they
(03:13):
don't think that. They don't think that that's the bad idea.
They just think that living together could be pushing people
to marrying for the wrong reasons, right, which means which
makes them more likely to get divorced down the road.
So let's talk about why people might live together and
how this may or may not be a good idea.
So in a study published in the February issue of
the journal Family Issues, more than sixty participants ranks spending
(03:36):
more time together so the number one reason for moving
in together fair enough, followed by nearly nine who put
it as you know, financial reasons. It makes more sensitors
have one rent, what these costs were together all the
time anyway. But then fourteen percent ranked I want to
test our relationship before marriage is the most prominent reason
for why they moved in together field Testra Testra. Now,
(03:58):
these people are probably most at risk for the later unhappiness. Yeah,
the people who were listening to testing as their primary
motive for moving in together were the ones who scored
higher on measures of negative communications such as my partner
criticizes or bilittle's my opinions, feelings or desires. And they
also had lower confidence in the quality and stability of
(04:22):
their relationships. And it might be because going into the
they weren't really sure, you know, whether this was someone
they wanted to be together with for the long run.
So they're moving in together, so maybe to begin with
the relationship wasn't on the firmest ground, right, And if
you do have sort of this, you know, I can
get out of it later mindset. Then once things start
to go a little bit bad, you might not put
the effort into it that a couple who is on
(04:44):
a little bit firmer ground might Yeah. And following up
on the heels of that city that we were just
talking about, the CDC in two thousand two came up
with similar statistics that said, for instance, that the probability
of a first marriage ending in separation or divorced within
five years is compared with forty nine probability of a
(05:04):
pre marital cohabitation breaking up within that same period. So,
like you said, Molly, there's uh, not as high risk
involved with living together before you're married, so there's probably
greater chance of someone, you know, couples breaking up. So
those are kind of scary statistics. I mean, you know,
you think you're doing a good thing. But I do
want to say that the research that God is talking
(05:25):
about this today was published in July two thousand nine,
and I kind of find it a little dicey, Like
I just don't know yet if we have the right
numbers on this subject, just because it's such a new phenomenon.
It seems like a hard, hard topic to really study accurately. Yeah,
I will say if you google living together before marriage,
all you get are a lot of religious sites, which
(05:45):
is a whole another factor about what role religion plays
into it. We can get into that later. But the
say that God is interested was conducted at the University
of Denver. It's the one that Kristen has been citing
from the journal Family Psychology UM. And basically this research
are called up a thousand married men and women between
the ages of eighteen and thirty four who have been
married for ten years or less, so fairly newly weds,
(06:06):
I guess, and they asked a lot of questions about
how satisfied they are with relationship, how dedicated they were,
and what they thought of in terms of their communication patterns,
their sex lives, etcetera. And then to measure the potential
of a couple who might get divorced, they were asked,
have you or your spouse ever seriously suggested the idea
of divorce? Those sort of the first red flag for me, Kristen,
(06:27):
because I don't know if if someone called me up
and asked me if I had ever seriously suggested the
idea of divorce. If I would answer that completely honestly, Yeah,
it's a fairly fairly direct question. And you might have
some people going pointing back to those religious views that
you just mentioned. You might have some people who would
never might not be happy in their marriage, but their
divorce is never going to be an option right for them. Right,
(06:48):
But I do kind of agree with the trends that
UM that the research yielded that if you lived together
before you get married, when you already have the ring
on your finger, or you've already made a very serious commitment,
then you do have later success than the than the
tribe before you buy people. Yeah, according to this research,
UM only about six percent of the people who lived
(07:09):
together after getting engaged expressed UM signs of marital marital discord,
which seemed to hint like you said that that, uh
that if you are already committed to getting married in
the future and then you move in together, it's not
as uh predictive of disaster in the future. Yeah, if
you're just moving together to kind of see how the
(07:30):
other person lives, and then all of a sudden, you
guys who have a dog and a mortgage together then
that's sort of what we're talking about, people who just
kind of slide into marriage for possibly the wrong reason.
It seems like the practical idea. And um, there there's
actually an entire project at UM Rutgers University that's been
studying the dynamics all all different from all different angles
(07:51):
of marriage. And they looked at this idea of pre
marital cohabitation to see whether or not it it is
a predictor of long term UM marriage success. And and
they say no, they think that before um, you live together,
you need to consider whether or not you're gonna get
married in the future. UM, trying to limit the amount
(08:12):
of time you live together before you end up getting married,
and definitely not living together if children are involved, right,
and and it doesn't even matter if your child with
the person that you're going to move in with. Their
saying that um, three fourths of the children born and
born to cohabitating parents will see their parents split up,
Whereas I mean you might say that children are married
(08:32):
parents have the same odds. It's actually closer to one
third according to the National Marriage Project. And one of
the reasons why, uh, this team at Rutgers is really
looking at this issue is because, um, it's this idea
of living together before marriage is really becoming almost as
institutionalized as marriage itself. For instance, its sites a recent
(08:53):
representative national survey that found that nearly sixty six percent
of high school senior boys and sixty one and of
the girls indicated that they either agreed or mostly agreed
with a statement it's usually a good idea for a
couple to live together before getting married in order to
find out whether they really get along. And I also
think that you know, for people at that age, they
(09:14):
may not even want to get married. And so then
you've got the question, if I'm just living together, not
necessarily living together before marriage, is that going to be better?
Is it just a whole another alternative lifestyle for people?
And right now, you know, it's a fairly new phenomenon.
We might not have the best data on it, but
the National Marriage Project is saying, just if you're living
together as a complete alternative to marriage, that those couples
(09:35):
purport report lower levels of happiness, lower levels of sexual satisfaction,
and uh, poorer relationships with their parents obviously because their
parents probably frown on the living and sin. Yeah, and
on the pro marriage side of things. They say that, um,
there is you know, the long term contract that's implied
when you when you marry someone that you're gonna you know,
(09:55):
having to hold to death till you part. But one
thing about this marriage project, Molly, when I is going through,
it's pretty detailed study. A lot of the statistics are
fairly old. A lot of them are coming from even
as far back as the late eighties and the mid nineties,
when this so called phenomenon that we're calling it was
not as prevalent. And um, there was a researcher at
(10:20):
the Mannheim Research Institute for Economics of Aging who in
two thousand and seven went back and kind of re
examined all of this data to find out once again
like whether or not, uh, you know, this idea of
living together is um making you more likely to get
divorced in the future. And he says that going back
and looking at the data and updating it for today's couples,
(10:45):
that it's that's not the case. Really, yes, So what
does today's couple look like? So let's take the women
thirty five to forty four, this age group, it has
the highest like increase in the rate of living together
before marriage. Okay, And at this age, women are a
lot more stable. Um, women are making more money than
(11:06):
ever before, and women with more higher education levels are
also living together more than ever before. Okay. So he's
saying that because you have this more quote unquote stable
population of men and women who are living together before marriage, Um,
that is kind of equalizing this whole idea of, you know,
(11:29):
the positive correlation between premarital cohabitation and divorce. And according
to this researcher, Stephen Reinholdt, this is actually happening in
Denmark and in Western Europe in particular, and he thinks
that these same ripple effects are going to start happening
in the US very soon. Gotcha. So that would, um
(11:51):
provide a counterpoint to the research we were siting earlier.
Whereas we mentioned, the survey participants were eighteen to thirty four,
because the younger people who are getting married at young
r ages UM and from lower income brackets are more
likely to get divorced statistically. Plus no one knows what
they're doing in their twenties. Yeah, yeah, I don't. That's
(12:11):
another podcast, Molly, um and and and he was he's
talking about this idea that that that group of more
you know, quote unstable. You know that people in the twenties,
not knowing what they're doing, are we're self selecting themselves
for for this group of people who are for living
together before marriage and kind of skewing the results to
make it seem like it's this terrible idea that's going
(12:33):
to to lead to divorce. So he's kind of arguing that, um,
as it does become more institutionalized, it's going to end
up being you know, a fairly good thing. Sounds good. Yeah,
So you have point counterpoint, point counterpoint, and thesis pretty much,
you know, as close as we can get to a
snapshot in time, just because there are a lot of
good studies on it right now, and who knows how
(12:55):
it's turn out. Reinhold says good. Other people might say bad.
But Molly, we do have some tips for people, since
at least of couples in the US are now living
together before marriage, I mean we might as well at
least prepare people for sure. If we have alienated you
completely right now, they have been terrified you, and you're
like packing up your bags right now and moving out. Um,
(13:16):
we do have some financial tips because I think this
is probably the stickiest thing. Yes, Um, you know you
when you move in with someone, it shouldn't be then
that you realize that they're majorly in debt or you
know they can't make rent. Yeah, things like that, Like
if you're moving together to try out those sort of things,
I would say that's probably one of those um precursors
to failure. But again, I don't want to alienate all
(13:38):
of you out there. So these tips come from Aaron
Burdock Kiplinger. The five money Rules from moving in together. Um. Obviously,
first one a very common relationship tip. Communicate talk about
money all on the line. How much you make, how
much you spend, what you term long term goals, whether
you're a spender saver. Yeah, you've got to know all
of that about the person that you're gonna be in with.
(14:00):
I suggest making it like a quiz or a sort
of game. Yeah, and most importantly, how much you can
afford to pay for rent, utilities, etcetera, so you can,
you know, make those decisions exactly. And you know. The
one example she cites is that you know, maybe you
have a cell phone and your potential roommate slash signific
Another does a landline. Are you gonna pay for that lindline?
You know, if you're paying your boyfriend rent money, do
(14:23):
you have to pay for all the renovations and upkeep
things like that. You kind of just have to lay
it online. And when you're talking about all this money stuff,
it is not the time to go ahead and get
a joint credit card things like that. She really advises
keeping your finances separate. But if you are engaged or
you're gonna get married soon, you might want to open
up a joint checking account, but you still want to
(14:45):
keep separate accounts in some former fashion. Right So now,
for me, Kristen, one of the least romantic things I
can think of would be to drop a contract of
sorts with someone that you're not even sure you want
to marry. You know, this is the whole reason you
are living together is to avoid all that pay for
pre pre nup. Yeah, but you need a pre prenup
where you put everything in writing, who's going to pay
for what when, et cetera. I mean, you should do
(15:07):
that with any roommate, but don't don't let the old
boyfriend off the hook just because he's going to be
a very special roommate or girlfriend. True. Um. And then
if you let's say you move into a place doesn't
have a washer dryer, it's a big expense. Um. If
you have big ticket items that you're gonna need to get,
you need to keep those purchases separate and keep them documents.
(15:29):
So then when it's time and when if it's time
to move out, you'll know that, yes, I actually did
buy that washer and dryer and it is coming with me.
Kristin looked a little too angry when she said that,
for she really didn't wish you guys could have seen that. Um.
And last, be smart about your housing. If you're renting,
(15:49):
then put both names on the least. And though it
may seem like the best possible market to buy a
house together a little love nest if you will, I
would prefer that people not be in that tribe before
are you buy stage. You know, it's probably not a
good idea to buy a house with a significant other
of only three months, despite how much you are committed
to this three month fledging fledgling relationship. Yeah, so you know,
(16:12):
stay independent, stay smart, you know, and uh, don't be
scared of cohabitating. But don't let it also push you
into marriage for the wrong reasons. I think that's the takeaway.
I think so. Yeah, I mean the the news is
grim now, but perhaps we will be the ladies who
change it. Stephen Reinholdt, you know, there we go, he says.
(16:32):
He says, we'll wait for it, just wait for I
wonder if that's an excuse like ladies will start to
use before they cohabitate. Oh, Stefan, Yeah, well, I mean
it seems like to the the takeaway is the more
stable you are, the better position you are in to
live with someone. Okay, so there we go. Sold well, Molly, Um.
(16:54):
This topic actually did come from a listener who emailed
us about it. Audrey, thank you so much for that idea.
And uh, speaking of mail, whann't we do a little
bit of a listener mail, moll uh Today, I want
to give a shout out to Mom's stuff listener named
(17:18):
Marley Jane. She first emailed us to um send us
a little correction about um Scott Pilgrim shout out we did.
It was part of someone's reading list a couple of
weeks ago, and I think we might have mentioned said
Scott Pilgrim as an author Scott Pilgrim is actually um
a comic book character. It's a whole series. UM. But
(17:40):
the reason why we're giving Marley Jane a shout out
is because she sent us a link to her own
comics UM www dot Scary ghost Girl dot com and uh,
I gotta say the pretty funny, pretty cute. Yeah, I'd
like to thank Marley for uh my not getting any
work done the day we got this link. Yeah, she
(18:01):
also has She also has a blog with UM some
more of her her artwork on it, and it's the
Marley Jane dot com and you should check it out.
My favorite on there is the image of peanut butter
and jellyfish sandwich. So you guys, if you want to
shoot break coo look at that. Checkout scarre goost girl. Yeah.
Thanks Marley Jane for the correction. And if you guys
(18:23):
have any questions, comments, or artwork tasteful artwork people that
you would like to send our way, please email me
and Molly at Mom's Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And if you want even more Molly and Kristen throughout
the week, of course, you can always head over to
how to Stuff, which is our blog that's at how
stuff works dot com. And if you just want more
information about marriage and finances and all that good romantic
(18:46):
and not romantic stuff, check out some articles at how
stuffworks dot com. While you're there for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works
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(19:08):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House Towards dot com. Hey, very welcome to the podcast.
This is Kristen and this is Molly. So Molly, Um,
(00:21):
wouldn't you say that? In comparison to our mother's generation,
the relationship arc, if you will, from meeting someone to
marriage or long term commitment, etcetera, has changed. Probably, Yes,
there's an extra step in there because it used to
be that, you know, there was a period of you know,
(00:43):
you'd meet and then you would court, and then there'd
be the engagement in the in a wedding. Probably, um.
But for us there's an extra step in there. There's
the meat updating and then the cohabitation. Yes, yeah, famed
on sitcoms and movies. Yeah, you kinda kinda try it
(01:05):
out before before you buy it. If it's not referred
to as the next step, you know, I'm ready to
take the next step, the next step. Let's move this
relationship forward. So you're moving together and then maybe you
get engaged, maybe you don't, maybe break up whatever, but
at least you didn't get married. Yeah, I think that.
You know, our generation might have had sort of that
first set of parents that got divorced. Who are you
(01:26):
know people around our age saw their parents get divorced.
So I don't want to make that mistake, So I'm
gonna try it before I buy it. Yeah, I mean,
you know in olden days the famous expression I didn't
really want to say, because I don't like this expression,
go for it, Molly, why buy the cow and you
can get the milk for free? Oh Molly, I thought
you were gonna say, living in sin that's my personal fame.
(01:46):
Well that's another one. You know, ladies who did that
were either very simple as sinc I'm not talking about
my view of the um so they were simple or
just foolish because they were giving away all the free milk, yes, um.
Whereas now whereas now, you know, we think we're being
a little bit wiser by preventing that trauma divorce by
(02:08):
you know, not making things legal. Yeah. Absolutely. And you're
not in the minority if you do, uh cohabitate before
you are married, because, according to a very new study
from the Journal of Family Psychology, upwards of sev of
US couples these days are living together before marrying, and
if you want to compare that to how it used
(02:29):
to be, only half a million couples did that in
nineteen sixty. We're up to the millions now. Yeah, so
it's very common. So the question is, you know, is
that is that really a good idea? Yeah? Have we
made any progress by designed to do this step before
the big marriage? Right? Are we preventing divorced down the
road by kind of figuring out whether or not we
really like living with this guy or girl before we
(02:50):
make the final commitment? Um? And bad news, guys, According
to that same study in the Journal of Family Psychology,
it's not the best idea. Yeah. Yeah, it's still gonna
be sad down the line. Yeah. What these researchers are
saying that is they think they don't think that the
actual act of living together, you know, the testing out
that free milk or whatever you're talking about, Molly, they
(03:13):
don't think that. They don't think that that's the bad idea.
They just think that living together could be pushing people
to marrying for the wrong reasons, right, which means which
makes them more likely to get divorced down the road.
So let's talk about why people might live together and
how this may or may not be a good idea.
So in a study published in the February issue of
the journal Family Issues, more than sixty participants ranks spending
(03:36):
more time together so the number one reason for moving
in together fair enough, followed by nearly nine who put
it as you know, financial reasons. It makes more sensitors
have one rent, what these costs were together all the
time anyway. But then fourteen percent ranked I want to
test our relationship before marriage is the most prominent reason
for why they moved in together field Testra Testra. Now,
(03:58):
these people are probably most at risk for the later unhappiness. Yeah,
the people who were listening to testing as their primary
motive for moving in together were the ones who scored
higher on measures of negative communications such as my partner
criticizes or bilittle's my opinions, feelings or desires. And they
also had lower confidence in the quality and stability of
(04:22):
their relationships. And it might be because going into the
they weren't really sure, you know, whether this was someone
they wanted to be together with for the long run.
So they're moving in together, so maybe to begin with
the relationship wasn't on the firmest ground, right, And if
you do have sort of this, you know, I can
get out of it later mindset. Then once things start
to go a little bit bad, you might not put
the effort into it that a couple who is on
(04:44):
a little bit firmer ground might Yeah. And following up
on the heels of that city that we were just
talking about, the CDC in two thousand two came up
with similar statistics that said, for instance, that the probability
of a first marriage ending in separation or divorced within
five years is compared with forty nine probability of a
(05:04):
pre marital cohabitation breaking up within that same period. So,
like you said, Molly, there's uh, not as high risk
involved with living together before you're married, so there's probably
greater chance of someone, you know, couples breaking up. So
those are kind of scary statistics. I mean, you know,
you think you're doing a good thing. But I do
want to say that the research that God is talking
(05:25):
about this today was published in July two thousand nine,
and I kind of find it a little dicey, Like
I just don't know yet if we have the right
numbers on this subject, just because it's such a new phenomenon.
It seems like a hard, hard topic to really study accurately. Yeah,
I will say if you google living together before marriage,
all you get are a lot of religious sites, which
(05:45):
is a whole another factor about what role religion plays
into it. We can get into that later. But the
say that God is interested was conducted at the University
of Denver. It's the one that Kristen has been citing
from the journal Family Psychology UM. And basically this research
are called up a thousand married men and women between
the ages of eighteen and thirty four who have been
married for ten years or less, so fairly newly weds,
(06:06):
I guess, and they asked a lot of questions about
how satisfied they are with relationship, how dedicated they were,
and what they thought of in terms of their communication patterns,
their sex lives, etcetera. And then to measure the potential
of a couple who might get divorced, they were asked,
have you or your spouse ever seriously suggested the idea
of divorce? Those sort of the first red flag for me, Kristen,
(06:27):
because I don't know if if someone called me up
and asked me if I had ever seriously suggested the
idea of divorce. If I would answer that completely honestly, Yeah,
it's a fairly fairly direct question. And you might have
some people going pointing back to those religious views that
you just mentioned. You might have some people who would
never might not be happy in their marriage, but their
divorce is never going to be an option right for them. Right,
(06:48):
But I do kind of agree with the trends that
UM that the research yielded that if you lived together
before you get married, when you already have the ring
on your finger, or you've already made a very serious commitment,
then you do have later success than the than the
tribe before you buy people. Yeah, according to this research,
UM only about six percent of the people who lived
(07:09):
together after getting engaged expressed UM signs of marital marital discord,
which seemed to hint like you said that that, uh
that if you are already committed to getting married in
the future and then you move in together, it's not
as uh predictive of disaster in the future. Yeah, if
you're just moving together to kind of see how the
(07:30):
other person lives, and then all of a sudden, you
guys who have a dog and a mortgage together then
that's sort of what we're talking about, people who just
kind of slide into marriage for possibly the wrong reason.
It seems like the practical idea. And um, there there's
actually an entire project at UM Rutgers University that's been
studying the dynamics all all different from all different angles
(07:51):
of marriage. And they looked at this idea of pre
marital cohabitation to see whether or not it it is
a predictor of long term UM marriage success. And and
they say no, they think that before um, you live together,
you need to consider whether or not you're gonna get
married in the future. UM, trying to limit the amount
(08:12):
of time you live together before you end up getting married,
and definitely not living together if children are involved, right,
and and it doesn't even matter if your child with
the person that you're going to move in with. Their
saying that um, three fourths of the children born and
born to cohabitating parents will see their parents split up,
Whereas I mean you might say that children are married
(08:32):
parents have the same odds. It's actually closer to one
third according to the National Marriage Project. And one of
the reasons why, uh, this team at Rutgers is really
looking at this issue is because, um, it's this idea
of living together before marriage is really becoming almost as
institutionalized as marriage itself. For instance, its sites a recent
(08:53):
representative national survey that found that nearly sixty six percent
of high school senior boys and sixty one and of
the girls indicated that they either agreed or mostly agreed
with a statement it's usually a good idea for a
couple to live together before getting married in order to
find out whether they really get along. And I also
think that you know, for people at that age, they
(09:14):
may not even want to get married. And so then
you've got the question, if I'm just living together, not
necessarily living together before marriage, is that going to be better?
Is it just a whole another alternative lifestyle for people?
And right now, you know, it's a fairly new phenomenon.
We might not have the best data on it, but
the National Marriage Project is saying, just if you're living
together as a complete alternative to marriage, that those couples
(09:35):
purport report lower levels of happiness, lower levels of sexual satisfaction,
and uh, poorer relationships with their parents obviously because their
parents probably frown on the living and sin. Yeah, and
on the pro marriage side of things. They say that, um,
there is you know, the long term contract that's implied
when you when you marry someone that you're gonna you know,
(09:55):
having to hold to death till you part. But one
thing about this marriage project, Molly, when I is going through,
it's pretty detailed study. A lot of the statistics are
fairly old. A lot of them are coming from even
as far back as the late eighties and the mid nineties,
when this so called phenomenon that we're calling it was
not as prevalent. And um, there was a researcher at
(10:20):
the Mannheim Research Institute for Economics of Aging who in
two thousand and seven went back and kind of re
examined all of this data to find out once again
like whether or not, uh, you know, this idea of
living together is um making you more likely to get
divorced in the future. And he says that going back
and looking at the data and updating it for today's couples,
(10:45):
that it's that's not the case. Really, yes, So what
does today's couple look like? So let's take the women
thirty five to forty four, this age group, it has
the highest like increase in the rate of living together
before marriage. Okay, And at this age, women are a
lot more stable. Um, women are making more money than
(11:06):
ever before, and women with more higher education levels are
also living together more than ever before. Okay. So he's
saying that because you have this more quote unquote stable
population of men and women who are living together before marriage, Um,
that is kind of equalizing this whole idea of, you know,
(11:29):
the positive correlation between premarital cohabitation and divorce. And according
to this researcher, Stephen Reinholdt, this is actually happening in
Denmark and in Western Europe in particular, and he thinks
that these same ripple effects are going to start happening
in the US very soon. Gotcha. So that would, um
(11:51):
provide a counterpoint to the research we were siting earlier.
Whereas we mentioned, the survey participants were eighteen to thirty four,
because the younger people who are getting married at young
r ages UM and from lower income brackets are more
likely to get divorced statistically. Plus no one knows what
they're doing in their twenties. Yeah, yeah, I don't. That's
(12:11):
another podcast, Molly, um and and and he was he's
talking about this idea that that that group of more
you know, quote unstable. You know that people in the twenties,
not knowing what they're doing, are we're self selecting themselves
for for this group of people who are for living
together before marriage and kind of skewing the results to
make it seem like it's this terrible idea that's going
(12:33):
to to lead to divorce. So he's kind of arguing that, um,
as it does become more institutionalized, it's going to end
up being you know, a fairly good thing. Sounds good. Yeah,
So you have point counterpoint, point counterpoint, and thesis pretty much,
you know, as close as we can get to a
snapshot in time, just because there are a lot of
good studies on it right now, and who knows how
(12:55):
it's turn out. Reinhold says good. Other people might say bad.
But Molly, we do have some tips for people, since
at least of couples in the US are now living
together before marriage, I mean we might as well at
least prepare people for sure. If we have alienated you
completely right now, they have been terrified you, and you're
like packing up your bags right now and moving out. Um,
(13:16):
we do have some financial tips because I think this
is probably the stickiest thing. Yes, Um, you know you
when you move in with someone, it shouldn't be then
that you realize that they're majorly in debt or you
know they can't make rent. Yeah, things like that, Like
if you're moving together to try out those sort of things,
I would say that's probably one of those um precursors
to failure. But again, I don't want to alienate all
(13:38):
of you out there. So these tips come from Aaron
Burdock Kiplinger. The five money Rules from moving in together. Um. Obviously,
first one a very common relationship tip. Communicate talk about
money all on the line. How much you make, how
much you spend, what you term long term goals, whether
you're a spender saver. Yeah, you've got to know all
of that about the person that you're gonna be in with.
(14:00):
I suggest making it like a quiz or a sort
of game. Yeah, and most importantly, how much you can
afford to pay for rent, utilities, etcetera, so you can,
you know, make those decisions exactly. And you know. The
one example she cites is that you know, maybe you
have a cell phone and your potential roommate slash signific
Another does a landline. Are you gonna pay for that lindline?
You know, if you're paying your boyfriend rent money, do
(14:23):
you have to pay for all the renovations and upkeep
things like that. You kind of just have to lay
it online. And when you're talking about all this money stuff,
it is not the time to go ahead and get
a joint credit card things like that. She really advises
keeping your finances separate. But if you are engaged or
you're gonna get married soon, you might want to open
up a joint checking account, but you still want to
(14:45):
keep separate accounts in some former fashion. Right So now,
for me, Kristen, one of the least romantic things I
can think of would be to drop a contract of
sorts with someone that you're not even sure you want
to marry. You know, this is the whole reason you
are living together is to avoid all that pay for
pre pre nup. Yeah, but you need a pre prenup
where you put everything in writing, who's going to pay
for what when, et cetera. I mean, you should do
(15:07):
that with any roommate, but don't don't let the old
boyfriend off the hook just because he's going to be
a very special roommate or girlfriend. True. Um. And then
if you let's say you move into a place doesn't
have a washer dryer, it's a big expense. Um. If
you have big ticket items that you're gonna need to get,
you need to keep those purchases separate and keep them documents.
(15:29):
So then when it's time and when if it's time
to move out, you'll know that, yes, I actually did
buy that washer and dryer and it is coming with me.
Kristin looked a little too angry when she said that,
for she really didn't wish you guys could have seen that. Um.
And last, be smart about your housing. If you're renting,
(15:49):
then put both names on the least. And though it
may seem like the best possible market to buy a
house together a little love nest if you will, I
would prefer that people not be in that tribe before
are you buy stage. You know, it's probably not a
good idea to buy a house with a significant other
of only three months, despite how much you are committed
to this three month fledging fledgling relationship. Yeah, so you know,
(16:12):
stay independent, stay smart, you know, and uh, don't be
scared of cohabitating. But don't let it also push you
into marriage for the wrong reasons. I think that's the takeaway.
I think so. Yeah, I mean the the news is
grim now, but perhaps we will be the ladies who
change it. Stephen Reinholdt, you know, there we go, he says.
(16:32):
He says, we'll wait for it, just wait for I
wonder if that's an excuse like ladies will start to
use before they cohabitate. Oh, Stefan, Yeah, well, I mean
it seems like to the the takeaway is the more
stable you are, the better position you are in to
live with someone. Okay, so there we go. Sold well, Molly, Um.
(16:54):
This topic actually did come from a listener who emailed
us about it. Audrey, thank you so much for that idea.
And uh, speaking of mail, whann't we do a little
bit of a listener mail, moll uh Today, I want
to give a shout out to Mom's stuff listener named
(17:18):
Marley Jane. She first emailed us to um send us
a little correction about um Scott Pilgrim shout out we did.
It was part of someone's reading list a couple of
weeks ago, and I think we might have mentioned said
Scott Pilgrim as an author Scott Pilgrim is actually um
a comic book character. It's a whole series. UM. But
(17:40):
the reason why we're giving Marley Jane a shout out
is because she sent us a link to her own
comics UM www dot Scary ghost Girl dot com and uh,
I gotta say the pretty funny, pretty cute. Yeah, I'd
like to thank Marley for uh my not getting any
work done the day we got this link. Yeah, she
(18:01):
also has She also has a blog with UM some
more of her her artwork on it, and it's the
Marley Jane dot com and you should check it out.
My favorite on there is the image of peanut butter
and jellyfish sandwich. So you guys, if you want to
shoot break coo look at that. Checkout scarre goost girl. Yeah.
Thanks Marley Jane for the correction. And if you guys
(18:23):
have any questions, comments, or artwork tasteful artwork people that
you would like to send our way, please email me
and Molly at Mom's Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And if you want even more Molly and Kristen throughout
the week, of course, you can always head over to
how to Stuff, which is our blog that's at how
stuff works dot com. And if you just want more
information about marriage and finances and all that good romantic
(18:46):
and not romantic stuff, check out some articles at how
stuffworks dot com. While you're there for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the House of works dot com home page.
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