How many times have you been in love? I’m not talking about the number of times that you think you were in love, or all of the instances in which you were passionately attracted to another person. I mean really in love with someone, caring about her more than you do yourself and accepting her without wanting to change a thing.

True love, as Tolstoy says, is about loving the “whole person” as they are, and “not as you would like them to be.” Spouses are not meant to be malleable pieces of clay for you to shape and mold.  If this were true, then we’d all have Stepford Wives.  By the time you get married, much of your wife’s character has already been formed.

People seem to like to learn things for themselves though, and oftentimes after years (or months) of failure in trying to change a person the marriage ends in divorce.  The current divorce rate in America is hovering around 40%.

What are the Top 10 Reasons for Divorce (DivorceGuide.com)?

1. Infidelity

2. Communication Breakdown

3.  Abuse

4.  Money

5.  Sex

6.  Boredom

7.  Religious or Cultural differences

8. Parenting

9. Addiction

10. Different goals or priorities in life

How many of those things do you think one or both of the people in the marriage thought they could change about the other?  Is there something these people could have done differently to produce a better outcome?  If you agree with Tolstoy, then the answer is “yes” – true love is the only antidote to divorce.

True love is genuine and personal – it is a connection that extends beyond the bounds of friendship, although it does include those feelings, and it combines acceptance with accountability and forgiveness. In other words, true love is unconditional love.

Many times, though, it seems that people love the idea or concept of being in a serious relationship with another person – the relationship is the object of their genuine affection, as opposed to the individual. As a result, conflict or dissatisfaction arises because one person, or both people, cannot conform to the ideal envisioned in the other’s mind.  Eventually, this kind of love becomes conditioned upon change, which we have already established to be a recipe for failure.

True love happens when you accept people for who they are without stipulations. Are you “in love” with your wife, or do you just love “the idea” of her? If it’s true love, then be sure to cherish and celebrate it. However, if it’s conceptual and not genuine, then you’re cheating yourself and her out of something very special in life by hanging on to a fantasy that will never come true.

Does that mean you should divorce?  No.  Divorce should be a last resort and not a quick-and-easy solution to your relationship problems.

If you want to save your relationship, then you will need to let go of the fantasy and discover the reality about who you wife really is as a person.  Real marriages (or relationships of any kind) take work, but for every little bit of effort you put into it you are likely to get a greater return on that investment of time, energy or thoughtfulness.

True love is often uncovered or strengthened through the trials, struggles and hardships a couple faces together.  Working through your differences builds trust and appreciation for one another.  That doesn’t mean you should go looking for trouble, but it also means you shouldn’t be quick to throw in the towel and give up.

Divorce should only be viewed as the last and final option available.  We all have problems and none of us are ever going to fit the perfect ideal that exists in our spouse’s mind.  True love, though, in my opinion, has a hard time existing in a perfect world – it needs those tiny imperfections to cling to so that it can grow.

Let’s face it – relationships are messy. They take work. Example: one of my favorite movies ever is Good Will Hunting, which about getting past those imperfections to find the perfect life (*Warning: Strong Language in Video Clip):

True love exists, but not in fairy tales. It exists in the real world between real people who, like Tolstoy said, are willing to “love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.”

True love is the only antidote for divorce because it is the one thing that makes two imperfect people perfect for each other.

©2012 Husbands and Dads. All Rights Reserved.

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In your practice, how has cohabitation affected your patients?

This is anecdotal at best, but my sense is that those who are cohabiting seem to possess an extra layer of insulation to protect themselves from the disapproval of others. They are not brazen or defiant in an overt way, but they seem to be very locked into their mind set. After marriage, usually long after marriage, they begin to deal with some regrets and some negative attitudes toward the other partner which usually have negative implications in their experience of intimacy.

Can you describe the professional/clinical objections to cohabitation, excluding religious objections?

There is an intrinsic self-serving expediency about cohabitation that undermines the development of empathy. It is emotional sensitivity and empathy that provide the foundation for intimacy. Living together to save money and to prepare for marriage can contribute to companionship, but does not prepare the way for intimacy. The problem we face is that waiting until marriage before living together and having sex together does not guarantee good intimacy (there are many factors that prevent this), but cohabitation seems to be a definite threat to the foundation of secure enduring attachment.

New research on cohabitation shows that couples who cohabit with the intent to marry show little difference in behavior from married couples, suggesting that it’s the intent of cohabitation that may make it a negative behavior. What are your impressions?

I don’t trust the research. Obviously, if the intent of the cohabitation is selfish, the experience can lead to negative outcome. But even if the intent of the cohabitation is idealistic and loving, the inherent motives of impatience, expediency, and freedom from constraint can lead to negative outcomes. The big question for the researcher is what to measure (beyond behavior); then comes how to measure the possible impact of any precursor to marriage; then comes how to separate the contributions of various factors.

Do you see any positive effects of cohabitation?

Certainly. It provides a level of reality in the relationship which can test readiness for coming to terms with life experiences that involve another person.

Dr. Lee Jagers has been a marriage counselor in the North Dallas area for 30 years and has worked with a tremendous number of couples. He maintains his private practice, specializing in the reconciliation of marriages following an affair or addiction relapse. He also maintains a blog about his teaching and counseling work.

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Many people today are seeing cohabitation as an acceptable alternative to marriage, but is it? Since 1970 the number of heterosexual couples living together outside of marriage has increased over 1000 percent, according to the Rutgers National Marriage Project (NMP).

From a NMP study:

“Yet cohabitation in place of marriage should be considered a major societal concern. For one thing, marriage typically brings with it, according to an abundance of research, many benefits for those involved. Married people tend to be happier, healthier, wealthier, and they live longer. The available empirical evidence suggests that these benefits of marriage diminish considerably if the marital bond is replaced by non-marital cohabitation. Moreover, the evidence is now clear that people who marry after cohabiting (assuming that they are not already engaged or committed to each other when they first cohabit) tend to have a higher chance of breakup.”

Cohabitation has started a gradual decline in the attitude toward marriage. 44 percent of Europeans and 17 percent of Americans have agreed with the statement that living together in a long term relationship is just as good as marriage. This is the sort of attitude that lays the foundation for negative attitudes toward marriage. If marriage is not seen as more special or important than another form of commitment, then will not be treated as such.

Studies have shown that 11 percent more women who are in cohabiting relationships report physical abuse than those women who are in married relationships. Moreover, couples who cohabit experience more infidelity and are less likely to receive financial assistance from family.

Education also plays a huge part in cohabitation. The more educated someone is, the less likely they are cohabit. This brings an interesting idea to the forefront, since many people believe marriage to be a religious issue. Most people who are highly educated tend to be less active in their religion. Lower levels of education also point toward lower levels of income, so cohabiting couples are also likely to have lower incomes.

The negative effects of cohabitation do tend to break down among cohabiting couples who intend to marry. Many, but not all couples who cohabit with the intent to marry, exhibit relational behaviors similar to married couples.

So, the question then, is why cohabit? If you do not intend to marry the person that you are with, why are you living with them?

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There is a strong trend among contemporary couples toward cohabitation.  Religion plays less and less of a decision in sexual relationships, therefore more couples are choosing to “get to know each other” better before getting married.  They see marriage as an outmoded piece of paper that doesn’t mean anything.

Over the next couple weeks, we will examine cohabitation from several angles.  Studies conducted through the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s showed that cohabitation has a strong correlation with divorce.  Recent studies, however, have pointed to possible different results. We’ll dive into the statistics and see what we can extrapolate from them.

Cohabitation is on the rise, and many people are okay with it.  Take a look at the following statistics.  In the next post I will introduce some of the studies that these statistics and we’ll discuss their context and what they mean.

• 9.6% of couples who live together are not married.

• Those who cohabit only with their fiance have lower divorce rates than those who do not cohabit at all.

• Those who cohabit more than once have a divorce rate twice that of those who cohabit only with their fiance.

• Those who cohabit report a lower marital satisfaction rate and a higher behavioral problem rate.  They experience more fights and more violence.

• People who abstain from sex before marriage report a higher rate of sexual satisfaction, including number of orgasms among women, than those who do not.

• Children who live with cohabiting parents are 20 – 33 times more likely to be abused.

What do you think?  Do you currently cohabitate?  What has your experience been like?  Do you object to cohabitation for religious or other reasons?  Why?

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Each Sunday my wife and I sit down and hold a weekly review that we call Companionship Inventory. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of our marriage, just over five years. It’s important to do this with your partner weekly, independent of children. You can call it anything that you want, but it basically consists of the following four parts:

1. Weekly Planning

We whip out our calendars and (quickly) go over what we have planned for the week, one at a time. We skip repetitive things like work or classes and instead focus on what we’re doing during the evenings and weekends that will interfere with our time together or that we might need the other’s help or presence for. Specific items might include: dinner parties, things we need the car for, going out with friends so I can’t see you then, study groups, or a myriad of other things.

2. Business

Next we mostly talk about finances – what major expenditures we might have this week or in the near future, planning dates, housekeeping issues, future plans like long term goals.

3. Testimony Time

Companionship Inventory is a left over from when I was a full time missionary in Vancouver, Canada. As such, testimony time is a time to share with each other our feelings about what really matters – our spirituality. Some people may not feel comfortable with this, but for the two of us, it’s an intrinsic part of our lives and our marriage. Your testimony time could just include your thoughts on what’s really important to you or what you’ve been thinking about during that week. It’s often the most fulfilling part of our Companionship Inventory.

4. Compliment Time

My wife’s favorite part of our weekly review, we take turns telling each other one thing we admire about the other. We give at least 3 – 5 compliments every time, no matter how angry we might be at each other or how tired we are. It’s amazing how much complimenting the one you love does for your relationship. Whenever we have anyone staying with us we always include them in compliment time and they always enjoy it.

That’s pretty much it – it usually lasts less around 45 minutes. It may not be so for every couple, but Companionship Inventory is the single most important thing that we do that has helped our relationship.

©2012 Husbands and Dads. All Rights Reserved.

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