By Scott Stanley & Galena Rhoades
We recently reported on ways patterns of cohabitation before
marriage are associated with marital dissolution, in a report called What's
the Plan? Cohabitation, Engagement, and Divorce.The report is based on U.S. data on
premarital cohabitation in first marriages in the years 2010 to 2019. We found
that those who cohabited before being engaged were substantially more likely to
have their marriages end than those who either did not cohabit before marriage
or only did so after being engaged.[i]
We have predicted this pattern based on the fact that cohabitation
has greater inertia
than dating. Specifically, moving in together leads to a marked increase in constraints favoring
remaining together, but it does not, on average, lead to further growth in dedication
to a future together.[ii]
Inertia implies that some who cohabit before marriage might have broken up if they
hadn’t lived together, and/or may enter marriage with an attenuated sense of
internal volition because of constraints.[iii]
For some, living together is a manifestation of what Norval Glenn called
premature entanglement.[iv]
Those who have already strongly clarified their marital intentions before
moving in together, by marriage or engagement, will be less likely to have these
risks.
Clarity and volition are foundational to the formation of
commitment. Commitment is making a choice to give up other choices.[v]
It involves making a decision. The literature on cognitive consistency and
dissonance highlights how decisions and prior acts can provide strong anchors
for follow-through, especially when these elements are explicit and perceived
to be volitional.[vi]
In contrast, for some people, cohabitation before clarity about
commitment may produce something more akin to “maybe I do” than a fully
volitional “I do” at the foundation of their marriage.[vii]
Sliding vs. Deciding
These thoughts about commitment highlight the importance of
how, when, and why couples start living together. Several qualitative studies
have looked at the process of moving in together.[viii]
Is the transition explicit and clear? Is there typically a decision reflecting
anything to do with commitment? Is the transition experienced as volitional? The
existing studies suggest that the answers to these questions are most often “No.”
A
qualitative study by Wendy Manning and Pamela Smock in 2005 focused on how the
measurement of union formation needed to adjust to differences between cohabitation
and marriage. In examining how couples make decisions about living together,
they found that there was typically no decision or discussion about the nature
of the relationship. They wrote, “Their decision may be better characterized as
a slide into cohabitation,” with “no conscious decision-making process.”
Although this phenomenon had been observed before (as they
note), Manning and Smock found that just over half of the cohabiting couples they
interviewed had slid or drifted into living together without making any clear
decision about it. They concluded that the transition into cohabitation is not
like marriage and should be treated differently by researchers.
In 1972, Eleanor Macklin studied the relationships
of undergraduate women at Cornell. She observed that moving in together was
“seldom the result of a considered decision.” The process was gradual and
better described as something people “drifted” into. In a 1983 paper,
Patrick Jackson noted that “cohabitation can be understood as a gradual
movement characterized by drift in a situation of opportunity isolated from
immediate social controls.” All of these researchers caught the drift, but Manning
and Smock’s sample better represents what cohabitation often looks like today.
This pattern of sliding into cohabitation had become so
recognized in the culture by the mid-1990s that the sitcom Spin City captured
the dynamic beautifully in its first episode in 1996. The context is an upper
middle-class couple, but the dynamic is the same as described by couples at various
levels of resources.
It’s evening and Mike (played by Michael J. Fox) learns his colleagues
are coming over, and likely will stay late working. Mike recommends that
Ashley, his girlfriend (played by Carla Gugino), head back to her place so she
can sleep. Ashely says she can’t, because she no longer has a place; the lease ran
out a few weeks before. Choking up with anxiety, Mike says, “So, we live
together? . . . I feel I should have been told.” Ashley points out all the
evidence that they had gradually come to be living together.[ix]
That’s a transition without a decision.
Ambiguity versus Commitment
In a paper published in 2000, Jo Lindsay reported on interviews
with cohabiting Australians. As with the studies mentioned above, she noted the
ubiquity of gradual transitions, with many respondents reporting some form of “it
just happened.” Lindsay concluded: “Most cohabiters did not see moving in as a
significant transition, emphasizing continuity rather than change.”
Lindsay further stressed a lack of ownership of any decision
or clear intention, noting that “The cohabiters minimized their agency when
they discussed their decision to move in.” They didn’t choose it; it happened
to them. In fact, only one of her 30 respondents described feeling the need to
discuss the nature of the relationship and make a clear decision about the
transition. Lindsay wrote, “If the nature of the relationship is undefined,
levels of commitment are also kept undefined.”
Manning and Smock reported that most of their respondents did
not discuss—and made no decision about—marriage versus cohabitation. Lindsay noticed
that her respondents gave quick and nervous “No” answers when asked if they had
talked about marriage at the time of moving in together. In her words, they “dodged”
the topic. She noted that the transition was often deliberately kept ambiguous
to allow the exit door to be left open. This is the essence of motivated
ambiguity,[x]
and it is consistent with the way cohabitation has, for many, become something more
akin to dating than marriage.
In 1995, Steven Nock
described cohabitation as an incomplete institution, as it lacks consensual
norms, laws, and definition. It is no wonder people have trouble describing the
process of entering into it. Although cohabitation is an alternative to
marriage for some committed couples, it is generally a relationship form where
the ambiguity (and lower
average levels of commitment) is widely
seen as a feature, not a bug. The absence of a formal decision or commitment between
two partners is part of the appeal. Options remain open, but in a context where
inertia—or life constraints like having a baby—is growing and foreclosing those
options.
Cohabitation and transitions into it are generally ambiguous
unless further defined by signals about commitment. Susan Brown and Alan Booth have shown
that cohabiters who report marriage plans are more like marrieds than cohabiters
who do not report such plans. This aligns with our focus on the timing of
commitment to marriage relative to moving in together, but we emphasize additional
reasons why that timing matters. Just as inertia implies, the risks are loaded
up for those who start living together before nailing down commitment in,
or to, marriage. That’s the group cohabiting in the most ambiguous context. Marriage
and engagement are non-ambiguous signals about the commitment between two
partners.
For whom is ambiguity a risk? There is a growing divergence
in marital and family destinies based on race/ethnicity, education, and
resources.[xi]
Those with more disadvantages have become much less likely to marry and more
likely to cohabit, with a deepening divide in family stability. We believe
that, regardless of a person’s options or pathways in life, the risks of
ambiguity grow as relationships become more serious and constraints increase.
In 2006, we published a paper
in which we wove all the themes above into a theory of why cohabitation before
marriage is associated with higher average risks for difficulties in marriage,
net of selection, and we extended that reasoning to other important
relationship transitions.
The Process Matters
Sliding versus deciding has many applications. The contrast
captures the way most couples move in together, which, as Manning and Smock put
it, is typically a slide. At the root, sliding reflects a process devoid of
discussion or decision. The phrasing is also great short-hand for times in life,
big or small, when a moment to make a decision is lost. For example, couples often
slide into nasty arguments when one or both partners could have decided to take
things in a different direction.
Put into the context of the formation of commitment, the
contrast between sliding and deciding highlights the chasm between ambiguous
relationship transitions and commitments founded in volition and intention. Further,
given our focus on the risks of ambiguity and inertia, we believe the word
Manning and Smock chose, “slide”, is superior to the word “drift”, which has
often been used by scholars to describe various relationship transitions. Drifting
is always passive. Sliding can be passive or active, and when active, it’s often
in the service of avoiding clarity. That matters because sliding can lead to increased
constraints that were not explicitly chosen—and sticking feels
different than stuck.
The widely noted decline in scripts for romantic relationship
development makes it hard for two people to clarify what is happening. As a
result, it takes more skill than it used to require to navigate relationships. Some
people have these skills, but most do not. Unfortunately, “It happened to me”
cannot possibly be as strong a foundation for commitment as an unalloyed “I
chose this.”
This post first appeared on the blog for the Institute for Family Studies on May 24, 2023.
[i] This pattern is durable over several decades: Stanley,
S. M., Rhoades, G. K., Amato, P. R., Markman, H. J., & Johnson, C. A.
(2010). The timing of cohabitation and engagement: Impact on
first and second marriages. Journal
of Marriage and Family, 72, 906-918.; Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M.,
Markman, H. J., & Allen, E. S. (2015). Can marriage education mitigate the risks associated
with premarital cohabitation?
Journal of Family Psychology, 29(3),
500-506.
[ii]
Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H.
J. (2012). The impact of the transition to cohabitation on
relationship functioning: Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(3), 348 -
358.; The contrast between dedication and constraint (or like terms) is foundational
in theories of commitment (e.g., Michael Johnson, George Levinger, Caryl
Rusbult, and Scott Stanley). On average, dedication does increase ahead of
moving in together but then it levels off, and not at a particularly high level.
Such findings are important because it is generally desirable for dedication to
mature at a high level before constraints grow too large.
[iii] Kline (Rhoades), G. H., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H.
J., Olmos-Gallo, P. A., St. Peters, M., Whitton, S. W., & Prado, L. (2004).
Timing is everything: Pre-engagement cohabitation and
increased risk for poor marital outcomes.
Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 311-318.; Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G.
K., & Markman, H. J. (2006). Sliding versus Deciding: Inertia and the premarital
cohabitation effect. Family
Relations, 55(4), 499-509.
[iv] Glenn, N. D. (2002). A plea for greater concern about
the quality of marital matching. In A. J. Hawkins, L. D. Wardle, and D. O.
Coolidge (Eds.), Revitalizing the institution of marriage for the
twenty-first century: An agenda for strengthening marriage (pp. 45-58).
Westport, CT: Praeger.
[v] This point first appears in this book, which contains a
blend of insights from theology, research, and psychology on commitment in
marriage: Stanley, S. (1998). The heart of commitment. Nashville: Thomas
Nelson.
[vi] Kiesler, C. (1971). The psychology of commitment.
New-York: Academic Press.; Brehm, J. W., & Cohen, A. R. (1962). Explorations
in Cognitive Dissonance. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
[vii] This specific observation was based on data from that
time showing that men in marriages of couples who had lived together prior to
marriage were substantially less committed to their mates than men in the
marriages of those who had not, despite the fact that all had become married: Stanley,
S. M. (2002, July). What is it with
Men and Commitment, Anyway? Keynote address to the 6th Annual Smart
Marriages Conference, Washington D. C.; Stanley, S. M., Whitton, S. W., &
Markman, H. J. (2004). Maybe I do: Interpersonal commitment and premarital or
nonmarital cohabitation. Journal of
Family Issues, 25, 496-519.
[viii] Note that these studies examine relationships
regardless of a future in marriage whereas analyses such as those we presented
in the new report are from a sample where everyone married.
[ix]
They are living together in a way consistent with
our preferred definition based on inertia: two people sharing a single address
without either having their own, separate place.
[x] Stanley, S. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Fincham, F. D.
(2011). Understanding romantic relationships among emerging adults: The
significant roles of cohabitation and ambiguity. In F. D. Fincham & M. Cui
(Eds.), Romantic relationships in emerging adulthood (pp. 234-251). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
[xi]
Lamidi, E. O., Manning, W. D., & Brown, S. L.
(2019). Change in the stability of first premarital
cohabitation among women in the United States, 1983–2013. Demography, 56, 427-450.; Sassler, S., & Miller,
A. (2017). Cohabitation nation: Gender, class, and the remaking of
relationships. Oakland: University of
California Press.; Smock, P. J., & Schwartz, C. R. (2020). The demography of families: A review of patterns and
change. Journal of Marriage and
Family, 82(1), 9-34.
