![]() ![]() But more than a third (38%) shared an address partly because it made financial sense.Īnd just as money plays a role in pushing people together, it can also work to keep them from getting married. About a quarter of cohabiters said they had moved in together in part to test the waters for marrying each other. While nearly all of those surveyed named love and companionship as one of the major reasons for their shared residence, those who were not married were more likely than wedded couples to cite financial pressures, convenience and pregnancy as big motivations for moving in with each other. “But that’s not what we found - and that was interesting.” “Cohabiters tend to be younger and therefore more satisfied with their sex lives,” says Horowitz. In the matter of sex, it was too close to call and a tad depressing: 36% of married Americans and 34% of those living together are very satisfied with their sex lives. Pew’s researchers also found that married couples were more satisfied with the way their partners handled most of the usual couple chafing points: parenting, chores, work-life balance and communication. Cohabitation doesn’t force clarity like marriage does.” “But you could have 10 different couples tell you they’re cohabiting and for some of them it’s like dating with a lot of sleepovers, for others it’s a lot like marriage in terms of their intention, and for another few, which is the worst deal, it’s one person thinking it’s one thing and the other person thinking it’s not. “When somebody tells you, ‘That’s my spouse,’ you know a ton of information about the relationship and the level of commitment,” he says. ![]() ![]() Scott Stanley, a research professor and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado, who was not involved in this study but has researched cohabiting extensively, suggests that’s because “marriage has a high signal value as to intention.” Married people are advertising their commitment. Even among those who had been together for the same amount of time, “being married was still correlated with having high levels of trust.” “We did control for duration of relationship,” says Horowitz. Of course, people are more likely trust those with whom they have a history, but this assurance was not necessarily the product of time and experience. (Those numbers are still quite low, which may explain the rise of the couples’ financial therapist). And while 56% of married partners believed their partners could be trusted to handle money responsibly, only 40% of cohabiters felt the same way. About three-quarters of married folks trusted their partner to act in their best interest fewer than 60% of the unmarried felt the same way. Two-thirds of the married individuals trusted their partners to tell them the truth only half of the unmarried did. The survey’s respondents, 57% of whom were married and 9% of whom were cohabiting, had notably different levels of trust in their partners. Why do people still make it official when the stigma attached to unwed cohabitation is all but gone? One possible answer the report provided: security. A marriage certificate ranks low on the things people think are necessary for a fulfilling life and yet the number of Americans who are currently married (53%) completely dwarves the number of unmarried people who currently live together (7%). While marriage is no longer a must-do, it’s not quite clear what it’s becoming instead - a reward? A luxury? A parenting arrangement? It’s almost as if America and marriage haven’t had that Define The Relationship talk yet. These two seemingly confounding trends - a societal acceptance of not marrying alongside a personal preference for being married - mirror much of what is happening to the institution in the U.S. Despite this, married people still report more satisfaction with their relationship, more closeness to their partner and a lot more trust in them. And only a small minority of people now see unwed couples living together as anything to get upset about. More Americans have lived with a romantic partner than have married one, a new study from Pew Research shows. ![]()
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