What is the optimal length that a couple should date before moving in?
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.perthchat.org/post/184069 [https://lemmy.perthchat.org/post/184069] > All I found with citations was that it’s best to wait until marriage before cohabitation, but that boomer talk ain’t gonna happen for zoomers. > > Otherwise, 1 article said “wait as long as possible” but I need a month/year number lmao.
i would consider it a well-known fact that there is a link between cohabitation before marriage and higher rate of divorce.
granted, divorce rates are rising anyway. but to be totally honest, if OP considers this boomer talk, it just speaks to lack of insight and life experience (which you will get when you move in with someone, to be fair). also, looking for an exact number to reach some kind of threshold just seems like a cry for validation. you certainly don’t need to gain approval from people on the internet to make a decision (myself included). you won’t need to know a number when you’re ready, because you’ll know the time is right.
regardless of what i said, i hope you find further research on the matter (try using pubmed or national institute of mental health resources) and i hope you find happiness if you’re taking that next step in life.
apologies, i didn’t provide any citation for that. also, i may have misinterpreted the purpose of this community. i spent about 6 years in college learning about psychology and neuroscience, and we commonly discuss topics such as these. it’s common to disagree and cite different sources (which again, sorry for not doing that originally), so i figured that in a community such as this, we could continue in the spirit of debate in good faith.
this isn’t a primary source, but here’s a Psychology Today post from 2021 which supports my claim.
In that article, it mentions a 2019 Stanford study (appears to be a review) which points to benefits of cohabitation, but only within the first year. please take a look at the table on page 36, which i believe shows the overall divorce rate is lower for those who do not cohabitate.
i understand your concern about welcoming people. perhaps the first part of my comment was too harsh. but like i said at the end of comment, it’s just my two cents. and i’ll add that it’s not even advice that i myself follow. i just wanted to provide insight on the data that i was/am aware of. if i’m wrong, i’m happy to be proven wrong. i just want to see the numbers.
like i said, may have gone too hard on that. but i think the sentiment remains the same. maybe i went at it the wrong way initially because of the “boomer talk” phrase - that makes me think that OP is saying “i don’t need to hear anything that will contradict my original premise, i just need for someone to give me a number”.
i’m not trying to be rude, i’m just calling it like i see it - if you need a number of months to make yourself feel ok about making a decision, then i see it as looking for validation. we all do it - my point was that if you want to make a big decision like this, you need to feel ok with it. you don’t need someone on the internet to say “yep, looks good to me based on arbitrary criteria”.
and to reiterate what i already said, i’m just reporting the facts that i’m aware of. i’m not even saying that you shouldn’t move in with someone, just saying “you should be aware of the statistics surrounding this issue”.
I’m actually having a hard time believing that there is a link between cohabitation before marriage and a higher rate of divorce. Could you provide a resource for that?
From my perspective, I’d imagine that one would want to cohabitate before marriage as it puts the relationship through a “stress test” of sorts.
i provide a couple of links below in a response. i’ve heard this topic debated for years, but those two links were just recent output.
i agree that it makes sense that testing the waters before marriage would be good, but i think that it creates a difference in expectations for the relationship going forward. i think that, at least for some portion of the population, marriage is a true “do-or-die” decision, so once the vows are said, some things might start changing in the relationship dynamic. in terms of cohabitating, it could a difference in how finances are handled before and after marriage, or how household responsibilities are divided in the new era.
so my point is that cohabitating could create a false sense of security within the relationship. and i say that with the expectation that we all struggle with communication, especially in romantic relationships.
It can hardly be called a “well-known fact.” There are many conflicting studies on this matter, even coming from the same research organizations. For example, this snippet from an article in The Atlantic:
In 2012, a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family concluded that “since the mid-1990s, whether men or women cohabited with their spouse prior to marriage is not related to marital stability.” This is the same journal that just published a study finding the opposite.
perhaps i need to revisit the subject in detail, but a posted above a more recent study from 2019 which looks at the same subject.
like i said in a comment above, i’m happy to be proven wrong about this, i was just reporting what i knew about it from academic experience.
Here’s the fun answer. Never move in. Have your own place where you can pursue your hobbies and they have theirs. Date for years and years, stress free. No fights about animals, housework.
Bonus: it makes the time you spend around that person genuinely fun, planned, and enjoyable.
I hate that the system generally forces people live together because it’s otherwise too damn expensive. I feel like if it wasn’t, probably more people would choose to live this way.
There are no hard rules that apply to everybody. I would never marry someone without living with them first. I have personally found that once we were spending a ton of time at each other’s houses, to the point of doing laundry together and planning groceries etc together, then it just made more economic sense to stop paying for two homes when we were spending all of our time together in one or the other. Some couples never get to that point, though - some people like their space, or like to just keep certain things separate, or just don’t want to get married, and that’s all awesome, I just can’t really speak to that at all, since it’s not my experience or style.
My husband and I got our first place together after dating for 8 months, but we had been basically inseparable for most of those 8 months, and we both had local family and friends we could fall back on if things didn’t work out. If I hadn’t had a social network to rely on, or if we hadn’t spent pretty much all of our time outside work and school together (so we had seen each other stressed, hangry, sick, etc), I probably would have been a little more hesitant to make the leap that quickly.
We started dating June 2004, were married January 2007 - we joke at every anniversary that it’s “16 Blissful Years!” or whatever number 😂 and they’ve mostly been great, but life is hard and relationships are hard, nothing is bliss always and forever. You find a best buddy that you think is super hot, and you make little moments of bliss together, imho that’s all you can do. ❤️
And even relationships that don’t last forever aren’t failures - even if you move in with someone and you break up, you still learned and grew from that experience, and that growth will make you a better person, and maybe the next time you’ll find a better match.
You’re not going to get a useful number for this. There’s simply too much variability between cultures, communities, and individuals for ant number to make sense. This relies in factors including emotional maturity, work loads, financial situations, friends/family/pets/children, leases, etc…
“Waiting until marriage” is usually under the assumption you will combine finances and have kids and take on debt (house ig) immediately while learning how to live with eachother. So several peak stressors at once. Maybe your citations are hoping the couple gets trauma bonded?
Also I’ve personally never known anyone who married before spending multiple years cohabitating.
My now wife movies in with me pretty quickly, maybe like 8 months after we started dating.
We spent a lot of time together as it was, but Covid came and her sister was doing her residency.
I was happy to have her move in as it would limit our exposure and we could still see each other.
Shortly after that, she moved in with her parents to look after them for a few months and we just did a long distance thing as the city went on lockdown and they lived outside the city.
After about 6 months she moved in. We ended up getting married like 2 years or so later.
We have have been married for a year this October and things are great. I love living with my wife and I always have.
Of course there were times that were hard as we adapted to so emotional each others habits and stuff. One example, is that I’m a super light sleeper so she had to adapt to be extra quiet while I’m sleeping.
She grew up and lived next to an airport most of her life, so her entire family are heavy sleepers.
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