Cohabitation – the politically correct term for what used to be called “shacking up” – has become very common in our day. Nearly 8 million opposite-sex couples live together today, compared to less than 1 million 30 years ago. Nearly 10% of all opposite-sex couples are cohabiting, and over half of all first marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation.
How did we get here?
How did cohabitation go from being illegal in all states prior to 1970 and held in moral contempt by society at large to being so ubiquitous and accepted today? There are several reasons:
- The sexual revolution removed the moral stigma of premarital sex.
- Our culture has moved from a culture of traditions and social conformity to a culture of individualism and personal gratification.
- We shifted from a deontological view of morality to a pragmatic and relativistic view of morality in which any activity that does not cause harm to others is morally permissible.
- The recognition of the fragility of marriage, and a corresponding fear of divorce.
- The rise of feminism which rejected the traditional roles played by married women. Cohabitation promised personal autonomy and more relationship equity.
- The increasing economic independence of women made marriage less necessary for them. And men, who are generally more fearful of commitment, supported the arrangement since it still provided for their needs of sexual gratification and domestic support.[1]
Cohabitation is not what it seems
Many people think cohabitation is a good idea.[2] It serves as a trial marriage of sorts, allowing them to test their compatibility before making a life-long commitment to each other.[3] They think cohabiting before marriage will reduce their risk of divorce – an experience many of them have endured with their parents, and do not want to replicate in their own lives.[4] If, after playing house for a while, they think they are capable of forming a life-long bond, then they get married. If it doesn’t work out, then they just go your separate ways – no harm done.
This seems to make a lot of sense, and yet our intuitions on this matter couldn’t be more mistaken. Cohabitation is harmful to the formation of lasting, fruitful relationships. Sociologists are now sounding the alarm against cohabitation. For example, the August 2005 edition of Psychology Today featured an article titled “The Cohabitation Trap: When ‘Just Living Together’ Sabotages Love.” The accompanying blurb says it well: “Living together before marriage seems like a smart way to road test the relationship. But cohabitation may lead you to wed for all the wrong reasons–or turn into a one-way trip to splitsville.”
Other articles warning against the dangers of cohabitation include “The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage,” appearing in the New York Times. Glenn Stanton recently authored a book titled The Ring Makes All erence, detailing the sociological data. Sociologists have even given a name to the phenomenon: The Cohabitation Effect. Here is the diagnosis:
- Higher rates of dissolution. Yale University sociologist Neil Bennett found that women who cohabited with their partner before marriage were 80% more likely to separate or divorce than those who did not.[5] The National Survey of Families and Households found that couples who cohabited prior to marriage were nearly twice as likely to experience divorce within 10 years (57% vs. 30%.).[6] Many other studies have also noted the connection.[7]
- Less sexual satisfaction. Married couples who did not cohabit report greater sexual satisfaction than those who did.
- Increased infidelity. Those who cohabit are twice as likely to be unfaithful to their partners as those who choose marriage.
- Less egalitarian. While one would think that cohabiting couples would share more of the household chores, men in cohabiting relationships contribute less than do married men.
- Higher rates of depression (300% more than married couples)[8]
- Higher rates of physical violence
Why cohabitation undermines healthy, lasting relationships
Rather than strengthen marriages, cohabitation undermines the marital bond – which is counter-intuitive. Sociologists have offered various theories and reasons to explain this phenomenon:
- Cohabitation also takes away the special and unique nature of marriage. The only real change is a piece of paper that makes it harder for you to split up.
- The practice of cohabitation undermines commitment — the very foundation of an enduring marriage. There is no public commitment made, and no accountability. “Theirs is essentially a private arrangement based on an emotional bond. The ‘commitment’ of living together is simply a month-to-month rental agreement. ‘As long as you behave yourself and keep me happy, I’ll stick around.’”[9] David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted that “while marriages are held together largely by a strong ethic of commitment, cohabiting relationships by their very nature tend to undercut this ethic.”[10]
- Given the fact that marriage involves no real behavior or lifestyle changes for cohabiting couples, one’s view of commitment doesn’t change much after marriage either. It takes more than a piece of paper to get someone out of test-drive mode.
- Cohabitation takes away the motivation to build an enduring relationship. “A newly married couple makes a deliberate effort to accommodate each other because they know their relationship will be for life. They want to build compatibility, not test it.”[11] Cohabiting couples, however, are not as accommodating. Why throw all your eggs in one basket if you are not sure that basket will be around five years from now?
- There is also a lack of relationship boundaries. “Because relationship boundaries and expectations have not been clearly defined, cohabitation becomes prime soil for growing unhealthy relationship skills.”[12]
- Cohabitation makes it more likely for people to stay in a bad relationship much longer than they should. They find it too difficult to break up given that they share so much of the same property, and it is more economical. Eventually they find themselves in their thirties and figure they might as well marry since they’ve been together for so long. “External pressure to remain together starts to build when a couple moves in together. You move in together, buy a place, get a dog, spend less time with friends and more time alone together, and maybe declare the other as your beneficiary for financial matters—and these things make it more likely that you will stay together. In other words, there is an increasing weight of forces that favor your staying together when you live together.”[13]
- Cohabiting couples tend to receive less social support and fewer benefits. While family members are willing to invest their time, energy, and money into a committed relationship, they are not as willing to do so for cohabiting couples. They reason that if the couple themselves is not committed to the relationship, why should they be?
Cohabitation doesn’t always lead to marriage
Most couples who enter into a cohabiting relationship do so with either the expectation, or at least openness to the possibility, that it will lead to marriage. And yet, only 60% of cohabiting couples go on to marry.[14] Why? Stanton found that “women are consistently more likely to see their cohabitating relationships as a conveyor belt eventually leading to marriage” whereas guys are “more likely to see their cohabiting relationships as the opportunity to see each other more often, have fun together, feel taken care of by their gal, and gain access to more regular sex.” If you have all the benefits of marriage without the commitment of marriage, why get married? As the old saying goes, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
Cohabitation favors men, not women
But isn’t marriage anti-women? Isn’t cohabitation more liberating for women? Terrell Clemmons addresses this perception head-on: “It’s the live-in arrangement that allows the man to have what he wants, freely enjoying the woman – her company, caretaking, and counterfeit conjugality – without having to become an honorable man first. It allows the boyfriend to evade the responsibilities of manhood and remain instead in a protracted state of boyhood. It is marriage that establishes the relationship on the woman’s terms. It does this by requiring him grow up and become a man for her and for their posterity.”[15] Cohabitation benefits men, not women.
Conclusion
The National Marriage Project offered this conclusion in 2002:
Despite its widespread acceptance by the young, the remarkable growth of unmarried cohabitation in recent years does not appear to be in children’s or the society’s best interest. The evidence suggests that it has weakened marriage and the intact, two-parent family and thereby damaged our social wellbeing, especially that of women and children. We can not go back in history, but it seems time to establish some guidelines for the practice of cohabitation and to seriously question the further institutionalization of this new family form. In place of institutionalizing cohabitation, in our opinion, we should be trying to revitalize marriage—not along classic male-dominant lines but along modern egalitarian lines.[16]
Given the sociological data, cohabitation is not a true alternative to marriage. It is an inferior relationship arrangement resulting in more negative social ills. If you want the best possible relationship, choose marriage rather than cohabitation.
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[1]Many of these reasons were articulated in David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research,” executive summary, second edition; available from http://www.dibbleinstitute.org/Documents/Should_We_Live_Together.pdf; Internet; accessed 11 February 2013.[2]A 2008 Gallop Poll found that 49% of Americans think pre-marital cohabitation makes divorce less likely, while 31% think it makes divorce more likely, 13% do not think it makes a difference, and 7% had no opinion. See http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-28-cohabitation-poll_N.htm.
[3]Not all cohabiters have a view to marriage, however – men less than women. Many couples cohabit out of convenience, while others see it as an alternative to marriage. David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead report that “After 5 to 7 years, 39% of all cohabiting couples have broken their relationship, 40% have married (although the marriage might not have lasted), and only 21% are still cohabiting,” citing the research of Lynne N. Casper and Suzanne M. Bianchi in Continuity and Change in the American Family (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002), ch. 2. Casper and Bianchi also found that while 46% of cohabiters viewed cohabitation as a precursor to marriage, a follow-up five to seven years later found that only 52% of these couples had actually married, and 31% had split up. See David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research,” executive summary, second edition; available from http://www.dibbleinstitute.org/Documents/Should_We_Live_Together.pdf; Internet; accessed 11 February 2013.
[4]The point seems to be lost on these people that on a practical and emotional level, there is virtually no difference between the dissolution of a cohabiting relationship and the dissolution of a marital relationship. The only real differences are the legal requirements and entanglements.
[5]National Survey of Families and Households, cited in “Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together”
[6]National Survey of Families and Households, cited in “Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together”
[7]Alfred DeMaris and William MacDonald, “Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Instability: A Test of the Unconventional Hypothesis.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 55 (1993): 399-407; William J. Axinn and Arland Thornton, “The Relationship Between Cohabitation and Divorce: Selectivity or Causal Influence,” Demography 29-3 (1992):357-374; Robert Schoen “First Unions and the Stability of First Marriages,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (1992):281-284; Elizabeth Thomson and Ugo Colella, “Cohabitation and Marital Stability: Quality or Commitment?” Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 9 (1992):259-267; Lee A Lillard, Michael J. Brien, and Linda J. Waite, “Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Dissolution: A Matter of Self-Selection?” Demography, 32-3 (1995):437-457; David R. Hall and John Z. Zhao, “Cohabitation and Divorce in Canada: Testing the Selectivity Hypothesis,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 57 (1995): 421-427; Marin Clarkberg, Ross M. Stolzenberg, and Linda Waite, “Attitudes, Values, and Entrance into Cohabitational versus Marital Unions,” Social Forces 74-2 (1995):609-634; Stephen L. Nock, “Spouse Preferences of Never-Married, Divorced, and Cohabiting Americans,” Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 24-3/4 (1995): 91-108. As reported in David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research,” executive summary, second edition; available from http://www.dibbleinstitute.org/Documents/Should_We_Live_Together.pdf; Internet; accessed 11 February 2013.[8]Lee Robins and Darrel Reiger, Psychiatric Disorders in America. (New York: Free Press, 1990), 72. See also: Susan L. Brown, “The Effect of Union Type on Psychological Well-Being: Depression among Cohabitors versus Marrieds,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 41-3 (2000).
[9]National Survey of Families and Households, cited in “Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together”
[10]David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research,” executive summary, second edition; available from http://www.dibbleinstitute.org/Documents/Should_We_Live_Together.pdf; Internet; accessed 11 February 2013.
[11]National Survey of Families and Households, cited in “Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together”
[12]Terrell Clemmons, “The Ring Makes All the Difference: A Word to the Wise on Cohabitation”; available from http://terrellclemmons.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/the-ring-makes-all-the-difference-a-word-to-the-wise-on-cohabitation/; Internet; accessed 11 August 2012.
[13]Scott M. Stanley & Galena Kline, “Myths About Living Together”; available from http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001126.cfm
[14]National Survey of Families and Households, cited in “Sociological Reasons Not to Live Together”
[15]Terrell Clemmons, “The Ring Makes All the Difference: A Word to the Wise on Cohabitation”; available from http://terrellclemmons.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/the-ring-makes-all-the-difference-a-word-to-the-wise-on-cohabitation/; Internet; accessed 11 August 2012.
[16]David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “What Young Adults Need to Know about Cohabitation before Marriage A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research,” executive summary, second edition; available from http://www.dibbleinstitute.org/Documents/Should_We_Live_Together.pdf; Internet; accessed 11 February 2013.
Thinking to Believe 
April 6, 2015 at 12:18 pm
It’s very exciting, but implausible that cohabitation before marriage is what causes these patterns.
First, I can’t think of a plausible hypothesis that would explain such a causal assertion. Can you?
Second, I can think of boring C-factor explanations for most statistical correlations mentioned, although some of them slid into “cohabiting vs. married,” which wasn’t your original comparison.
The rundown:
(1) Higher rates of dissolution
Conservativism and/or socioeconomic status as C-factor.
(2) Less sexual satisfaction
Selection bias due to conservativism C-factor.
(3) Increased infidelity
Conservativism as C-factor.
(4) Less egalitarian
This is a comparison of married couples to cohabiting couples, not “never cohabited married couples” vs. “cohabited-before-marriage couples.”
(5) Higher rates of depression
This is a comparison of married couples to cohabiting couples, not “never cohabited married couples” vs. “cohabited-before-marriage couples,” and has obvious C-factor of socioeconomic status.
(6) Higher rates of physical violence
I’ve seen this one before, and it was clearly an instance of socioeconomic status C-factor. And, for the third time, was about cohabiting vs. married, not “cohabited before or not.”
So, my challenges would be:
(A) Can you posit a mechanistic explanation for the woes directly caused by pre-marriage cohabitation?
(B) Can you show that my C-factor conjecture fails (show me, for instance, that the studies in question controlled for these)? I noticed some selection-control in the links, but it was about “personalities.” Maybe I’m missing it.
(C) Can you untangle which of the above (1-6) were about marriage vs. cohabitation, and which were about “cohabitation-before vs. no-cohabitation-before” marriages?
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April 6, 2015 at 12:20 pm
(By “conservativism” I don’t mean “a conservative personality,” but cultural conservativism that imposes all sorts of devices to sandbag against infidelity and/or divorce.)
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April 6, 2015 at 1:55 pm
Would love to have you join our Link Party! http://johndobbs.com/link-party/ JD
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April 6, 2015 at 4:46 pm
What’s in a word when the letters are rearranged? As in “LISTEN”, read “SILENT”. In other words, rearrange the letters in SILENT and LISTEN.
Religion always wants it their way. Cohabitation between same sex couples for example and they have their arguments why it is forbidden, by their mythological Cosmic Tutor, God of course, a Tutor that our neighbors believe in, is essentially an invisible person, a creator deity who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primate, humankind. And he’s got galaxy upon galaxy to attend to but he’s especially concerned with what we do, and he’s especially concerned with what we do when naked. And he almost certainly disapproves of homosexuals cohabiting, but not only homosexuals, heterosexuals cohabiting as well; that is, without the express permission of his religious self appointed messenger preachers on earth who MUST sanctify all human life interactions: who to love, what to wear, foods to eat, places to worship, when to worship, when to work, tithes to give, sex to have, when, with whom.
Nevertheless, despite the religious decrees dictating all lives in the community the religious supremacists never give much thought to their own words describing human relationships from their Tutor and which Jesus in his wisdom condoned “cohabitation” read, “shacking up” using scripture; please remember that “shacking up” was merely the religious attempt, the Church’s attempt, to denigrate lifestyle not conforming with or sanctified by, the church. BUT “the biblical word of God as it were” is the modern lifestyle practice that follows the ancient tradition as it was noted by Jesus: “in the beginning”; i.e., “sharing an apartment”, “a house”, “a tent”, “an abode”, “a room”, “a bed”, “living and clinging together”, “becoming one flesh”, “housing together”.
Jesus, in answering a question about divorce actually answered this very Post himself, regarding the acceptable practice of “shacking up”; not only the practice of “shacking up” but the way it actually works in the real world, out the reach of religious control freaks.
“Jesus answered, (You can read it for yourself in Matthew 19: 4-6)
“Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.”
In other words the bible itself clearly endorses, in Jesus’ description, the way it was from the beginning: “shacking up”, a man and a woman leaving their parents; and it is further worth noting, that Jesus’ description of “shacking up” is silent about church oversight, religious approval, preachers, bishops and clergy officiating. It is simply, between the man and the woman, period!
What the religious community cannot understand or will not accept is, what “shacking up” and “cohabitation” is, IS MARRIAGE! It is not a road test for marriage; it is marriage. OMG, what part of clinging to each other, the formation of becoming ‘one flesh’, do you not understand?
When you refer to “the downside of cohabiting before marriage” is to miss the point and not understand what marriage is altogether. You may as well coin the phrase “The Downside of Marriage Before Marriage is Marriage”. How smart is that?
To argue against cohabitation is to argue against Jesus and the Bible itself.
Amen for Awoman in your life.
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April 7, 2015 at 1:45 pm
“Shaking up” (also known as “common law marriage” in some parts) relationships fail for similar reasons as “legal marriages.” The more you invest into the relationship the less likely you are to throw it away when troubles arise. Whether via: shaking up/common law, Justice of the Peace, Minister, Priest, Rabbi, Imam, etc… you find yourself joined together in “one flesh” you shouldn’t be throwing that relationship away for just any old reason.
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April 9, 2015 at 5:15 pm
Stanrock,
I am not a sociologist, and I did not conduct any of the studies that caused sociologists to come to the conclusions they have, so I cannot answer most of your questions. I do understand the difference between correlation and causation though, and although I cannot speak for the sociologists, I would think that they have tried ruling out causation. After all, most sociologists are liberal and would have no problem supporting cohabitation. Why would they speak up against it as causing marital dissatisfaction and increasing the likelihood of marital breakups if they did not have good evidence that cohabitation was the cause rather than a coincidence? Why raise the alarm over this cultural staple if they didn’t have good evidence for a causal relation?
As for causation, I listed 7 hypotheses that sociologists have come up with to explain a causal correlation between cohabitation and the ills I described. Several of them seem plausible to me.
Could they be mistaken? Could there be some other cause to these ills other than cohabitation? Possibly, but I don’t think so. If nothing else, I can see how cohabitors are more likely to marry just because they’ve been together for a while and it would be so hard to part ways since they share so many things in common (financially speaking, including assets). They sort of slide into marriage without truly wanting it. It’s no wonder that such people would divorce at higher rates later on. To me, it makes intuitive sense even apart from any empirical data.
Jason
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April 9, 2015 at 5:44 pm
Jason:
I believe you do not know what marriage is actually? I am really surprised how sheltered a life you have led! That is marriage is not a marriage without a religious ceremony sanctifying it? And if that is what you believe marriage is then you are missing the message of Jesus and the biblical idea of marriage entirely. You can ignore me and ignore answering this but ignorance of marriage, AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, will not justify your commentary.
Therefore, can you please express what you think the difference is between cohabitation and marriage that makes cohabitation not the same thing as marriage?
When two people cling to each other and become one flesh, you are saying essentially that act itself is not marriage, that cohabitation is not marriage and marriagetherefore is not cohabitation without what? Something like clergy officiating or endorsing or witnessing or blessing the clinging together as one flesh.
So what and when is the magic of the moment that makes tthe act of clinging together take place for you to say “It is really marriage”? Tell us please what actually happens to make the bond in your mind?
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April 14, 2015 at 12:07 am
TheTakeaway (SonofMan),
Where did I say or imply that a religious ceremony is necessary to make a marriage? I see no such place, and believe no such thing. A civil ceremony would do just as well.
What I think you are objecting to is my implied contention that something more than sex is necessary to make a marriage. But this seems obvious. If having sex with someone makes you married to them, then it would follow that the sin of fornication is impossible. The moment you have sex with someone that is not your spouse, they become your spouse! Furthermore, any act of adultery would automatically make someone a polygamist, and they would have to go through some sort of divorce proceedings to be loosed from their extra spouse. This is not the Biblical view. Having sex does not make one married. Having sex is a privilege of married people. The marriage takes place before the sexual act.
Jason
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April 14, 2015 at 1:00 am
Marriage is the sexual act, period; that’s what the bible means about clinging together and becoming one flesh, not two but one.
A fornicator is only someone who has sex outside of a church sanction union, that’s all and is a man and a woman lived together or shacked up for 20 years ten or fifty without church sanction they would be fornicators and their children would be called bastards.
People who have sex outside the first “sexual” marriage commits adultery; adultery is not because he is having sex with another woman(though he is) but adultery is because he has gone against against his partner; it’s not the sex, it’s the severing of the bond of marriage with his partner that is the adultery and the reason that adultery is not merely the sex act but even the act of lusting, coveting is adultery.
It was not unusual for men to have several wives, Solomon had 700 hundred wives, Abraham had a wife and a maid who fathered children. Polygamy is not unheard of in the bible either.
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April 14, 2015 at 8:56 am
Jason: “Where did I say or imply that a religious ceremony is necessary to make a marriage? I see no such place, and believe no such thing. A civil ceremony would do just as well.”
But a ceremony nevertheless makes it a “Marriage”? I infer.
A permit, a license, a piece of paper, a fee paid, a church, a court, a Vegas hotel, an Elvis Presley witness, does not a marriage make.
The bible does make it biblically clear: “For this cause a man shall leave his mother and father and be ‘joined’ to his wife and the two shall be one flesh.”
‘joined’ how? by a permit, a license, a piece of paper, a fee paid, a church, a court, a Vegas hotel, an Elvis Presley witness”?
“Joined” means: bonded, united, coupled, paired, unified, put together, interdependent, wedded, MARRIED. To “Know” each other. As the polite version of sexual intercourse states: “And Adam ‘knew’ Eve, his wife”. Notice how wife comes after “he knew Eve”. Adam did not take(marry) his wife and then “knew” her. He knew her and that act of knowing is ‘marriage” also called consummation.
If a matrimonial celebration takes place (ratification) but the spouses have not yet engaged in intercourse (consummation), then the marriage is said to be a marriage ratum sed non consummatum. Additionally, an inability or an intentional refusal to consummate the marriage is probable grounds for an annulment. Catholic canon law defines a marriage as consummated when the “spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, ……..to which marriage is ordered by its nature……… and by which the spouses become one flesh.”
Parsing the words marriage and consummation as being separate from each other is the same as parsing the words “sexual” and “intercourse”. A distinction without a difference.
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January 12, 2016 at 11:28 pm
[…] See also: The sociology of cohabitation: “Shacking up” isn’t such a good idea after all […]
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January 13, 2016 at 8:20 am
This study is not actually groundbreaking since it virtually replicates dozens of others which have been done in recent decades. The Family in America, published from Rockford, IL, used to feature and reference these as they appeared from study groups around the world. When I was a member of our state’s Public Health Study Commission I used to compile and peruse these regularly. The “C-effect” factor alluded to here of course is not a novel objection to their validity. It was controlled in some; not in others. As time has gone by the methodologies generally tightened up and findings have become more conclusive and reliable. Shacking up is “unstable” and on large scale a detriment to personal wellbeing and social order.
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August 4, 2016 at 10:53 am
I shacked up when I was younger and will NEVER do it again. Every time I was miserable. If a guy wants to live together I need a sparkly ring on my finger. Talking about marriage is not the same as saving up his money to buy a ring and propose. Every time I was a part of shacking up the guy got lazy. No more fun dates, no more helping with chores, he became more controlling and selfish. And he took me for granted. I was lucky to get out of a bad shacking up experience that lasted 2 years. Since then I bought a house so I would always have a place to go to. Now these guys think they can shack up with me. I will gladly pay all my bills on my own so I can have a place to come home to if I’m not happy. When I meet someone and we are happy dating but living apart and when he makes the commitment to propose with a ring and we get engaged then we can talk about moving in. I think when people shack up they think it will make life easier. Nothing in life is easy. It’s a roller coaster of ups and downs. If someone looks for easy it means they can’t handle the tough times. They are are likely to be the person who bails when life gets hard, they care more about themselves than you, they take u for granted and they take what you give into the relationship and want more. That person doesn’t make a good significant other. I’m happier alone than having a selfish, take you for granted boyfriend.
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August 4, 2016 at 10:04 pm
Brooke:
There is a lot of difference between a freeloader and a lazy and unwilling partner to share the life and expenses with…..you had a freeloader and that was as much your fault as his; you are just blaming everything on him but I expect you shared the same bed. Marriage is more than a ring and money and a house and so is a loving relationship; to argue the one for the other is to not know the difference……..I expect the guy was as tired of you as you were of him, that’s called divorce by mutual incompatibility.
I hope you learned but if you are holding your breath for a guy with money to buy you a bug ring you haven’t learned a thing about a loving relationship.
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