Can Cohabitation Ruin Your Dreams Of Having A Good Marriage?

Today, more and more couples are choosing to live together long before they even consider marriage. A huge percent of married couples in Europe and America have actually cohabited, having a sexual relationship with their partners, before getting married or thinking about marriage. These individuals see cohabitation before living a married life is a more practical choice or convenient option.

If you look into different statistics on prenuptial cohabitation, you’d see the same things. Just approximately half of couples who live together before marriage actually end up getting married. It is also considered to be more demanding as compared to living a married life. Also, people who live together before marriage are putting themselves at a greater risk for divorce and separation early in their marriage.

Although society is more open now about this issue, many people and religions still consider cohabitation as an offense or a wrongful act. Having a “sexual” relationship with someone without due consent of your parents and your religion may be considered as a violation of your community’s norms. Much like a crime or any negative action, they all have implications. For example, a cohabitating couple who have a child may not be able to provide all the benefits that married couples could in terms of education and insurances. The child or children would also be considered illegitimate, giving them no right to claim any of their father’s financial obligations. Generally, it’s seen as an act of irresponsibility on the part of the parents.

Fortunately our norms have begun to change and old traditions are now giving way to new ones. Since our current economic situation has given rise to certain problems especially when starting a married life, cohabitation is slowly becoming a more practical option for responsible parents who can’t afford to get married. In the U.S., cohabitating couples are given courses on premarital education to lower the risks of divorce once they decide to apply for legal union or marriage. Other countries also offer free marriage for couples who can’t afford it.

We may all have our own views on this topic, but the bottom line is that cohabitation only becomes negative when couples don’t take responsibility for their actions and if they don’t see living together as a stepping stone to eventually establishing a family of their own.

For more legal advice and helpful information on divorce and cohabitation, checkout http://www.westminsterlaw.com.au/.