Take the question of cohabitation before marriage. You might call it living together. Or shacking up.
The argument for it seems to be that it is a good test run for marriage. In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, 62% of men and women in their 20's believed that living together with someone before marriage is a good way to avoid an eventual divorce. However, that same report stated that there is no evidence to support the view that living together before marriage reduces the odds of divorce. In fact, there is research to suggest that cohabitation before marriage (particularly before the couples are engaged) results in less fulfilling marriages and more divorces.
Why is this?
Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, has an opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times. And the answer again seems to revolve around one of my favorite topics-behavioral economics.
Sliding into cohabitation wouldn’t be a problem if sliding out were as easy. But it isn’t. Too often, young adults enter into what they imagine will be low-cost, low-risk living situations only to find themselves unable to get out months, even years, later. It’s like signing up for a credit card with 0 percent interest. At the end of 12 months when the interest goes up to 23 percent you feel stuck because your balance is too high to pay off. In fact, cohabitation can be exactly like that. In behavioral economics, it’s called consumer lock-in.In effect, each step forward in living together is often incremental and evolutionary. The decisions leading to marriage are not weighed in the larger context of the real commitment necessary for a successful union. It becomes more the case of gradually sliding into it rather than really understanding that it is a giant leap.
Lock-in is the decreased likelihood to search for, or change to, another option once an investment in something has been made. The greater the setup costs, the less likely we are to move to another, even better, situation, especially when faced with switching costs, or the time, money and effort it requires to make a change.
Cohabitation is loaded with setup and switching costs. Living together can be fun and economical, and the setup costs are subtly woven in. After years of living among roommates’ junky old stuff, couples happily split the rent on a nice one-bedroom apartment. They share wireless and pets and enjoy shopping for new furniture together. Later, these setup and switching costs have an impact on how likely they are to leave.
Jay speaks of a recent client, Jennifer, who came to her after having lived with her boyfriend (and eventual husband) for four years. She was in the process of looking for a divorce lawyer having spent more time planning her wedding than she spent happily married.
As Jennifer and I worked to answer her question, “How did this happen?” we talked about how she and her boyfriend went from dating to cohabiting. Her response was consistent with studies reporting that most couples say it “just happened.”
“We were sleeping over at each other’s places all the time,” she said. “We liked to be together, so it was cheaper and more convenient. It was a quick decision but if it didn’t work out there was a quick exit.”
She was talking about what researchers call “sliding, not deciding.” Moving from dating to sleeping over to sleeping over a lot to cohabitation can be a gradual slope, one not marked by rings or ceremonies or sometimes even a conversation. Couples bypass talking about why they want to live together and what it will mean.
Jennifer said she never really felt that her boyfriend was committed to her. “I felt like I was on this multiyear, never-ending audition to be his wife,” she said. “We had all this furniture. We had our dogs and all the same friends. It just made it really, really difficult to break up. Then it was like we got married because we were living together once we got into our 30s.”
I guess Simon and Garfunkel had it about right.
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer the destination, the more you slip sliding away
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