This is a recent article that was researched through the Prepare/Enrich progrm for premarital & marital assesments of marital satisfaction (which, tell your friends, I am certified and experienced in administering). I have always had an interest in the satisfaction of couples who do vs. don't cohabitate, and this speaks volumes. Pay attention to the Vitalized (aka those very satisfied) and those Conflicted (aka NOT satisfied & often close to break up/divorce/etc) as they are the most significant.
Do with this what you will, this just informative from the Marriage and Family Therapist in me.
Cohabitation Reduces Relationship Quality for Dating and Engaged Couples
Peter J. Larson & David H. Olson
A sample of 35,684 premarital couples who took the PREPARE/ENRICH Customized Version in 2010 was selected and put into the following four groups: dating cohabiting, dating living apart, engaged cohabiting and engaged living apart. These couples came from all 50 states and represented a wide range of ages and ethnicities.
The four groups of dating and engaged couples were classified into the four couple types: Vitalized, Harmonious, Conventional and Conflicted (see Table 1). Vitalized couples score high across a whole range of categories (communication, conflict, finances, etc.), while Conflicted couples have low scores in most areas of their relationship. Our longitudinal studies show that premarital couples who are Conflicted are much more likely to divorce or separate.
The four groups of dating and engaged couples were classified into the four couple types: Vitalized, Harmonious, Conventional and Conflicted (see Table 1). Vitalized couples score high across a whole range of categories (communication, conflict, finances, etc.), while Conflicted couples have low scores in most areas of their relationship. Our longitudinal studies show that premarital couples who are Conflicted are much more likely to divorce or separate.
In comparing dating couples living together versus dating living apart, the differences were
dramatic. Only 21% of the dating couples who are living together were Vitalized, compared with 51% of the dating couples who were not living together. Even more telling, 48% of the cohabiting daters were in the Conflicted range, compared with only 16% of those who were not living together.
Of 32,348 engaged couples studied, 44% were cohabiting. About half (51%) of cohabiting engaged couples were Vitalized compared to 60% of the non cohabiting engaged couples who were Vitalized, a 9% difference. The engaged cohabiters also had more than double the percentage of Conflicted couples at 13% compared to just 5% for the engaged couples who were not living together.
The results across both dating and engaged couples indicates all premarital couples who cohabitate have poorer relationship quality than those who do not live together. Secondly, living together after becoming engaged is less problematic than living together while dating. This finding is consistent with several other recent studies of cohabitation.
For more studies on Couple Types and longitudinal studies, see the research section of
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