Since 1970, the marriage rate in America has plunged in half according to The State of Our Unions 2009. Why didn't the percentage of married couples increase if two-thirds of cohabiting couples marry?

Nevertheless, there are "experts" who disagree, and we are scheduling a 75 minute

TeleSeminar on "Cohabitation: Confusion To Clarity" to be held at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on May 24th. I invite you to join the seminar. While it is being organized by John Curtis, who thinks cohabitation is a reasonable step for couples, he is sending out the attached paper I have written presenting the other side to anyone who signs up.

John Curtis has written a book, Happily Un-Married: Living Together & Loving It

On the other hand, Harriet and I co-authored a book, Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers.

Two other "experts" will be participating, who are more sympathetic to John than to me.

You may want to organize a group at your church. It will be audio only, so all you need is a speakerphone. Think of couples whose children are cohabiting, or who are considering it. Or invite couples you know who are living together. Or invite pastors from your community who want to know what to say to cohabiting couples. The church blesses 86% of couples who marry, which means that pastors are closing their eyes to this issue. In my view, that makes them complicit with demonstrable sin. Paul wrote, "Flee fornication." What is cohabitation but fornication raised to the 100th power?

Rev. Jeffrey Meyers, Pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Overland Park, KS has come up with the best strategy I have heard for cohabiting couples. Here is a typical conversation:

Pastor Jeff: "I want you to move apart now, and live separately before the wedding: Christ Lutheran will not marry any couples who are cohabiting."

John: "We can't afford to move apart. We are saving for the wedding and our future home."

Jeff: "Susan, we have widows in this church who would love to have you move in for the few months before your wedding. You might not have to pay rent, only for groceries."

He says four out of five couples will move apart. And in ten years not one "Susan" has ever asked for the name of a widow. She would rather move home or live with girl friends. More important, not one of the couples he and the Mentor Couples in his church who prepared for marriage in 15 years have divorced.

Below are two links. The first is a text-only invitation. The second is a 90 second overview from the "experts" who will be leading the seminar. Take a look and think about joining our Cohabitation Telewebinar.

http://drjohncurtis.com/Page_2.php
http://www.vmatrixonline.com/sales/shackingupseminar.html

*****

Cohabitation: Good Idea, or a Marriage Killer? By Mike McManus

Is Cohabitation Harmless?

Two-thirds of couples marrying in America are living together. For most, it seems like a reasonable way to test the relationship for marriage. In March a report by National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) seemed to provide evidence that cohabitation is a good idea, or at least, relatively harmless. It reported that couples who live together before marriage and those who don't have about the same chances of a successful union. Specifically, it stated that the "probability that a woman's marriage would last at least 10 years" was nearly the same for those who cohabited before marriage (60%) as for those "who did not cohabit before marriage (66%)."

If these numbers are correct, I have two basic questions:

* In 2008, 6.8 million couples lived together. But there were only 2.16 million marriages. If 65% of cohabitations transitioned into marriage, why weren't there 4.4 million marriages, instead of half as many?
* Since 1970, the marriage rate in America has plunged 51% according to The State of Our Unions 2009.1 Why didn't the percentage of married couples increase if two-thirds of cohabiting couples marry?

My conclusion is that the National Center for Health Statistics needs to do a better job studying statistics.

Cohabitation is a Stealth Killer of Marriage

In fact, the marriage rate in America has plunged 51percent since 1970 according to The State of Our Unions 2009.1 And the divorce rate has risen. Why? Cohabitation is a stealth killer of marriage. It decreases the odds that people will marry at all. And living together greatly increases the odds a couple will divorce if they do marry.2

Myths About Cohabitation

There are three widely prevalent myths about cohabitation that are unwisely causing couples to live together while unmarried.

Myth 1: Living together is a step towards marriage.

Actually, cohabitation is a step away from marriage. Evidence?

The number of couples cohabiting soared 13-fold from 523,000 in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2008. Yet the number of never-married adults tripled in those years from 21 million in 1970 to 63 million in 2008. No wonder the marriage rate plunged in half. Cohabitation has diverted tens of millions away from marriage. It seduced them with the notion that they could test the possibility of marriage without making a full commitment. But you can't practice permanence.

Couples who break up after living together experience a "premarital divorce," which can be almost as painful emotionally as a real divorce. Millions who have done so are so severely impacted that they never do marry. That's why the number of never-married adults tripled at a time the population grew only 50 percent.

A woman who has lived with a man who breaks up with her is typically shattered by the experience. She feels used and embittered, having squandered hope and time she can never recapture. She has pinned her hopes and dreams on an uncommitted man. Men often simply move on to the next woman.

Myth 2: Living together is a trial marriage.

No. It is more like a "trial divorce," in which most couples break up either before or after the wedding. Of the 6.8 million couples mentioned above who lived together, only about 1.4 million married. What happened to the other 5.4 million couples? While some continued living together, millions experienced the "premarital divorce" I referred to above.

Rev. Myles Munroe of the Bahamas laces his fingers together as he says, "When you live with a person of the opposite sex, you 'become one,' as Scripture says. But if you break apart, you do not just separate. You tear,"he said as he slowly pulls his fingers apart. "And part of you stays with that other person. And part of that person stays with you. That's what makes it so painful."

But what of those who marry after living together? Dr. Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, writes: "Common sense suggests that premarital cohabitation should provide an opportunity for couples to learn about each other, strengthen their bonds, and increase their chances for a successful marriage... The evidence, however, suggests just the opposite. Premarital cohabitation tends to be associated with lower marital quality and to increase the risk of divorce... The degree of consensus about this central finding is impressive."3

In 1989 Dr. Larry Bumpass and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin reported that, "Marriages that are preceded by living together have 50 percent higher disruption rates than marriages without premarital cohabitation."4 Bumpass found that those entering cohabitation have a lower commitment to marriage and reduced conflict resolution and support skills. Many are children of divorce or of non-marriage, which makes them fearful of marriage. When their marriages experience strife, these couples are less able to cope and are more likely to give up and leave.

Several years ago, Dr. Paul Amato of Pennsylvania State University wondered if Dr. Bumpass' study overstated the dangers of cohabitation. The original study measured what happened to couples in the 1980s, when relatively few couples cohabited. As larger numbers of middle-class couples lived together, presumably the success of their unions would be higher.

However, as he and his colleagues compared cohabitants who married in the 1980s with those in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they found the risk of divorce for couples who married after living together actually increased from a 50 percent higher rate, to a 61 percent higher rate of divorce, than for couples who lived separately before marrying.5 Though the stigma of cohabitation has largely evaporated - the likelihood of marriage failing after cohabitation has increased. Dr. Amato asserted to me recently that cohabiting couples who marry have less happiness, more conflict, and more problems in their marriages, as well as a higher divorce rate.

Why Doesn't Cohabitation Work?

Why is cohabitation such a destructive force for couples who marry after living together? Dr. Catherine Cohan, also of Penn State , constructed a brilliant experiment to find out. Researchers interviewed married couples, some of whom had cohabited, and others who had not. They put the couples into a living room setting and asked them to discuss an issue in their relationship, such as sex, money, children, housework, or careers. Video cameras taped their conversations for later study.

"Those people who lived together were more negative and less positive when resolving a marital problem," Dr. Cohan said. Those who first cohabited, even only for one month before marriage, displayed poorer communication and problem-solving skills than those who had not lived together first. Husbands who had cohabited, for example, were more likely to attempt to control their wives, while their wives were more verbally aggressive.6

Why? My theory is that those who cohabit lose respect for themselves and their partner. Those who lived separately until the wedding have more self-respect and more respect for their spouse. Christian scripture says, "Flee fornication."7 Fornication is consensual intercourse between unmarried people. What is cohabitation but fornication raised to the 100th power?

Myth 3: "What we do is nobody's business."

Couples often believe that if they cohabit is a private matter that has no effect on anyone else. However, 41 percent of cohabiting couples have children - almost the same as the 46 percent of married couples who have children under age 18. "By 2001, the majority of non-marital births (52 percent) occurred within cohabiting unions," reported the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in a 2010 report.8

The NCHS estimates that about two-fifths of all children will spend some time in a cohabiting household before age 16.9 Children of cohabitating unions are likely to be brought up by a single mother, because most fathers drift away or are driven off. Those mothers and their children then become eligible for government aid, such as welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid. A Heritage Foundation study estimates that the 13 million single parent families cost taxpayers $20,000 per family in Fiscal 2004, or a total of $260 billion.10 What cohabiting couples do matters to all taxpayers.

A Better Way to Prepare for Marriage

Paul, in his "Epistle to the Thessalonians," wrote: "Test everything. Hold onto the good. Avoid every kind of evil." 11 Cohabitation isevil. That's what an 80-90 percent failure rate is.

There are better ways than cohabitation for couples to prepare for marriage. I've outlined them below. (For more detail, see a book my wife and I wrote: Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers.)12

1. Take a test called a premarital inventory.

This is a detailed relationship questionnaire, now taken over the Internet. The PREPARE-ENRICH inventory (www.prepare-enrich.com), for example, is composed of more than 150 statements for couples to respond to, such as these:

* I go out of my way to avoid conflict with my partner.
* When we are having a problem, my partner often refuses to talk about it.

2. Meet with a trained Mentor Couple.

They are skilled in talking through the relational issues that are surfaced by the inventory. One poll estimates 86 percent of weddings are performed by clergy.13 Some congregations have trained couples in healthy marriages to serve as marriage mentors. However, most have not. One can go to www.prepare-enrich.com and type in a Zip Code to identify scores of people in any community trained to administer the inventory. However, they are usually clergy or therapists, not trained Mentor Couples. Therapists, of course, will charge a fee, while most clergy charge nothing.

I recommend asking the church if it has mentor couples who go over the results with couples. At our home church, Mentor Couples will spend 6-7 evenings for 2+ hours each to review all inventory items, and to teach skills of conflict resolution. A pastor will typically give only an hour to review an inventory. How many of the 150+ items can be covered in that time? Fewer than ten.

My wife and I run a national organization, Marriage Savers, which has trained thousands of clergy and mentor couples to administer a premarital inventory and then go through the results with couples, with the result that the divorce and cohabitation rate for the whole city or county drop significantly and the marriage rate rises. However, we have not trained in most communities. To find out which churches have trained Mentor Couples, call 800 331-1661.

The inventory becomes a bridge between an older generation whose marriage has worked, and the next generation, eager to learn how to build a strong relationship that thrives over the decades. Mentors can also teach communication and conflict resolution skills.

3. Stop living together.

Cohabitation harms relationships. Churches should insist that cohabiting couples move apart if they want to be married in the church. No single stop could do more to increase their odds of success.14

4. Stop having sex.

Bottom line, remaining chaste before marriage increases the odds of marital success significantly. Of the 60 couples my wife and I have mentored over the years, only 10 were chaste. We provided them evidence from a study that over four decades showed the sexually active are about two-thirds more likely to divorce than those who remain chaste. I say to them, "If you want God's blessing, you need to consider playing by His rules. You can increase the odds of a lifelong marriage by becoming chaste until the wedding." We then ask them to consider signing an Optional Premarital Sexual Covenant (created by Marriage Savers).

Chastity is important not just before marriage, but afterwards as well. Adultery is a major cause of divorce. One way to get in training for lifelong chastity, is to begin practicing it now, with the person one plans to marry. If couples can't be chaste with each other, how will they trust each other after the wedding? The good news is that chastity before marriage actually increases their odds of a lifelong marriage. Of the 50 sexually active couples we worked with, how many do you think became chaste? Guess, before looking at an endnote.15

Insurance for Successful Marriages

During the 1990s, our church's Mentor Couples prepared 288 couples for marriage with the type of premarital program outlined above. Of that number, 58 couples decided not to marry. That's a big 20 percent. Studies show that such couples avoided a bad marriage before it began - essentially divorce prevention. But of the 230 couples who married, we know of only 16 divorces, for a divorce rate of only 7 percent over nearly two decades.

That is a 93 percent success rate - virtual marriage insurance. Compare that with the nearly 90 percent breakup rate of those who cohabit - either before or after the wedding.

The answer is not cohabitation, but solid marriage preparation led by trained Mentor Couples.

----Mike McManus is President and Co-Chairof Marriage Savers, a non-profit that has helped 10,000 clergy adopt 228 Community Marriage Policies that have reduced city-wide divorce and cohabitation rates, and raised marriage rates. He co-authored a book with his wife, Harriet, Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, and more recently, How To Cut America's Divorce Rate in Half: A Strategy Every State Should Adopt. He has also written a nationally syndicated newspaper column, "Ethics & Religion" for three decades.