Will living together prepare you for marriage?

Some say yes. They feel that a couple gain valuable experience as they share household chores and observe each other’s personal habits. However, a vital ingredient for a successful marriage is commitment.

How can a couple learn to stick to each other during good times or bad? Not by entering into a preliminary “trial period” during which both partners view the relationship as disposable and either partner can walk away. Instead, relationships thrive when both partners are strongly committed to each other and work together to overcome problems.

The bottom line: Instead of practicing for marriage, couples who choose to live together unmarried may actually be practicing for separation.

Bible principle: “Whatever a person is sowing, this he will also reap.”—Galatians 6:7.

Will living together help you avoid marrying the wrong person?

Some say yes. However, “people who cohabit before marriage often do not realize that living together makes it harder to break up,” states the book Fighting for Your Marriage. Why? Some cohabiting couples may discover that they have serious incompatibilities. But because of such obligations as a shared pet, a shared lease, or an unexpected pregnancy, they develop what researchers call “the inertia of cohabitation.”b In other words, “some people who would otherwise break up before marriage end up marrying because it just became easier to keep going,” continues Fighting for Your Marriage.

The bottom line: Rather than help you make a good decision, living together could actually make it harder to end a bad relationship.

Bible principle: “The shrewd one sees the danger and conceals himself, but the inexperienced keep right on going and suffer the consequences.”—Proverbs 22:3.