He Loves Me! He Really Loves Me!

I love my boyfriend SO much! I can’t imagine loving anyone more than him! He doesn’t want to get married right now because he isn’t financially stable enough to provide for a family, but does want to take our relationship to the next level so we are moving in together! I can’t believe he is finally committing to me more!

Does this sound oh too familiar? In today’s society I feel like this or a similar scenario is played out all too often. The boyfriend isn’t really more committed; he’s just found a way to silence the girlfriend’s desire to get married for a while.

So what’s the big problem with this? There are about 6.1 million couples currently living together that aren’t married. “The belief that living together before marriage is a useful way “to find out whether you really get along,” and thus avoid a bad marriage and an eventual divorce, is now widespread among young people.” (State of Our Unions, 2012 pg. 78). It’s a good way to see if you’ll be able to make it as a married couple, right? Wrong! According to Catholicmatch.com, “cohabiting couples have a 46% greater risk of divorce than couples who do not live together before marriage.” How can this be? They’ve already committed themselves prior to the marriage by testing out the water and living together. It’s like nothing changed. But the thing is… their commitment to each other is weaker than a married couple’s because they’re going into the new stage of their relationship with an escape plan. One of my friends pointed this out to me. She also mentioned that this will create anxiety about being left alone and a sense of insecurity. According to the same post on catholicmatch.com, “most couples that cohabitate prior to marriage are said have more frequent depression …. than those of married people.” Not quite what I want from my relationships! 

“A 2002 study of retirement data concluded that “individuals who do not participate in legal marriage (e.g., never married or cohabiting) have significantly lower wealth than those who are continuously married.” Compared to those continuously married, those who never married had a reduction in wealth of 75 percent, and those who were currently cohabiting had a reduction of 58 percent.” (State of Our Unions, 2012 pg. 79) I definitely didn’t get married for the wealth, but it would be a welcomed surprise!

I will admit that I don't have tons of authority on this topic as I have never cohabited, nor thought about this as a lifestyle for myself. I always dreamed of getting married and having the perfect husband. However, if the research is any indication what my life would have been like had we decided to just live together instead of get married... I think I'm content in every aspect with the decision I made. I suffered from depression and anxiety for many years and was medicated for it. I know what it feels like to pretend to be happy and I can't imagine needing to do that everyday with the person that I supposedly love so much that I can't wait, even for marriage, to spend every waking minute with. I know that this is what God would want me to do and that by following the plan He established for our lives of having families I will have eternal happiness that will far outreach any earthly happiness I could have here.

One last thought on the subject…. Brother Brent A. Barlow gave a devotional address at BYU on October 12, 1999 where he stated:

“There is nationwide concern about the next generation regarding marriage. I identify particularly the people from the ages 16 to 26 because some of the best thinkers in this nation have said, “As goes the next generation, so goes the nation.” What you do regarding marriage and family will determine a lot about the future of this country. We are at a crossroad in the United States. The trends that have been established during the last four decades regarding marriage and family have contributed to the demise of marriage and family, but there are some indications that, nationwide, your generation is changing and is putting marriage and family as a top priority. So we are very interested to see which way you are going to go.” He later said, “I have always believed that marriage is very important in life for several reasons. But exactly how important it is I did not realize until the past few years. In the fall of 1996 I read a quote by Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 b.c.). It is now hanging on my wall in my office at BYU. He said, “The first bond of society is marriage” (De Officiis, I, 78 b.c.). Notice that he did not say that marriage is just one bond, or another bond among several others. Cicero said that marriage is the first bond, and therefore the most important bond on which societies are built! During the priesthood session of our recent general conference, President Hinckley noted the same thing. He said, “God-sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman has been the basis of civilization for thousands of years.” (“Why We Do Some of the Things We Do,” Ensign, November 1999, 54)”

I won’t even go into how a child would be effected in this scenario this week if the girlfriend and boyfriend decided to have one. That’s a whole other blog post that really should be given more attention than a snippet here.

For now let’s just say that if you think you’re ready to move in together, but aren’t ready for marriage… then you’re probably not ready to move in together. Just wait until you are both ready to be married to make that move. It will be better on you socially and mentally! And our society would benefit greatly!