Are You Cohabitating for the Right Reasons?
BOYT: Do you see a great increase in the amount of people who are cohabitating?
John Curtis: There has been a much greater emphasis on the study of cohabitation in the past three years. Prior to 2007 and 2008, most people thought that cohabiting was for 18 to 24 year olds that are living together for convenient sex for the man and a partner for the woman. Now we are beginning to see a myriad of reasons why people are in cohabitating relationships just as diverse as why people marry. The 18- to 24-year-old demographic is the largest age group to cohabitate but you also have a huge burgeoning number of people over the age of 65. There’s a myriad of types of people and reasons they choose not to get married. There are those who are atheist and don’t believe that they need to have their marriage blessed by their religion. It’s a very diverse, multifaceted phenomenon in America that is exploding in numbers; meanwhile, the rate of marriage continues to decline every single year and it has since 1970 without fail.
BOYT: What is some advice you give to couples?
John Curtis: Marriage doesn’t make somebody committed. Last year, a study showed that one out of four men and one out of five women will have an affair within the first two years of marriage. So, marriage doesn’t make people committed. What makes someone committed is romantic attraction coupled with emotional maturity. Whether you’re married or not, you’ve got to have emotional maturity there but many times, men and women don’t bring that to the relationship.
BOYT: What major questions should couples address before making the decision to move in together?
John Curtis: It really starts with looking into the mirror and asking some questions. One of the things you can do is to stop and ask yourself what your motivation is. Is it a desperate and lonely need for someone to fill your life? You have to start with yourself to see why you’re doing it in the first place. It means that in the course of casual conversations, you talk about the future. Then you have your partner respond and say whether it’s something they want to do. Find out what their vision is. One other thing would be gateway questions. It’s simply saying, “If you were to describe your ideal mate, what characteristics would you want them to have?” Begin to listen closely in case you hear one you don’t like. Those would be a couple basic questions to ask after you ask yourself if you’re cohabitating for the right reasons.
BOYT: Is there a single characteristic that keeps couples alive? Is emotional intimacy the key to a long-lasting relationship?
John Curtis: Yes, it starts with emotional intelligence. It’s the ability to understand and take responsibility for my own behavior and not project it onto you. That means the ability to take feedback without getting defensive and attacking back. It’s the ability to constructively solve problems together and compromise all the factors that go into being an emotionally mature person. We constantly see romantic things in movies and sitcoms but we don’t see a lot of emotional maturity getting played out. The crazy place you see it is in Desperate Housewives. Tom Scavo is probably one of the most authentic male roles on any TV show. Women are typically portrayed as the mother and parent because the man is portrayed as immature and acts like an idiot. The men are seen as buffoons that are worried about football, food and maybe automobiles. We really need some help in that regard and emotional maturity is really critical. If you know anyone who’s got it, hang out with them. It’s an easy thing to develop but it’s a scary thing to get people to address because they have to first admit that they don’t have all the answers.
BOYT: Do you feel that cohabitating is a better alternative to marriage?
John Curtis: Keep in mind that I’m a married practicing catholic. The reality is that there are over 12 million Americans who cohabitate and it’s here to stay, so let’s welcome it and bring it out of the closet. Let’s elevate society’s expectations of it and let’s recognize what we really need are stable homes and marriage doesn’t necessarily make for a stable home. Here’s an interesting statistic: A child born to a cohabiting couple in Sweden is more likely to grow all the way to adulthood with the same intact home than a child born to a married couple in America. If we’re talking about the importance of stability and home life as the fabric of a community and country then it’s about committed relationships. What we primarily need more of are people who understand commitment. It’s a hard thing to practice when the moment there’s a hiccup in a marriage people are already down at the divorce court. Short of physical abuse, I would say infidelity, while devastating for the relationship, doesn’t mean you have to go file for divorce. We need to make it much harder to get married and much harder to get divorced especially if children are involved. In the meantime, we’ve got all these folks cohabiting and we need to support them and help them develop more stable relationships.
BOYT: Do you suggest that people cohabitate before considering getting married?
John Curtis: That depends on the couple. This is an interesting bit from the University of Denver, they found that couples who cohabit and were engaged had no difference in marital satisfaction or divorce than couples that got married and then moved in together. In a couple, if one of the leases is coming up for renewal and they decide it would save money to move in together, it results in the couple sliding into a relationship. It isn’t one person consciously meeting the other, learning all about them, falling in love and eventually proposing then getting married. So there’s a difference there. I had a man say that he had to marry his wife so he could divorce her because he didn’t know how to get rid of her. There is an advantage for some folks to live together but it’s really important to look at if you’re committed and if you can define commitment. I say to men, you want to understand commitment, imagine that the next car you buy is going to be the last automobile you’re going to own for the rest of your life. No upgrades, no turning it in at the end of the lease. The car you buy is the one you’re going to have to take care of, going to have to service; you’re going to have to treat it with tender loving care.
BOYT: What is the best piece of relationship advice you’ve been given?
John Curtis: Years ago, I have to attribute it to a professor who said that the best work you can do in a relationship is the work you do on yourself. That has kind of morphed into my own version that says what you need to do is quit trying to find the right person and focus on being the right person.
About Jo
hn Curtis
Dr. Curtis is a consultant, researcher, trainer and author with 25 years experience. His education includes a B.A. in Education, a Masters in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Human Resource Development. John was a full-time marriage and family counselor and clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. John is married with two children and two grandchildren.
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