Living together before marriage? Not anything new
Annie Reber and Dillin Randolph dated for a few months and then decided to move in together. More and more younger couples are cohabiting before marriage than ever before.  Taken by: Steffanee Wang/Medill
For Annie Reber and Dillin Randolph, their studio bedroom is all they need until they can find a place and get married.
Tucked in the second floor of an old apartment building, the small space fits a queen bed, a couch, a TV, a kitchen, and a big fluffy cat. Itâs not much, but itâs close enough for Reber to be a comfortable walking distance from her school and for Randolph to go to his job at Target.
âWeâve been living together since July of last year,â Randolph said, âTechnically.â
âWe technically lived together before, too.â Reber said. âWe practically lived at each otherâs houses from May on.â
After being together for a few months and already spending a lot of time together, Randolph moving in to Reberâs new apartment was the next obvious step.
http://youtu.be/wqcga6UVcEI
Their story is not unique. In fact, more and more couples are choosing to move in before getting married. Some donât even get married at all.
In 2010, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a study stating that 48% of heterosexual woman from ages 14-44 were not married to their spouse when they lived with them for the first time. This is an increase from 43% in 2002, and 34% in 1995. It was also reported that fewer woman are getting married from 2006-2010, than in 2002 and 1995 (23%, 30%, 39% respectively).
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And according to, John Curtis, ph.D, the author of the book Happily Unmarried, the increase in cohabitation may have to do something with the 50 percent divorce rate in America.
âYounger people are cohabiting because of fear for a failed marriage,â Curtis said. âYou know, they say, âI donât want to get married without getting to know the person.ââ
Randolph is one of those people. His parents got divorced when he was eight years old, and later, witnessed both of his aunts get divorced. Though he isnât afraid of getting married, he said he believes âtesting a person out is helpful to know if someone is good for marriage.â
âFor them, marriage is till death do us apart,â Curtis said. âWhereas cohabitation is an experiment.â
And for Reber and Randolph, this is why theyâre going to wait just a little while longer before they get marriedâand why theyâd encourage other couples to wait, too.
â[Cohabiting] is not that much different from marriage,â Reber said. âIf youâre living with someone, and youâre comfortable with it, thatâs basically what marriage is.â
Besides the marital aspects of cohabitating, itâs just more convenient. Reber states that being able to be with each other after a long day of school and work is a big benefit to cohabitating.
However, the most common response to those who decide to live together married is that cohabitation can actually lead to divorce. A study done in July 2009 conducted a study where they interviewed couples who had been married 10 years or less. They found out that 19 percent of the couples who cohabitated before marriage had thought about divorce, 12 percent of couples who began to cohabitate after the engagement, and 10 percent for couples who didnât cohabitate until after marriage.
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Despite these numbers, Reber and Randolph still support the idea of living together before marriage. To them, these divorces arenât because of cohabitation; theyâre because the couple gets tired of trying.
âPeople change,â Reber said. âSome people, like my grandparents, donât want to compromise anymore. And so things fail.â
Cohabiting before marriage is not something that is strictly being observed in America. In fact, according to Curtis, cohabitation is somewhat the standard in Scandinavia and other European countries.
âIf a child is born out of marriage, it has a greater chance to grow up in a stable home with two parents,â Curtis said. âCouples who arenât married are more stable than American couples that are married.â
Perhaps the old âget married before living togetherâ rule doesnât apply anymore. At some point in the future, Curtis expects the rate of cohabitation will level off, and America will become more like Western Europe.
For now, Reber and Randolph are perfectly content in their tiny, studio apartment. At least, until Randolph can afford the ring. But they're not rushing anything.
