Live-together arrangements come in second, but they have a major drawback — durability. About half split up in less than five years. One reason is the lack of commitment and that can make partners feel vulnerable. Couples can’t afford to be as emotionally and socially dependent on each other as they would like, or have their personal identities tied up in their relationship as do married couples. Because of its tenuous nature, it’s harder for partners to establish trust and intimacy, and that inhibits their ability to communicate openly. The result is to make it more difficult to resolve conflicts.
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Living together limits other types of benefits partners can receive. Relationships provide internal rewards, such as love and emotional support, and extrinsic rewards, such as shared expenses and sex. Initially, they provide mostly extrinsic rewards, but as commitment builds, more intrinsic rewards are received, and these make the relationship stronger.
Without commitment, intrinsic rewards are hard to come by, and that makes it difficult to overcome certain difficulties. If a husband loses his job, he and his wife will usually work together for a solution. But cohabiting couples can have a harder time with such a problem — because their relationship is driven by extrinsic benefits, financial assistance in this case, they may not stay together when that benefit isn’t provided.
Of course, not all live-together relationships fail. It works for couples who are engaged, because they already have a long-term commitment in place. It also works for older couples. Their priorities are to find a companion and a sex partner rather than true love, so partners are less demanding and the relationship is more relaxed. There are also fewer alternative partners, and the limited competition makes each feel they have a good chance of keeping their partner.
