Commitment, Cohabitation, and Choices | An Interview with Researcher Scott Stanley, Ph.D.

Commitment — What does it look like in your life? Did you consciously decide to marry your spouse, or did you slide into a relationship after moving in or having a baby? Did you know you can change your path?  No matter how you started, there’s hope for your relationships. And if you are not yet romantically involved, you can learn how you can set yourself up for future success.

Scott Stanley, Ph.D., is a psychologist, research professor, co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, and a senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies. He’s researched relationships, published scores of studies and papers (including studies funded by the National Institutes of Health), and created curriculum with his colleague Howard Markman, Ph.D. for more than 30 years. He began studying commitment in 1983, looking at who stays, persists and does well in marriage, and how to improve those outcomes. Part of his work investigates the tension between dedication and constraint – the “want to stay” vs the “have to stay.”

In his published work, he describes dedication as the “want to,” the “desire for a future together, the will to sacrifice for one another, and having an identity of being a couple.” Constraint is defined as “the costs and losses of leaving or having poor alternatives.” Constraints can be good or bad and chosen or not, depending on if dedication remains. But constraints are fundamental to understanding commitment. As Stanley says, “Commitment is making a choice to give up other choices. It is deciding to be constrained because you believe in the path you are choosing.”

In the mid-‘90s, the phenomenon of couples living together prior to marriage became more normative, and Dr. Stanley believes these changes are related to commitment. He notes that most couples live together before marriage (over 70%), 90% of couples have sex before marriage and about 40% of babies are born to unmarried parents.

Dr. Stanley and colleagues Drs. Galena Rhoades and Markman have extensively researched the effects of cohabitation and found several factors contribute to whether it leads a higher risk for unhappy marriage or divorce. One of their key findings, which they predicted based on commitment theory, is that it makes a difference if a couple decides to have a future together beforehand or slid into living together without that commitment. Cohabitation prior to marriage doesn’t seem to be predictive of poor martial outcomes if a couple was engaged beforehand, because the decision for the couple to become “us with a future” had already been agreed upon and publicly proclaimed before moving in together.

Their studies have also shown that it is riskier to move in together out of convenience without ever clarifying expectations of what the step signifies in their relationship journey. In fact, in a study by Dr. Rhoades, Stanley, and Markman, they find it is riskier still to live together to “test” the relationship. Dr. Stanley notes that if a a person thinks they need to “test” something with their partner, they probably already suspect a problem and should go super slow—certainly not making it harder to break up by moving in together. 

“Much of what happens in non-married, romantic relationships is about the development, or lack thereof, of commitment,” he wrote. “Cohabitation can create inertia that may lead some people to remain in a relationship—even into marriage—that they would otherwise not have continued in had they not begun cohabitation. The more fundamental idea there is that cohabitation is risky for some people because it makes it harder to break up before they have really decided, with their partner mutually, on a commitment to marriage and a future together.”

“The heart of the inertia idea is risk,” he added. “People make it too hard to distance themselves if they move in without knowing what each other was thinking and having a plan. And some couples have a child to co-parent before they decided to be parents together for life.” Some would have (and should have) broken up, but moving in together before mutual commitment is settled raises the stakes. It is easier to stay with Mr. or Miss Ok-For-Now, even if that person was not really the top choice of a life partner. Some people increase their chances of getting stuck with someone who is not as committed as they are.

“Once you move in, you’ve made it harder to break up. If your communication was really clear and you knew where you were going, ok, less risk. But if communication is unclear, you made it harder to break up. His bottom line advice:

Don’t make it harder to leave before you have decided to stay. Don’t get constrained until you realize you are mutually dedicated and together for the future. 

As he wrote, “When a transition can deeply impact what follows, it’s worth deciding and not sliding.”

Break the Cycle

Good news: even if you recognize that you did drift into your relationship, your relationship doesn’t have to end up on the rocks.

Dr. Stanley, Dr. Markman and Rhoades together are authors of more than 150 scholarly publications on marriage, romantic relationships, and relationship education. They are among those who researched, developed and refined a relationship education program based on more than 40 years of published research findings. The Prevention and Relationship Education Program (PREP) has been used in more than 15 countries to teach effective relationship skills to more than 1 million people in five languages, according to the program’s website: https://prepinc.com, which describes PREP as, “empirically informed, empirically tested, and continually refined.”

PREP began as a pre-marriage education program and has grown to be usable for pre-married, married, and unmarried but committed couples. PREP “develops resources for couples, educators, therapists, and programs to support healthy and happy relationships.” Courses can be taken live or online, individually or in a group setting. Specialized curricula reach those in the military, fathers, corrections, faith-based, or in the workplace, for individuals or couples, in English or Spanish.

“PREP curricula have been tested by more researchers around the U.S. and the world than any other relationship education approach in the history of the world,” Dr. Stanley said. “PREP and all our curricula are really about training built around what we think are best practices for helping either committed couples or helping individuals learn more about what's healthy and how they might improve their odds of reaching their aspirations.”  

He said the PREP approach has been proven to lower the rate of divorce or break-up in four replicated, long-term outcome studies, one of which was a large, rigorous, randomized controlled study of U.S. Army couples under the direction of the chaplaincy program. He found couples who completed PREP cut their risk for divorce in half, even if they did live together prior to a marital/engagement commitment.

“Even in the high-risk group of those who started out living together before engagement, the link between that risk and marital outcomes got broken by taking PREP,” Dr. Stanley said. “This is a very encouraging finding. There’s something you can do to change your trajectory. Those who got the intervention didn’t have any greater risk than anybody else.”

The PREP information and corresponding workbooks can be used in a variety of settings to encourage those in the stage of forming relationships to make wiser choices. Whether high school or college students, a single moms’ support group, parents or mentors, understanding key principles can point participants to decisions that will result in more fruitful outcomes. 

Advise the Next Generation

You might be in the position to influence a Millennial or Gen Z child, relative or friend. Armed with the knowledge from Dr. Stanley and colleagues’ research, you could broach the subject of commitment and timelines and cast vision about better ways to make relationship decisions that help avoid pitfalls. Could you have this discussion with the young adults in your life? Dr. Stanley suggested gently floating the idea that there’s risk in getting locked down too soon, a concept that resonates with young people.

“You might think moving in is more convenient. You can save money, ‘test’ the relationship … Have you thought that if you move in, you are going to make it harder to break up? Hold up. Are you ready for that? Do you know enough about this person? Is there a reason not to slow down for a moment?” He replied.

At the very least, before moving in with someone, Dr. Stanley recommends both parties sit down and have a conversation about what the step means to each of them. He calls it the “defining the relationship moment.” “Are you on the same page? If you don’t talk, you won’t know if you both think you are going the same place, or if the other is just happy to keep you hanging around, keeping options open because they are not sure you are the one.” You want to know the answers to those questions before you move all your worldly belongings somewhere.  Dr. Stanley believes there are a lot of couples who would not move in together if they had this type of talk beforehand.

Searching Wisely

Dr. Stanley is a strong proponent of people needing to make better decisions earlier in relationships. He compares the search for a mate to a giant game of musical chairs. “Where are you going to be when the music stops? Some people sit down in the wrong place. There’s potential that the good ones found their seat before you did.” Waiting and waiting until someone’s in their 30s to get married will affect their odds of marriage.

He also noted how the almost unlimited number of choices for a potential mate due to social media and online dating sites affects the younger generation. “The increasing availability of tools for searching might merely increase fears of failing to find perfection; the quest may appear both more possible and more impossible at the same time.” The idea that something better might always be out there makes people less happy with what they eventually choose. As he wrote,” Commitment is making a choice to give up other choices. That’s the deal.”

Many Gen Z and Millennials believe they have all the time in the world to “keep playing the dating game of musical chairs.”

“What are your options for where to sit when most of the chairs are gone? They don’t appreciate the fact that their best option may have already happened,” Dr. Stanley said. He also thinks people of faith place a lot of trust in the idea that “God will send the perfect person to them, and they should just wait until that person comes along. Would you think that would be true going to a Black Friday sale at 7 p.m. rather than 7 a.m.? That is not a very rational decision,” he added. 

In addition to all his work on PREP over the years, Dr. Stanley has written several books relating to commitment, relationships and making wise life choices. A Lasting Promise, was written for couples and also has correlating lessons for small group study as well as workshop-based curricula. Find this as well as other materials at https://prepinc.com/collections/christian-material. His popular blog addresses issues pertaining to marriage and romantic relationship at www.slidingvsdeciding.com. Find more research at the 2014 National Marriage Project report, Before I Do, that he co-authored with Rhoades.

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