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Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote a piece in the New York Post on the work of me and my colleagues that is focused on how relationships develop. In our work, we highlight the risks of people making it harder to break up before really knowing if the relationship has what will be needed to go the distance.
We believe that many couples rapidly slide into situations where the costs of leaving get ahead of clarity on benefits to staying. In terms of commitment theory, this amounts to increasing constraints for staying together before a deeper dedication to being together has formed--and formed in both partners. In our research, we talk about this as a type of inertia. Remember your physics? Some relationships pick up entirely too much inertia, too soon, meaning it will take a lot of energy to move things--like your life--a different direction. One result of that is that peole who are really not that compatible can end up staying together, sometimes into marriage, when they otherwise would have broken up and moved on if they had not made it so hard to break up.
Here is Schaefer Riley's piece: How Shacking up Leads to Divorce. It's very good. It focuses on cohabitation because that's one of the most important ways we believe many couples prematurely increase inertia. Or, if you prefer the cell phone contract analogy--get locked in. Now, since I'm somewhat picky about science and not a newspaper editor, I'd have entitled that "How Shacking up May Lead to Divorce," since it clearly does not for many people. However, the article really captures the essence of the added risks in dating and cohabiting that many people just do not see coming until they are deep into it.
And now a great example of all of this comes out on Valentine's Day. Megan McArdle, the popular writer on economics, wrote about exactly these things, and very personally, this weekend: Happy Valentine's Day! Now Cut Your Losses. Quoting her:
I'm talking to you, 30-something woman who has been dating the same guy for a couple of years (or more), maybe already moved in together and started picking out that furniture. The one who is ready for those babies, or at least a joint tax return, and would like to get the matter settled as soon as possible. The one who is anxious that her partner doesn't seem as eager as she is but is afraid to deliver an ultimatum for fear the answer will be "OK, bye."
Here's the thing, though: The guy who leaves you because you deliver an ultimatum is probably also the guy who is going to leave you a couple of years later, having wasted more of your prime dating years on his dithering.
McArdle, being an economist, recognizes this situation as the problem as a form of the sunk cost fallacy. Humans are prone to hanging onto something because of what is already invested. People tend to fear losses and hang onto investments, at times, when the loss is already irrecoverable. In business parlance, one is throwing good money after bad. This happens a lot because people tend to want to believe their past behavior was rationale; if I've already put in this much, it's got to have been smart and it's got to pay off. Often times in dating and waiting, this is not so.
In many relationships where one partner is more committed than the other, and waiting for the other to step up, those investments may be already lost. As McArdle so eloquently describes, that waiting means taking even bigger losses when the day of reckoning finally comes. Galena Rhoades and I believe that cohabitation plays a large role in this. We have shown in many studies now that those who cohabit before clear, mutual plans to marry (as in marriage, or engagement) do not tend to fair as well in marriage. McArdle identifies the problem of waiting to marry someone who never will get there; we also identify the problem of the constraints being great enough that some people marry someone they otherwise would have left--before marriage.
What I like so much about McArdle's piece is that it's personal. She's describing her own life and what it took to accept the fact that her past partner was not ever going to marry her. She got up, moved out, and moved on. Life is better much now. See her article. Her personal story about what we call asymmetrical commitment in dating and cohabiting relationships. In our research and conceptual work, we talk a lot about exactly this issue. For example, in a report Galena Rhoades and I wrote, we presented analyses of premarital factors that are associated with marital quality. We found that when one partner perceived his or her commitment as being stronger than the other partner’s before marriage, he or she later reported lower marital quality than those who did not perceive such a difference in commitment. It was one of the strongest premarital predictors of eventual marital quality that we studied. (This in our Before "I Do" report for the National Marriage Project. See pages 12 & 22.)
In Schaefer Riley's piece, noted earlier, she includes the best short video my team ever developed to help explain the problem of inertia to young adults--why it's risky to get locked in too soon in dating/romantic relationships. That video is also at YouTube: Relationship DUI. It's very clear about the issues and the consequences that can come from getting constrained before it's clear if there is good fit between two partners. The video is informative and not remotely bossy. (If you know someone who is in their late teens or 20s, and looking for love and commitment, you might want to share it with them.)
If you want more background on why cohabiting before marriage has risks for some couples that they do not see beforehand, check out my earlier piece here on The Hidden Risk of Cohabitation.
If you are looking for someone to commit to for life, look for someone who will really stick with you and don't just get stuck together. Look for true, mutual commitment to what you have together.
Follow me on twitter: @DecideOrSlide
Disclosure: I am co-owner of the company that produced the Relationship DUI video, and that company produces a lot of different types of materials and tools that people use to strengthen relationships, including the program linked after the video.
