Cohabitation: A Growing Trend

In an age where divorce is as common as marriage many people are now practicing cohabitation as opposed to becoming legally bonded to one another. Like all things, both cohabitation and marriage have their benefits as well as drawbacks yet cohabitation has risen in popularity because it does not carry many of the same penalties that a divorce does.  In many cohabitation scenarios a couple may live together yet maintain separate monetary lives and in some cases though they may live together or spend the majority of time together in one dwelling both parties maintain their own household for a number of reasons.  Those who cohabitate or live together part time enjoy many of the same benefits married couples do but by maintaining their own household they will have the ability to retreat to their own space should a relationship not last or some time apart be in order.

As many a divorcee can attest to, dividing up assets between two spouses parting ways is always a long, drawn out, and sometimes painful process.  Those involved in a divorce will battle to protect what they believe is rightfully theirs, while those who choose to cohabitate more often than not simply leave with what they came with.  Couples practicing cohabitation will often cite that keeping finance issues, legal issues, and other matters of a personal nature separate or excluding them from their romantic relationships protects all parties involved when a spilt occurs and keeps any one party from becoming financially dependant on the other.

One of the most difficult aspects of breaking assets up fairly is the home a married couple may have purchased.  Of course having a knowledgeable and experienced real estate professional on your side can help tremendously however the rights to the home and whether or not it should be sold and profits divided up are ultimately in the hands of a judge.  Though an individual may take legal issue with their cohabitation partner, married couples generally face greater hardships than those that are not bound together by a government document.

Married couples will often state that they enter a legal union out of the love they feel for their spouse while those couples who cohabitate or live together part time state that a commitment to another person does not require a government document and that more often than not such a document only complicates issues surrounding a relationship.  Indeed those who cohabitate may come and go as they please though couples who legitimize their love through government paperwork and contracts may be more apt to try and repair a broken relationship rather than simply walking out the door.  It would be foolish to dismiss marriage as a passing tradition or to predict that it will someday be done away with but the rising rate of cohabitation as opposed to marriage marks a change in how society views relationships and what they believe is most important about them.