Cohabitation before marriage

I found this subject interesting. It was posted on the EnglishSabla forum in which I am a member of:

From member Jeff: There are three possible results (of cohabitation): 1. Living together generally improves the chances that you will get along after you marry. (This makes intuitive sense to lots of people today.)2. Living together has no particular generalizable effect on the chances that you will get along after you marry.3. Living together generally hurts the chances that you will get along after you marry.Now, in reason any of those might be true.So, what kind of evidence would you accept that 3 is possiblly true, even if you aren't inclined to believe it?

From member Fengy: Forget that, why not talk about your own experience jeff? I mostly make my decisions based on that, and not on some "study" I read somewhere. Of course it makes alot of sense to people to co-habit before. This is probably because they know that you don;t really know a person before you've lived with them and that NOT making a mistake is better than making one and then having to go through the emotional and financial trauma to get it annulled or to get a divorce. My personal experience and those of people close to me says: Once a person is able to support themselves financially, they will move out of a dead marriage.Co habitation is on the rise. Women supporting themselves is on the rise. Debt pressure on a couple is on the rise.Working too many jobs to keep up with life's expenses is on the rise. These did not exist when it was taboo for us to be co-habiting. Therefore there are MANY reasons why marriages actually end in divorce today versus marriages that went stale but never actually legally ended in divorce .. say 40 years ago. I don't believe co-habitation is one of them. It doesn't make sense. Anyone who co-habits THEN chooses to get married is choosing to commit, even though they don't need to. Those who'd rather not commit are those who would likely have regretted it anyways. So, in a way it saves people from marrying and then divorcing a few years later.

My own personal opinion is that cohabitation is not for everyone. Some may see it as the cure all that ails all....or it could lead to a diaster after marriage. Perhaps one must look at this on a case by case basis...how strong or how weak is the relationship to begin with? What are the dynamics of the relationship? By living together initially before marriage is the couple doomed? Would it make their marriage stronger????