Toward a Greater Understanding of the Cohabitation Effect: Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Communication

• Published in: Journal of marriage and family Vol. 64; no. 1; pp. 180 - 192
• Main Authors: Cohan, Catherine L., Kleinbaum, Stacey
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2002; National Council on Family Relations; Blackwell
• Subjects: Cohabitation; Communication; Communication skills; Correlation analysis; Divorce; Dyadics; Family studies; Help Seeking; Husbands; Interpersonal Communication; Interpersonal Relationship; marital communication; Marital Instability; Marital life; Marital Relations; Marital satisfaction; Marital separation; Marital stability; Marriage; Married persons; Meta Analysis; observed behavior; Pennsylvania; Pregnancy; Problem Solving; Sexuality. Marriage. Family relations; Social Support; Sociology; Sociology of the family. Age groups; Spouses; Wives; Cohabitation; Divorce; Sociology of family; Couple; Instability; Family relation; Consensual union; Marriage; Communication
• ISSN: 0022-2445; 1741-3737
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00180.x

The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between premarital cohabitation experience and marital communication in an effort to understand the robust finding known as the cohabitation effect, whereby couples who cohabit before marriage have greater marital instability than couples who do not cohabit. Observed marital problem solving and social support behavior were examined as a function of premarital cohabitation experience in a sample of 92 couples in the first 2 years of their first marriages. Spouses who cohabited before marriage demonstrated more negative and less positive problem solving and support behaviors compared to spouses who did not cohabit. Sociodemographic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal functioning variables did not account for the association between cohabitation experience and marital communication.