Most certainly there is commitment associated with marriage. Marriage partners need to make commitments like: practicing patience; working hard at the relationship; riding out bad times; being monogamous, etc. The fact of the matter is all of these commitments can be made and often are made without the formal structure of marriage. Marriage is therefore not really a proof of commitment, nor does the decision to not marry necessarily demonstrate a lack of commitment.

So, how else can the psychological difference between marriage and living together be described--because I do think it feels different. My sense is that part of the difference is in how society views your relationship. Though there is widespread acceptance of couples “living together”, it is still true that you receive more social recognition as a couple in our society if you get legally married. That difference comes through in the way you are treated by bosses, doctors, friends, extended family, grown step children etc. Given how new the idea of couplehood without formal marriage is in the psyche of humanity, it is easy to understand how, at some deep level, people may still have unconscious feelings that somehow being married feels more valid, or right, or real. This acceptance can be very important to people.

Marriage seems to bestow some kind of honorable or important status. And this is true even if the marriage does not last a lifetime. There is something to be said for being someone’s ex-wife or ex-husband rather than the person he/she lived with for five years. If your ex becomes famous someday, and they write his/her biography, as an ex-wife or ex-husband you will be mentioned; even if you divorced after two years. I guess you could say this is true even with the oral history of a family. Ex-cohabitants’ names and significance may be lost, as memories fade, but ex’s will always at least be mentioned, perhaps not favorably, but mentioned nevertheless!!! The fact that two people married says that, at least in one point in their lives, they were very, very significant to one another. Perhaps this is why the term adopted by the gay community to refer to their life partners was “significant other.” This term is now used by heterosexual couples as well.

Another possible psychological difference between being married verses living together is that some people say that being married makes them try harder to make the relationship last. Some people argue that having the formal structure of marriage makes them feel more committed or invested in the relationship and helps them feel that their partner is also more invested. People often say “Being married makes me have more of a feeling of being settled”, or “Being married helps me have more faith that the relationship will endure; that we won’t throw in the towel if it gets bad for awhile; that we will try and stay in it for the long haul.” “It’s a way of saying I’ve stopped looking”.

However, there are also people who believe that marriage has negative psychological effects. I’ve heard people state very strongly that, if there is not going to be financial merging or children involved, there is no rational reason to get married, and, if there is no rational reason to marry, it is a mistake to “do it anyway” because of old conditioning. I’ve heard people express the sentiment that it is important to try to evolve beyond the obsolete conditioning and not marry simply because that’s what people have always done. Some people believe it is important to create new ways of demonstrating love and commitment that are less obtrusive than marriage for example having a ceremony without getting legally married, or exchanging rings, or referring to one another as “partners”. I’ve also heard people argue that not getting married helps them work harder on their relationship because it helps them to remember that it is a continuous choice to remain together, not a given.

I’ve heard people say that they think getting married makes people take one another too much for granted. So marriage has different psychological effects on different people. However, I am also convinced that deception sometimes comes into play in this debate over whether or not to get married – both self deception and deceiving another person. Perhaps we run the whole “There’s no reason to get married” rap on our partner:

“I don’t see any reason why we should get married. We have no interest in pooling our financial resources; we already co-own a house--isn’t that enough? We both have self-supporting careers; we aren’t planning to have children, what is all the hullabaloo about getting married? It’s only a piece of paper. We know we love one another and are deeply committed to making this relationship work. Marriage is for young people who are having kids and blending all their money together.”

It can all sound so logical. But sometimes it can turn out to be either a self deception or a smoke screen for someone who really isn’t sure he/she has found the right person. A scene from the popular movie “When Harry Met Sally” comes to mind: Sally felt terribly betrayed and sad when her ex-boyfriend who supposedly didn’t believe in marriage suddenly announced his intention to marry the next girlfriend less than a year after breaking up with poor Sally. Sally was in serious tears saying “It wasn’t really that he didn’t believe in marriage; he just didn’t want to marry me!!!” I think we’ve all seen this scenario played out with people we know.

So, in order to find the right answer as to whether or not to marry, it is crucial to be completely honest with yourself and your partner. There is no inherently right or wrong choice. The “rightness” of the choice is defined by whether it feels right and meets the needs of both people involved, and that there is no intentional dishonesty or lack of self awareness involved. If children are not involved, and there will be no merging of financial resources, and no one is going to be making major deviations in their life course to accommodate the relationship, there is no “logistical” need for marriage. As a couple, you then need to decide how you feel about marriage vs. non-marriage on a psychological level. Some people simply feel a strong psychological need for marriage whether or not it makes rational sense. In this case it will probably work better to marry, and rely on your prenuptial agreement to delineate the ways you want the marriage to be different than a traditional one in regards to finances. Otherwise, as I outlined earlier, in the event of divorce, the government may step in and do some merging of resources that are extremely unfair and counter the previous agreements the couple made. In fact, I think writing a prenuptial agreement should be standard operating procedure for every couple getting married (see page 10 for a further discussion of prenuptial agreements.)

Lastly, I want to say that I think it is unclear at this point in human history how many marriages make sense in a lifetime. Movie stars have been marrying four and five times for at least a few decades. Us non- Hollywood folks probably won’t move to five marriages any time soon but two marriages is already pretty common. It can certainly be argued that, in this day and age, having three fifteen year marriages is no less valid an option as one fifty year or two twenty- five year marriages. Fifteen years is a long time in the life of modernday human beings.