We hope you enjoy this re-post from March 24, 2015. Be blessed! The Today’s Quote From God Team

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. – Genesis 2:24, KJV

More and more people – even many who call themselves Christians – buy into the notion that it is better to live together before getting married. This trend is growing, increasing in the United States by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century, according to The New York Times. Of course, the Bible is clear that such an arrangement is sinful. However, it is always interesting when researchers from the secular world stumble upon the truth that if you don’t do things God’s way, they just don’t work.

In her article The Top 10 Myths About Relationships… and the surprising ways each of them goes wrong, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. and professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, writes:

Myth # 4: It’s better to live together before getting married. We can dismiss this myth fairly readily. According to the “cohabitation effect (link is external),” couples who live together before getting engaged are more likely to have their marriages end in divorce. The key here is that they live together before they actually get engaged. Once engaged, couples living together prior to marriage do not experience negative effects on their marriage’s duration. The reason for the cohabitation effect makes sense. Couples who decide to marry after living together may do so out of simple inertia. When they moved in together, the people who experience the cohabitation effect didn’t have a particularly strong romantic attraction. Once living together, they may have found it convenient to enter into marriage. Having drifted into that state, they find it just as easy to drift out. They are also more likely to be unhappy during the time that they’re together (Rhoades, Stanley, and Markman, 2009). It’s important to realize that the cohabitation effect doesn’t occur among every couple who finds love once they start living together. It’s just that the odds favor people who make a commitment first, and then marry prior to deciding to share their living quarters.

In sum, the big difference between those who cohabit and then marry and those who marry before living together is this: a commitment to commitment.

Throughout the Bible, God teaches us that one of the fundamental character traits He desires is commitment. He wants us to commit to His way of thinking and acting. He wants us to commit to keeping our word to Him and to others. And, of course, He wants us to cleave to our life partner in the holy union of marriage. When people commit to commit – whether they acknowledge this as a command of God or not – they benefit from the blessings that come from doing things the way God ordained them to be done.

In our relationships with God and with man, we need to remember this: God never intended for us to simply do whatever feels good. He intended for us to choose loyalty and commitment, and if we do that, then our character, coupled with our dependence on God, will get us through the tough times that come with every relationship.