Wise Readers:
Scientifically speaking, here’s what most women think at move-in: “I wonder when we’re getting married.” And many men think: “I wonder what’s on TV.”
It reminds me of a party I attended years ago, where Jack—successful, in love, and usually quite smart—openly denounced matrimony: “They got married?! How dumb. If it’s working, stay, and if not, leave.” The woman on his arm—Wynne, a luscious catch by any standard—seemed neither surprised nor amused. Nor engaged, after years of cohabiting.
Why are men more reluctant to commit—and how does living together make them even less so? It’s not because men are bad or marriage is a raw deal. In fact, after decades of academic wrangling, it’s now abundantly clear from the work of Dr. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead , Dr. David Popenoe, and others that heterosexual men benefit from marriage as much as women do, and they like being wed; almost 95% say they are happier married than they were single . They are also a wealthier and healthier group than the single, divorced or cohabiting, and far less likely to quite literally die of loneliness. And formerly married men usually remarry quickly, rather than electing to cohabit or go it alone.
But most men don’t start out, either in life or in courtship, being nearly as commitment-focused as women; just watch little boys playing guns, not grooms. Or note men’s preference for visually-based hunt-‘em-down sites like Match.com
—whereas women gravitate towards marriage-minded eHarmony. Scientists such as Dr. David M. Buss and Dr. Donald Symons cite biology: With an endless procreative timeline, a drive to entice young, fertile partners and an enviable capacity to make a baby in less time than it took to craft this sentence, commitment needn’t press, and playing the field can have a large procreative pay-off. But Time is not a woman’s friend in any of these cases, so we’d expect women to be much more commitment-focused from childhood on. And we’d be right.
Social factors –what you and I call Sex—also influence commitment. In a recent national Rutgers survey, men’s #1 reason fueling non-commitment was easy sexual access sans Ring. And living together before engagement further erodes male commitment by meeting men’s inherited needs for the Three F’s—Fertility, Fidelity and The Other F.
Yes, cohabiting can feel like the ultimate Fun Zone for men, who gain really frequent sex in an atmosphere of Keeping Their Options Open. But women’s mating psychology evolved in an atmosphere of extremely risky pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and baby-schlepping. Without a solid commitment backed by family, society and maybe Daddy’s club (wooden, not country), leaving it to the guy’s whim to bring home the wild boar just didn’t cut it. So, women distrusted cohabiting—and scientifically speaking, still should. Even Here And Now, survival and success of women and children is strongly linked to the presence of a Committed Provider And Protector.
The irony is this: Women like Wynne and Tina (recent column) are choosing cohabitation now more than at any point in prior Western history—usually hoping for permanence and security while doing the very thing that undermines the likelihood of getting it.
Women, be warned: Science shows that most men are inherently more reluctant to commit, and moving in before setting the wedding date hurts your chances of ever having him Put A Ring On It. But there’s still something you can do, and our Wise Readers from the Tina/Pete Shack-up scenario knew what. Wrote one man: “Pete has reservations now and will continue having them once he shacks up….She needs to give him space.” Women were more blunt: “She should move away. To another state, if possible.” A bit harsh, perhaps—but accurate.
If Tina wants full commitment, She Should Leave and begin dating others now. Because distance and insecurity are highly clarifying and motivating. As a former column on barriers showed, things that threaten the connection between a dating couple end fence-sitting and produce decisions…especially for men. Barriers can take many forms, from parental disapproval and long-distance dating and life-threatening illness, to a woman’s refusal to move in, to her insistence on a move-out, to her outright break-up, to her new relationship with someone else. Nothing can force one person to love another, but for men, absence *they did not choose* makes it very clear, very fast whether their attachment is for naught, for now or forever. And women are better off having the answer, no matter what that answer is, than reducing their options by wasting time.
Which brings us back to Jack and Wynne. Wynne abetted Jack’s commitment aversion by giving him what he wanted before she got what she needed, and I longed to counsel her: “Get out of his life faster than he can say Commitmentphobe. No explanations. Just. Leave. Oh, and be dating by Tuesday.” Imagine my shock and his when, less than a week later, she did just that. Three weeks following—after wearing out his knees, his tear ducts and his MasterCard—Jack convinced Wynne to accept his proposal. He planned the wedding down to the last detail, and worships the ground she treads to this day—a decade hence.
Single Ladies, take note: You cannot court a man into committing, and you should not force a man into committing; but you can refuse to move in, or leave and let him figure it out for himself. Although I strongly advise against rubbing men’s faces in it ala Beyonce’s vampy “If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,” Ms. Knowles’ strength, self-respect and distance are a lot closer to What Works than Tina’s plans to sway her honey with daily close-range pampering. The trial on cohabiting is over, and it’s guilty of maiming wholehearted, enthusiastic, full commitment. Try separation instead.
Cheers,
Duana
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All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., 2009