Contrary to expectations, although more than four out of five couples in Britain choose to live together before getting married, marriage remains the most likely eventual long-term choice made by cohabiting couples.
Around three in five couples who stop cohabiting decide to get married, while less than two in five separate, so marriage is still the preferred relationship choice of the vast majority of adults. However, cohabitation is typically a short-lived and fragile state on its own terms, and those couples who cohabit prior to marriage are at a greatly increased risk of divorce.
How long does it last?
A fresh analysis of national data by a leading Christian social reform charity, the Jubilee Centre, shows that cohabitations are rarely a long-term lifestyle choice and the vast majority last only a short time before being converted into marriage or else dissolving. The average unmarried couple now lives together for three years and almost a half stop cohabiting before two years. Less than a quarter of first cohabitations last five years and just one in 19 of all cohabiting couples (5.3%) has been together for ten years or more.
