What Happens Before, Impacts Marriage, Part 2

This is family policy matter program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council family research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family video. Here's John Rushton, president of the North Carolina family policy Council during its family policy matter is our pleasure to have Dr. Scott family back on the program with us this week. Dr. Stanley is a research professor and codirector of the Center for marital and family studies at the University of Denver is also senior fellow for the National marriage Project at the University of Virginia and for the Institute for family studies be continuing the discussion that we began last week with Dr. Stanley about a new report from the National marriage Project, which he co-authored, entitled filler. I do do premarital experiences have to do with marital quality among today's young adults. Last week we talked about a few of the key findings from the report, including the growing percentage of young couples today who are cohabiting and having children before marriage. Rather than getting married first. We also talked about how premarital relationships and sexual activity can impact marital quality. This week we are going to be picking back up with that discussion. Stanley welcome back to family policy matters. It's great to have you with us again, thank you very much, but understand some of the key findings in the report regarding previous sexual relationships and the impact of those relationships on the quality of someone's marriage here, let me talk about a few of those findings, and also I should say that these findings are actually consistent with other findings in the literature and other kinds of methods. So even though some people, bristle about some of these findings are not new ideas.

Although we have sort of some really good methods for looking at them. One finding is that people tend to report higher quality marriage attended the more satisfied you feel comfortable communicating trust, etc. if they only ever had had sex with the person that they married, as opposed to with a number partners and then beyond that, the more sexual partners somebody has had historically in their life and and we, the typical person reported having five before marriage, and in addition to the person that they married. If they had sex with that person that the more sexual partners people had that that the more likely they would report lower marital quality. Similarly, and is a lot of literature on this now ever cohabited with somebody whether or not the kind that would better meet the person I married, if it ever cohabited with somebody else. They were also more likely to report somewhat lower marital quality, and then the course. Had a child by a prior partner that a course is a risk factor for how their marriage is going to do once they settle down somebody also looked at something called sliding versus deciding which I believe is a term that you all coined in this report.

Explain what you mean by sliding versus deciding, and in what ways does this impact marital quality. I coined that phrase looking at the road and I really getting more deeply into research on cohabitation and testing a theory that we have because back a ways. Now that part of what people don't see that's risky about cohabiting before marriage is that going to make it harder to break up and so that led to many studies now that really confirm a lot of what we believed, which is that a lot of people end up doing is they actually make it harder to break up before they made a clear choice because living together makes it harder breakup than just dating.

All of the things being equal, one of the things that we think compounds that is that some some other researchers had also the founder concluded over the years that a lot of people sliding the cohabiting in the first place of even given the other risks that I just mentioned about to make it harder to break up and people not seeing that people are actually fairly sort of not even noticing that there you moving in together and others more and more stuff over one place, person, get the drawer may be part of a closet and maybe one day somebody releases for roommates kick them out and all of a sudden the couples living together without making a real decision about it. That led to this idea and commitment always a decision so if you think about the contrast between sliding and cohabiting versus making a decision about really committing to somebody for the future. Like in marriage is a big contrast there and and now what we do is we apply that thinking all these kinds of relationship transitions that people go through now without many people without thinking much about them in terms of sex living together even having a child to getting her many many children are unplanned and we think that phrase now is, it is a catchall for a lot of what's been transformed now in the sort of dating meeting life of the American people are often fighting to transitions that are consequential and that they should be making decisions about thinking clearly about versus just letting happen will tell you one thing I enjoyed about the report and interesting findings from the study that is called the big fat Greek wedding factor explain for us what this is all about and I think it's where it relates to how the choices the couples make about their actual wedding will tend impact marital quality.

Later on, or at least give a a snapshot as to what that may look like very very good so this is the newest kind of finding about in the finding. There's two of them. One of the people that had a wedding formal wedding versus not numbingly formal, formal, and nearly actually say they had a wedding versus just got married some other way like tend to be reporting higher quality and the people that have more guests at their wedding tend to report or have an edge in reporting higher marital quality. Now some of that again is going to be selection and some of it will also be other things that we didn't measure so that we can't really account for like purple parental wealth. We do control for the income of the individuals education raise female in religiosity.

We'll recover a lot of that we can control for a lot of dimensions like that, but the things that we realize that we didn't measure alternative explanations and then I get to the ones we think are really interesting to think about positive consequential and you could beat it. People maybe aren't feeling assured about the relationship. Maybe they have a child before marriage and they feel less good about soda putting their marriage on display. So all that stuff going to be in the next.

We also looked at some of those things and we don't think that can explain everything.

The most interesting idea is that there is a strong set of findings and theory in our field of psychology that shows that when people make clear decisions and publicly declare their intentions, they're more likely to follow through on what they've committed to and in fact one theorist really predicted long ago. Based on these kind of literatures that people should do better in marriage, even if if they have more gas because there's more witnesses there there actually declaring their commitment and their vows in front of more people, which will produce a stronger sense that they need to follow through.

Now that also is going to reflect the fact that some couples just have more resources to better social network.

To begin with, so they have more people that could invite to the wedding and we really don't want to play up the idea people spending a lot of money on the other hand, is a tradition throughout the history of humanity that if you're starting on an important turning an important commitment that you very often mark that last ceremony with witnesses where you really making a public statement about what you're about to do and the degree to which you plan to follow through and weddings very much conform to that that pattern so we think at times people could strengthen their follow-through in their marriage by really making that public declaration stronger and clearer and in front of witnesses so that it strengthens their and pension to follow through. Later, as we conclude our discussion the work port discusses near the end an interesting question that I'm sure after that our discussion today is on the minds of a number of our listeners and that is can I change my odds. In other words, if an individual has engaged in some of these activities are risky behaviors prior to marriage that we discussed.

Can they really improve their opportunities for a fulfilling and successful marriage relationship. Absolutely. In fact, one of the ways I like to say this to people now is nothing here means you're doomed and in terms of specific advice. You know a lot of people can recover very well in terms of your favorite increase the risk in different ways and in one of the ways people can start to improve their odds. If they feel like their life so far has been lowering is to adopt a deciding mindset moving forward. So to really think clearly about this idea or or embrace this notion that I'm not cannot let things just happen to me any longer in my relationship could be that turmeric now under 10 years in the marriage same idea. Maybe I've maybe a person feel like they've been sliding all the way up to that point a person can start to decide now to be intentional to make a better choices in their relationship, how they act on their commitment if it's before marriage or before even finding a partner thinking about marrying that could be being more careful about who they are with how there with what are their values deciding more. Instead of letting things slide another way people can improve their odds and if they are seriously involved in been married, or they thinking about really committing to somebody in marriage. If there are some experiences that have affected them.

They feel like that of you know might affect them in marriage.

Find a way to talk about that together and I don't mean by that.

You sort of like sharing every detail of history and all the gory details and things like that. But, for example, if one feels like they really were hurt in the past by some way in which another had displayed a lack of faithfulness and broken trust or anything like that.

They feel like it affected them that could be really valuable to talk with. If there's emotional safety with the prospective mate and really figure out how can we manage this together and really take good care of each other together in a commitment in marriage and then lastly we're big believers, but people can always get help that could be counseling that could be getting just wisdom from somebody around that they figure that person seems to know what they're doing and that could also be dealt relationship education taken a workshop reading a book together.

You mentioned my book the Latin promise got a lot of great ideas and it can do any number of that try to strengthen the relationship where there know that and overcome risk factors. They may have led to great encouragement and I'm sure that applies to not only young couples but even older couples that have been married for a number of years there. There certainly is hope and I just appreciate very much of those words of encouragement and we would encourage our listeners to look into those in one of those things I like a great place to start is availing themselves of this new report before I do report Dr. Stanley work in our listeners go to learn more about the report in and get a copy of. If they go to the National marriage Project.org all one word National marriage Project.org or just Google National marriage Project delegate to the main page for the National marriage Project.

And then this is the current first thing that they would see that they could click on this new report, but a person could also go there and and look at any number of reports over the last couple of decades.

I think there they're all there is a lot of interesting reports over the years in different dimensions of relationships, but this one will be front and center when they land there and they could find it and read it and we did write it for the average person to just be able to read it and get what they could from so hopefully will benefit some people will thank you so much for sharing.

Not only repeat our website is www.nationalmarriageproject.org again. National marriage Project.org Dr. Scott Stanley.

It is been a real pleasure speaking with you today.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be with us on family policy matters and for sharing your insights about relationships and marriage. We are really appreciative. Thank you. I really appreciate being on a search on thank you. Before we close our like to invite you to follow the North Carolina family policy Council on Facebook. Just login and find us@ncfamily.org again@ncfamily.org. Be sure to like us when you visit. In addition, for instant updates on profamily news of interest. Follow us on twitter@mcfamily.org again that's at NC family.org. I would also like to recommend an excellent resource to help our listeners stay on top of some of the major public policy and cultural issues facing families in North Carolina today. The North Carolina family policy Council's quarterly magazine family North Carolina magazine is filled with engaging articles on some of the key public policy and cultural issues facing families in our state today.

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