Couples Counseling and Cohabitating
Couples counseling is often used as a phrase to replace the term marriage counseling because not every couple is married. The truth is not every committed couple can legally be married, and not every committed couple chooses to ever marry.
Cohabitation is essentially a couple who lives together, with the intent of living together permanently but with no plans to ever be married because they choose to not to get married. Unlike couples who cannot legally marry, those who choose to integrate their lives fully without taking the legally committing step often face issues of inertia at a later time in their relationship.
Couples Counseling for Continual Cohabitation
Many counselors agree that cohabitation long term without final commitment can cause issues of trust and commitment in couples. When a couple lives together they inevitably integrate their finances, friends, work schedules, families and intimate and social lives. There is so much keeping the couple together that simply “walking away” isn’t so simple. Neither person in the couple can walk away without having to reorganize and reestablish their lives. This is a sort of commitment and involves trust and support.
For many of those couples who have decided to permanently cohabitate without ever seeking marriage there is the absence of that last step of commitment. Most of the time, even though both parties profess commitment to this course of action, there comes a time when one person forces the issue and asks that a committal decision be made.
Permanent acceptance of cohabitation is possible and does happen, however, for many who seek couples counseling, a firm long term commitment is eventually a goal.
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