English Commentary

Name: Ng Rui Jun
Class/Index no.: 3P/18
English Commentary

The article that I would be touching on today is entitled: Living together before marriage ups chance of divorce. On first sight, one might find it ridiculous. Why is it that people who live together before marriages have a higher chance of divorcing? Should they not develop a closer bond and in the end, understand each other better? However, if one were to examine this phenomenon, it is discovered that such things do happen frequently, not just in Singapore, but even in the USA and other countries as well.

In a separate study, couples who did not cohabit before marrying had a 31% chance of divorce after 10 years, and that there is a 40% chance of such happening to couples who cohabited before marriage. This is actually not very surprising. I gathered the views of cousins and aunts who cohabited with their partners before marriage. Many cited reasons such as “getting to know each other better”, “better adjusting to a married life”, “to see if they are suitable” etc. As such, I realized that: Firstly these people stay together as they were insecure about their future, and secondly, they wanted to test their partners and see whether the opposite party would be their Mr. /Mrs. Right. There is a high degree of suspicion involved. They tend to be more demanding, more educated, and more insecure. They worry about their future, and whether such commitments benefit them in the future, near or otherwise. Such people tend to find faults in the smallest of things. Take my cousin, who recently divorced his wife. He was unhappy with his wife going out on frequent intervals to meet her friends, and not spending much time with him as compared to the period of time they cohabited before marriage. I will say that these people want their partners to spend 101% of their time with them and that they will grow suspicious if their partners deviate from their “original pattern”, and even claim that they were adulterous. Such people tend to have a lower sense of tolerance. As such, their marriage may be shaky when compared to others who did not cohabit before marriage.

Another point I would like to bring up is that of facades. When such couples live together in an attempt to test whether their marriage in the future will be successful, they tend to put on facades when around the other party. It is after all human nature to do so: In order to please a particular person, one will take upon the attributes of which the opposite party may desire. It is just like how some students can be devils at home and suddenly transform into sweet little angels when in the presence of teachers. This may apply to couples cohabiting before marriage. These couples may want to please each other and thus act all loving and mushy initially. But after marriage, their facades crumble and their true selves are revealed. After such, their partners might start to get dissatisfied with their behavior. Again I raise the example of my cousin. His wife was all sweet and cuddly to him before marriage, and changed completely afterwards. She used to say things like “I will follow you wherever you go” and stick true to her word. After marriage however, she started hanging out more with her friends, and even told my cousin that he could “survive without her presence”. I feel that it is through such facades do people actually lead themselves down to the road of divorce.

That is not to say however, that cohabiting before marriage is bad. To me, as long as both parties remain true to their hearts and be their usual selves, their marriage should be a sweet and blissful one. After all, is marriage not about accepting each other’s flaws and virtues?