The Average Couple Is In A Long Relationship Before They Get Married | HuffPost

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It might be a while before you know they're ~The One~

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Senior Lifestyle Editor, HuffPost Canada

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Now more than ever, couples just aren't in a hurry to get hitched.

According to a new survey conducted by Bridebook.co.uk, not only are people waiting longer to get married, but they're spending more time in their relationships before they say "I do," meaning couples know each other very well if and when they walk down the aisle.

The wedding website's team analyzed information from 4,000 recently married heterosexual couples and found the average couple spends 4.9 years in a relationship and 3.5 years living together before they get married. In fact, 89 per cent of couples surveyed lived together before they tie the knot.

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The survey also found that modern couples are getting married quite a bit later than the last generation — brides and grooms are on average eight years older than they were in the 1970s.

These days, if the study is to be believed, we don't feel as strongly as our parents about marriage, with 83 per cent of respondents saying they don't feel pressure to get hitched. We also have more relationships before we get married, with individuals saying they've had at least two serious prior relationships.

Common-law arrangements are growing even faster than married couples.

According to Statistics Canada, common-law arrangements are growing even faster than married couples. Between 2006 and 2011, the number of common-law couples rose 13.9 per cent, more than four times the 3.1 per cent increase for married couples.

For the most part, people (91 per cent) said they tied the knot to show their commitment, while others (2 per cent) cited social pressure, financial reasons (2 per cent), or out of convenience (2 per cent), showing that for this generation (at least, in the U.K.), love is the strongest reason why people get married.

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But whether you've been together for one year or five, there are still important discussions couples should have before they put a ring on it.

According to advice columnist Wendy Atterberry, couples should talk about the following before saying 'I do':

Outstanding debt
Whether you want or don't want children
Where you want to live
Religion
Sex
Bank accounts and bill-sharing
Division of household labour

"Do you want to sleep with just one person for the rest of your life? Can you and still be happy and satisfied?" she asks. "If not, you need to discuss either the possibility of an open marriage, strategies for keeping the spark alive, or waiting on marriage until the idea of monogamy isn't a death sentence for you."

Marriage doesn't make you any happier than living together, which may be why some couples choose to wait longer before they get engaged.

And according to one study, marriage doesn't make you any happier than living together, which may be why some couples choose to wait longer before they get engaged. However, the older you are when you start cohabitating, the more likely you are to stay together.

More on HuffPost:

8 Habits That Can Sink A Marriage

You’re Going Separate Ways (Literally)(01 of08)

Your husband works a half hour north, and you travel a half hour south. Your home is precisely midway. Fair, right? Yep, but maritally inauspicious -- that’s what Irene Huang and her colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found when they studied American couples that commute every day.If, like many couples in the study, you and your partner commute in opposite directions, your marriage may be unhappier than you’d be if you were going in the same direction every day -- even if you don’t leave for work together. What happens in your subconscious, Huang and her colleagues wrote in the study, is that the commute takes on more general goal-related associations. Travel in the same direction, and you feel as if you’re sharing the same goals in life; travel in different directions, and you feel like you’re not. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Eat Burgers At The Wrong Time(02 of08)

We all know that creamy-buttery-lardy-cheesy stuff is bad for heart health. But Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ronald Glaser, researchers at Ohio State University, think that high-saturated-fat foods may also hurt your relationship. In an ongoing study, they’re asking married couples to eat meals in the lab -- one of the greasy-burger variety; the other, veggie-heavy. Once finished, the couples are encouraged to discuss vein-popping topics: money, in-laws, housework, and how to raise the kids. Based on their previous research, the researchers have a hunch that the participants’ blood samples will show that fatty foods enhance the body’s stress response to marital spats. Eat unhealthily and your argument may spiral out of control more easily -- and you may run a higher risk of cardiac disease, inflammation, and diabetes over time. Any way you look at a fatty diet, it’s bad for your heart. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Were Never The Smiley Type(03 of08)

You knew those stiff-faced yearbook photos would come back to haunt you one day. But this finding’s unexpected: Women with “low intensity” smiles in their childhood and college photos are five times likelier to get divorced as adults than those who smiled effusively, found a 2009 study at DePauw University. A bright, wide smile represents an underlying positive disposition and worldview -- undoubtedly helpful in marriage. Lifelong smilers may be the type to seek and sustain lasting relationships, and because smiling is contagious, their partners may be happier too. The good news about smiling: If you want, you can “fake it ‘til you make it.” As we know from the facial feedback theory of emotion, smiling deliberately can make you feel happier, because facial expressions influence emotions. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Don't Have The Marriage-Protector Mechanism(04 of08)

Okay, you’d be lying if you said you don’t notice an attractive man when he smiles at you. We all do. And it’s perfectly fine for your married (or boyfriend-ed) self to admit it. But a funny thing happens when you’re truly, deeply committed: you’ll think that guy is less hot once it's clear he's an admirer. In a study led by John Lydon at McGill University, women (and men) who are deeply committed to their partners found an opposite-sex face significantly less alluring when told that the person had singled them out as a potential match. It’s a protective mechanism; they might not even be aware of it. Meanwhile, women who aren’t very committed to their partners are just as attracted to a handsome guy when he comes out as a potential suitor. So if you’re in the habit of finding Don Juans equally (or more) gorgeous when they do something flirty, there is an upside: Now you've identified your own early-warning mechanism and can work on building a deeper commitment with your partner. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Pop A Monthly Rent Check In The Mail(05 of08)

The housing market crashes, and so does your marriage -- but often only if you rent your home. If you own it, you’re likelier to stick it out. This surprising connection between home ownership and the divorce rate comes from a group of economists led by Purvi Sevak at Hunter College (CUNY). Why would it be so? In a housing downturn, owners tend to stay in their marriages because it’s harder to sell their property and they don’t want to lose money. They wait for the market to recover, and -- as time passes -- often reconcile. For better or for worse, your decision not to own joint property removes the wait-and-see lock-in -- making it easier to walk out the door. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Buy His-and-Hers Hermes(06 of08)

You thought you found your soulmate when you met a man who knows Louboutins from Manolo Blahniks. And he was smitten when you noticed that his tie was from the new line at Armani. By all expectations, this would be a marriage made in... well, if not heaven, at least Italy. But researchers at Brigham Young University know better. In a recent study, they found that couples who admit to loving money and “stuff” score 10 percent to 15 percent lower on marriage stability than couples who say money isn’t important to them. They bicker more about finances -- even if they’re financially well off -- and are less responsive to each other. A marriage between two materialists fares worse, in fact, than one with only a single spouse who's a shopaholic. (credit:Thinkstock)

You Lunch With The Wrong Folks(07 of08)

Your boss did it. Lisa in accounting did it. Your best friend, Lynn, did it. Even your upstairs neighbor did it (and noisily). Everyone’s doing it: getting divorced. Not you, you say. But you’re in a high-risk group, judging by the “divorce cluster” data from a study led by Rose McDermott at Brown University. The people in your social network -- everyone you rub shoulders with habitually -- influence your attitude about relationships. People with divorced friends are 147 percent more likely to become divorced. Statistically speaking, the more your friends, co-workers, siblings, and acquaintances have done it, the more likely it is that you might one day say to your husband, "Let’s do it. Let’s get divorced, too." (credit:Thinkstock)

You Light Up Alone(08 of08)

He kicked the cigarette habit, but you can’t. It’s a vicious cycle: You smoke, he complains, you fight, you stress, and then you need to smoke again. (Although correlation isn’t causation; there are other risk factors too.) A group at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Australia found that smoking is not a very high-risk factor in a marriage if both spouses are smokers. But divorce rates increase significantly -- by 76 to 95 percent -- when only one spouse (especially the wife) has the habit. Quitting saves your (love) life. (credit:Thinkstock)

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