Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Live With Your Significant Other Before Marriage

can you please elaborate on why you advise against cohabitation before marriage well so why would I advise against cohabitation before marriage well the simple answer to that question is there's plenty of evidence that it's a bad idea and and I just mean factual evidence to begin with although I think there are other reasons um people who live together and then get married are more likely to get divorced not less likely and that's a really interesting fact because it flies in the face of what you might think of as a kind of pragmatic common sense you know because you might think well you don't buy a car without taking it out for a test drive [Laughter] right and everyone laughs because that seems obvious but then you know woman's not a car [Laughter] and and neither is a man and really like seriously really not an object and so it isn't obvious at all that that metaphor applies even though it's at first shallow glance it's it seems obviously true well but if it's obviously true then you might say well why do people who live together why are people who live together before they get married more likely to get divorced and one possible answer to that is well people who are more likely to get divorced are the same people who are more likely to live together rather than to get married and that's possible it's very difficult to separate those two things so but in some sense it doesn't matter what the facts reveal is that if the goal is to learn what you need to learn so that you can decide who you should marry more effectively or learn how to act if you do get married more effectively and the goal is that your marriage will be better and last then it doesn't work and so and that's a strange truth and then you might ask yourself well why why doesn't it work it's also the case by the way that the more sexual partners the larger the number of sexual partners that someone has had before they get married the more likely they are to get divorced as well and that's also it's also the okay the case by the way and this is also interesting so I spent a lot of time studying criminal behavior in all sorts of different manifestations some of it on the political front with regard to the behavior of people who committed terrible atrocities in the service of political belief some of it on the like the frontier of of criminal sadism itself I spent a lot of time studying the behavior of of serial killers and and mass tortures and people like that but I also spend a lot of time as a research scientist looking at what psychiatrists and psychologists know as anti-social behavior and anti-social behavior is the pattern of behavior that characterizes criminals and it's it usually makes itself manifest pretty early in life perhaps as early as two years old by the way and it's once it's established it's extremely stable it's it's it isn't obvious at all that psychologists or psychiatrists have learned anything about how to remediate anti-social Behavior so criminal Behavior or its precursors in childhood once it's there that especially seems to be the case after about four years of age once it's there it's unbelievably stable and resilient to and resistant to change and it has a lot of different aspects anti-social Behavior but one of the markers for anti-social Behavior delinquency childhood conduct disorder early onset criminality is early sexual behavior and and multiple partners and so you know you can take that for what it's worth why is that the case you could speculate someone who's oriented in a criminal direction is more likely to take advantage of someone else for their own gratification I think that's the basic commonality I don't know that for sure because we don't know why these different symptoms of criminality let's say linked together apart from the fact that criminals are predators and the Really pathological criminals are predatory parasites and that's really what defines the psychopath by the way is a predatory a psychopath is a predatory parasite um the archetypal psychopath is a sadistic predatory parasite so the sadist takes Delight in the pain of others so positive pleasure in the pain of others the predator uses others to their own advantage and the parasite takes no responsibility for his or her own existence and manipulates or compels others to serve that goal and so that's kind of an ugly combination of traits and one of the core elements of that is early multiple partner promiscuity and so that's that's interesting and that also might explain why more pre-marriage sexual partners increases the probability of divorce is that it's a marker for the pattern of behavior that is characterized by the exploitation of others and is therefore more likely to be unsustainable over the medium to long run so that's interesting then you can think about it kind of think about it metaphysically I thought about this or philosophically I thought about what is it what are you telling someone when you live with them okay so I've talked to lots of people women who are cohabiting with men are generally not very happy about the fact that the relationship is not moving towards marriage now I think the reason there's a bunch of reasons for that women seem to suffer more emotionally as a consequence of sexual activity outside of a committed relationship you can imagine why that is women experience more negative emotion than men on average in general but also women pay a much higher sex is much riskier for women than it is for men obviously hopefully I don't have to explain why that is so and so women are often not for women who are cohabiting are often less than happy about that and the men who I've talked to about that with about their partners displeasure with the current unstable nature of the relationship often say something like well we don't need a piece of paper to indicate our commitment to each other which sounds all revolutionary and Shea Guevara but which is really a pretty pathetic bit of reasoning first of all for someone to say that means they think that what they just said convinces you that all marriage is is a piece of paper and that's that's a preposterously foolish argument I mean at minimum in the typical marriage ceremony you make a vow by whatever is Holy to you or at least in front of the state itself and then in front of your community as you define it that you're going to make a commitment to someone and if you think that's nothing then you're probably the sort of person that the person you asked to marry you should run away from so so that's pretty shallow and then you might ask well why do you need to commit to your partner in front of your community and a higher authority let's say and the answer is well life is really really difficult and you're going to have rough time with your partner no matter how much you love them because the two of you are different and you're different sexually and you're different temperamentally and so you're not going to see eye to eye all the time and then horribly difficult things are going to come your way and they're going to the complexity of those difficult things is going to tempt you to pull apart and exactly when pulling apart might be the worst possible thing for you and maybe you need that vowel before your community and God himself let's say or at least the state and The Vow that you've made to yourself and your partner and The Vow that you've made publicly to all your friends to keep you together when the going gets rough and you might say well you don't need that and I would say well that's just because the going hasn't got rough enough for you yet because when it does get that rough you'll bloody well know that you needed that that's for sure and that will definitely happen to you thank you that will definitely happen to you if you marry someone because all the things that life can throw at you will be thrown at you in the course of a marriage and so the vowel and the community commitment you don't just throw that away casually and you certainly don't say well that's just a piece of paper you know what do I need a piece of paper to validate my love it's like your love's Not Great is it you're really that much of a saint that this person they can just you say you love them and oh man they're just done they're in Bliss they're in Paradise for the rest of their life they can just rely you're never going to waver now that you expressed your love you're just going to be there 100 of the time you don't need anyone else to help you you don't need a vow you don't need any tradition so your love is so pure and holy that that other person they just rely on you from that second onward no hesitation it's like yeah right that's just complete bloody rubbish you can't even rely on yourself in relationship to yourself for that so [Applause] okay so next what are you telling your partner well as far as I can tell if you live with someone here's what you're saying to each other you're the best I can manage at the moment and maybe the same applies to me for you and uh we both really don't want to take on any more responsibility than necessary Plus we both want to have the option of trading up if it opportunity comes along and so why don't we just make do with this provisional arrangement well we cast our eye out into the broader world and see if we can fish something better in and you know you can say I'm cynical about that but I don't think I'm cynical about that I because living together means something like well we're not permanently committed and not permanently committed means well we're impermanently committed and impermanently committed means we're looking for a better commitment or or perhaps to be alone but forget that because that's usually not true well what kind of basis is that to have a relationship with someone how are you going to found a relationship on that especially an intimate relationship how is that going to work it's like you'll do for now I I don't think that's a very solid foundation to to move forward to to allow you to move forward and then it's indeterminate too is well if you're just living together do you have kids because that's a commitment that's for sure and that's a real commitment or it better be and it's going to be inevitably anyways and so if there's ambiguity about your commitment to each other there's going to be ambiguity about your plans for children and that's a huge ambiguity in most relationships so that's not helpful that just means neither of you know what the hell you're doing and that provokes anxiety and uncertainty and it and it it decreases hope because hope is experienced in relationship to a goal and if the goal is ambiguous maybe we'll have kids and maybe we'll not well then there's no real hope there and so that seems to be a pretty decent Pathway to misery so and then the next issue is and this is the final one that I'll discuss is you're not married if you're living together and so you might say well you're practicing being married it's like no you're not why because it's not something you can simulate so one of the things I learned from Reading Carl Jung Jung thought about marriage as a container as an outcome as a container for alchemical transformation as a container that would produce a heat so intense that the base metal of your psychic could be transformed into something ideal but it had to be a container that could take could take heat because it requires heat to transform and you might say well how much heat does someone as base as you need to transform and the answer might be a lot of heat I need a lot of heat and pressure before I'm going to change before I'm going to become purified in any real sense and so what's the heat and pressure here's what it is you don't get to run away you're stuck with that person and they're stuck with you and you made a vow it's like oh I'm stuck with you just like I'm stuck with me and and and and The Vow is exactly that right in some real sense The Vow is I'm going to treat you like you're me and you don't even like yourself very much so that's a vicious vow and so you might say well how desperate do you have to be when confronted by someone else to change your ways and the answer might be well you have to be as desperate as being Shackled to someone makes you you know one of the reasons that Tammy and I have gone along and are still together is because we both know that we're stuck with each other and so and so we decided quite a long time ago that we didn't want to have the same stupid fight every day for the next 40 years and so and that's like the definition of a bad marriage it's like we're having the same fight every day for 40 years that's hell and so the alternative is now let's just have a bloody fight Right Here and Now and see if we can sort out whatever the hell is so stupid about us that's keeping us in this dismal hell and why well because otherwise we're just stuck with this misery and if you can walk away and if you can leave which you can if you're not bound together then you're not gonna withstand the horrible process of heat and pressure that's required to make you transform you'll just walk around that you'll just look for an excuse I mean people look for an excuse not to do that anyways and so part of the reason you get married is so you're desperate enough to change and and maybe that doesn't even work [Applause] so those are the reasons you those are the reasons that no there's there's one more there's one more this is the next thing it's it's a necessary Act of Faith and you know in our culture because we're not very wise we think that faith means especially when it's parodied as religious faith we think faith means the willingness to suspend disbelief while swallowing a proposition that any fool would reject that's often how the rationalist atheists view religious claims faith means the suspension of your rationality and the acceptance of an an absurd claim but that isn't what faith means not really faith is what makes movement into the unknown possible and you need to move into the unknown because that's where you're moving and because the unknown is unknown because the future is unknown you cannot step forward into the unknown without faith it wouldn't be unknown if you knew it if you knew it it wouldn't require Faith but you don't know it and so you step forward into the unknown future as a consequence of your faith in some principles and if you love someone if you fall in love with someone and you decide to marry them you don't have the evidence at hand that that's the right person for you what you have instead is the joint decision that come hell or high water you're going to struggle forward together and then you don't even know if that's the right decision because you're not going to know until you're till you've been married like your whole life you're not going to have the data and so you do have to throw yourself into the abyss to be married just like you have to throw yourself into the abyss to be alive you have to move forward in faith and then you might say well how do you call the best out of yourself and out of your partner that maybe a partner that you're fortunate enough to love and the answer might be by offering them the gift of faith and by saying look you know flawed as we both are if we commit to each other we have the possibility of becoming more than we are and I'd like to do that with you even though there's no evidence that it's going to work and but then you might think too the more deeply you're committed to that faith the more likely it is to work and you can't find out what that commitment is without the commitment and so you can't simulate it by living together because it's not real it's not real until you make the commitment and so and then I would also say well what if you don't make the commitment well then you're not committed and and you might say well why should I be committed well what's the alternative it's to be uncommitted well are you free then or are you just aimless and hopeless and Confused and you admire people who are committed to something you sort of wish yourself when when you're feeling aimless and you feel that your life is meaningless you might think well I really wish I was committed to something wouldn't it be nice to be committed to something it's like well commit to something then and you say well I don't have the evidence it's like you don't commit because of the evidence you commit because of faith and there's foolish Faith you know there's naive faith and there's Blind Faith and I'm not talking about any of that I'm talking about stake in your life on something that might work if you just if if God was willing if the Fate smiled on you and you put your whole soul into it and that's what you do when you vow to stay faithful to someone and you can't simulate that it says it doesn't work so there's like five reasons why it doesn't work and me I don't know if you find those reasons compelling or not but I've thought about them a lot and I you know maybe there's a part of me that wishes that isn't how life was and that you could just have a casual relationship with someone and then trade them in on someone better if they happen to come along but I just don't believe that's that's delusional to believe that at best and it's like machiavelle and Machiavellian Psychopathic and narcissistic and criminal at worse and so [Applause]

Channel: Jordan B Peterson Clips

Views: 1,830,253

Keywords: psychology, philosophy, Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan Peterson, JB Peterson, jordanbpeterson, jordanpeterson, personality, understandmyself, selfauthoring, neuropsychology, jordan peterson clips, jp peterson clips, jp clips, jordan peterson podcast clips, jordan peterson live, jordan peterson livestream, jordan peterson shorts, jordan peterson tiktoks, jordan peterson motivational clips

Id: J4_d7nENMFM

Length: 23min 16sec (1396 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023