Cohabitation-Divorce Link? I Don’t Think So

linical psychologist Meg Jay penned an editorial published in Saturday’s New York Times entitled “The Downside of Cohabitation Before Marriage,” in which she writes that cohabiting largely leads to future unhappiness, including divorce.

“Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not,” Jay writes. “These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.”

Jay supports her point with anecdotes from her therapy practice. One of her clients, “Jennifer,” is going through a divorce less than a year after she tied the knot, despite living with her boyfriend for four years before they got married. Jennifer told Jay that moving in with her boyfriend “just happened” without any real conversation, and admitted that “she never really felt that her boyfriend was committed to her.”

Aside from the fact that the “cohabitation effect” Jay sites has been debunked by recent research (whichSlate’s Hanna Rosine pointed out), I take issue more with her use of anecdotal evidence. Because she’s a psychologist, Jay’s client’s are likely coming to her because they already have a problem — therefore skewing the argument that Jay lays out against cohabitation in her op ed.

Read More: The Huffington Post