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There are a myriad of reasons couples cohabitate, but the biggest one is very basic, raw, and understandable: fear. The media, the economy, our culture, ads that push perfection, and the lack of good role models OF marriage, help create and sustain that fear. Here are a few issues that stir couples up enough to resist marriage, heels dragging the whole way:

MARRIAGE:

Marriage itself brings all sorts of negative images to mind for such couples; there's the fear that it can't be done successfully; that it revolves around "that little piece of paper" [I hate that phrase], and perhaps even the knowledge that there is no marriage manual to follow. Maybe if there WAS one, they might consider marriage. It would at least tell them where they are going wrong. What they don't realize is that no one "manual" would work for everyone. Because each couple is unique, every situation would be different.

COMMITMENT:
Now THERE'S a word that's scary. If you are only living together there IS no commitment, just the desire to have your cake and eat it too. Couples again eschew that "little piece of paper". It's a trap, a trick, society trying to push them down a deep well. But commitment exists outside of the institution of marriage as well as in it; the difference being that married commitment means you put the welfare of your spouse ahead of your own through love. In cohabitation, there doesn't have to BE love. It's an added perk, but cohabitation is more like sharing rent between roommates.

GIVING UP ONE'S INDEPENDENCE
My single friends tell me how lucky I am to be married, that my husband and I go together so well, that they never see us fight, etc. But in the next breath they say how they could never BE married: it would take away their independence. They LOVE being single, going anywhere they want at a moment's notice, no family responsibilities, that they can eat whatever they want WHENEVER they want. The longer I stand there and listen, the more excuses [oh, sorry: REASONS] they come up with.

These are the same women who complain about the dating scene, and how much they hate it. Guys who MAY be dating them mention to me that all women are crazy. Basically, both genders say the same things to me. I seem to be the modern day guru they come to, to get things off their chests. I don't really mind. In a way, I even understand their fears. But the fact is, independence is just the word they toss around to explain to themselves WHY they feel they are dangling over a cliff from a thin

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