Sliding into Marriage?

Some interesting thoughts on cohabitation from a new secular book called  Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?” (Hudson Street) by mother and daughter Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig:

"You spend enough nights together that, actually, now that you think about it, doesn’t it seem silly that you’re paying two rents and constantly leaving the shoes you need at the wrong apartment? . . . Living together has its hardships, but it’s also sort of fun, like playing house. You experiment with cooking braised short-ribs and bicker about throw pillows, just the way you always imagined you would one day. The things that concern you about the relationship are still there, but however hard it would have been to break up before, now there’s the shared couch to consider, and the fact that you could never afford such a big living room on your own. (And yes, this “you” here applies to “me,” the veteran of two live-in relationships that ended in breakups and couch custody battles.) Pretty soon you start to look like a married couple anyway, so maybe it makes sense just to make it official. Suddenly you have a wedding website and you’ve posted a poll asking if the honeymoon should be in Europe or Jamaica, without ever fully facing the very real question of whether you actually want to spend the rest of your life with this person".