They refer to themselves by different names: partners, lovers, significant others. But they share a common condition: they are unmarried couples who live together. There are currently 5 million heterosexual couples cohabiting in the U.S., a 200% increase since 1980. TIME spoke with Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller, authors of Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple (Marlowe).
Why has there been such an increase in the number of couples living together?
SOLOT: Most people today live together as a stage between dating and marriage. They want to be very certain that this...