One of the biggest myths of our time is that living together leads to successful dating and marriage relationships. Nothing can be further from the truth. When you're dating women, it can be tempting to test it out and see if it will work. However, there are some very solid reasons that you shouldn't.

Couples Who Live Together Don't Usually Marry

Out of every 100 couples that live together with the intention of getting married, only half of them do. Some of them break up before they even get a chance to get married, and others decide to not get married and just live together. When you're dating women, this in and of itself can lead to problems. Most women want to eventually get married. Not all of them, but most. If you're dating women, it can make sense to live with the woman you want to marry:

• See if you're really compatible

• See how it feels to live with the person you love

• See if you can solve problems

• See if you like one another when you're with one another every day.

Couples Who Live Together Are More Likely to Divorce

When the divorce rate in our society, in all circles is already so high, it seems ridiculous that anything can make it higher, but it can. When you're dating women you live with and then marry them, there's a 75 percent higher chance that you'll divorce than couples who get married without first living together.

It sounds crazy, but there are lots of reasons for it. When you're dating women, you typically are learning how to interact with one another and solve problems. You're trying to figure out how to make one another happy and keep one another satisfied. Throw living together into the mix and you have a whole new set of problems:

• You develop patterns of fighting that don't lead to a healthy relationship and are hard to kick later.

• You don't have a commitment that is worth fighting for, so you don't.

• You complain to the people you live with because they're comfortable. When that's the person you're dating, it causes friction in your relationship because you don't have anywhere else to go.

So, of the original 100 couples, 50 are left. Of those, after they get married, only 12 are. The other 38 couples typically divorce within the first 5 years of marriage.

What Changes The Numbers?

There are some factors that change those numbers. For instance, if you're dating women who are okay with living with you for at least three years before getting married, then the likelihood of your marriage lasting jumps back up to 50 percent.

When you're dating women and living together, it does nothing to benefit your relationship. You might say that if you can't last it for a few months, you'll never make it. But that's not necessarily true. Marriage is a commitment, while living together is just a test. And it's not the kind of test most couples pass. To make matters worse, when you're dating women and living with them, the arguments and the problems don't only lead to future problems for that relationship, but others, as well.