Last weekend, my husband and I were sitting on the couch getting ready to watch a video on YouTube. The ad previewing the video shocked us:
“How to move in together.”
What! Being strong believers and newly married, we immediately booed the screen. We’ve seen the “moving in together” trend tear our generation apart. But it only got worse.
“How to move in together … but just for the weekend. On Airbnb. Book a place by the lake to test the waters … book a couple’s massage and see how well you both handle pressure …”
The ad went on to sell short-term rentals as an even less-committal test run for a relationship. Let me be clear: this is not God’s design for relationships, and it only deepens a societal ill plaguing our communities.
Last December, the U.S. Census Bureau shared that fewer than half of U.S. households in 2025 were married couples. It also reported that the median age to marry is 30.8 for men and 28.4 for women, a staggering rise from 23.5 for men and 21.1 for women in 1975. This, of course, goes hand in hand with other alarming statistics flooding the news, such as a record-low birth rate and delayed homeownership.
We ought not to be surprised, as believers, that when we reject God’s order, chaos follows. And we are watching this play out in real time.
God was clear from the beginning:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
Man and Wife. Not girlfriend and boyfriend, not even fiancées. Marriage, a covenant with God, binds the two as one. Forsaking all others, for better or for worse.
This lifelong promise to God is, above all, rooted in faith.
There is no depth of dating or length of engagement that can adequately prepare you for what might be on the other side of this promise. It is faith in God that will bind you together, because it is sure and steady.
But young couples today have been sold a non-committal “test run” for marriage: cohabitation. In other words, enjoy married life without the marriage.
This lie communicates that marriage is more about compatibility, self-promotion, and preparation than faithfulness. You must learn everything about the other person before marriage to better predict the pros and cons of life together. This replaces unconditional love with calculation, which can break and change, unlike unconditional love.
Studies have suggested that couples who cohabitated while dating experience a lower risk of divorce in their first year of marriage. But what happens when the status quo changes, and the couple moves to the unknowns of life? Studies indicate that cohabitating while dating increases the odds of divorce by 48%, despite 50-65% of Americans believing living together will set them up for relationship success.
If the societal and individual harms of increased divorce aren’t enough, “testing the waters” of marriage brings levels of intimacy (physical and emotional) that God intended only under the protections of lifelong commitment. It also robs couples of the opportunity to fully abandon their old lives to pursue a committed life together, as prescribed by God in Genesis.
Airbnb’s newest ad, as appalling as it is, is simply selling young couples the same old lie. “Test the waters,” push the bounds of the intimacies of marriage as far as you can, with as little commitment as possible. You don’t even have to sign a lease.
But the reality is that it is trust, unconditional love, and faith that guide a strong marriage. Strong marriages bring strong families, and strong families yield strong communities. Strong communities, in turn, make up a strong country. If we want to reverse the harmful trends around us, we must abandon these harmful lies and replace them with the Truth of God’s Word.
