Well, while Amy is away this week she asked me to do this week's post. I'm Andrew Rusbatch and I am the co-author of Save My Marriage Today and regular blogger on www.savemymarriagetoday.com/live. I have worked alongside Amy in dealing with relationship issues for a number of years. Many of you will know me as the guy in the How To Be Irresistible To Men video course, and if you flick up to the "About" tab at the top of the page, you will see a picture of me doing my best to smile and look sexy!

So when I was thinking about something interesting to write, one that came into my mind was thoughts about cohabitation and what sort of effect this has on relationships. Looking at the figures, around 4.9 million adult couples of the opposite sex live together unmarried. Compare this to around 400 000 couples 45 years ago, and we see a social trend that some social scientists believe is going to have significant effects on future marital disruption and spending habits of a major sector in our society. Heady stuff huh?

Let's be honest though, cohabitation is not something new to most people nowadays, though attitudes both for and against cohabitation are still quite strong. Moral rights campaigners indicate it is part of a slippery slope toward a new breed of society with scant regard to commitment, while others say it is a responsible trial-run for marriage, without the associated cost of divorce and asset separation. Is he, or isn't he, the-one?

I like to think of cohabitation as one of the many necessary steps in a relationship, and liken it to marriage with trainer-wheels. The belief that living together before marriage is a useful way to find out whether you are really compatible and avoid a bad marriage or costly divorce is now widespread among most young people. But it still has the capacity to teach us something…

I thought I knew a lot about my partner until I shifted in with them, and I understand they thought the same about me. Gee, was I in for a shock! I have lived with a couple of partners, the first being when I was around 21 years old. I rather foolishly assumed that being a girl she would have the same careful attention to detail around the home that my four older sisters did. I knew how to cook and clean, and there was nothing around the home that I did not know how to do. Living with a partner at that time really opened my eyes to how some people live, and I was horrified at the time to discover how different we really were. After living together for some time we both discovered that we were incompatible, and we parted company soon after. I called it my awakening, when I finally realized how different some of us can be from others. In that relationship a lot of long-held beliefs were shattered. However, I learnt a very valuable lesson.

When you don't live together, your partner only sees the side of you that you want them to see. They don't get to see you when you are grumpy, tired, sick, or your gross habits. I know, you will all say something here, but everyone has at least one gross habit, even if it is something as simple as leaving your long hair to block the sink or not rinsing the shower out after you have shaved your legs. Sometimes the smallest things can drive home the reality that your partner is not perfect and is a person like the rest of us after all.

So if you know so little about your partner, how can you possibly make a considered decision to spend the rest of your life together? Perhaps that's where cohabitation has a role to play.

They say falling in love with someone is a leap of faith. Depending on how well you know your love will determine how far this leap is. So is cohabitation a way of minimizing the risk of divorce, or is it seen as a cheap and easy alternative to marriage?

Well you need to start by going into it with your eyes wide open. Before shifting in with a man, consider why you are doing it. Is it because you want it, is it because it will make it more convenient, or is it the all-crucial "moving it to the next level"? Is this really marriage with trainer wheels? 

Women will analyze a situation and examine possible interpretations of what this move may mean and what implications this is going to have on the state of the relationship, both now and in the future. Most guys simply see it as somewhere pretty to stick your stuff and to be nurtured and don't think too much into the future.

So the question then comes, when is an appropriate time in a relationship for each of you to shed your independence and singledom and entertain the idea of cohabitation? 6 days into the relationship? 6 weeks? 6 months? 6 years even?

And do you think it leads to a stronger marriage?

I want to thank Lauren for sending in this question:

"I have read all of your articles everytime you sent to me. Thanks for keep on reminding us don't think that all guys are look after sex. But I have had many experience that to prove that they are really all look after sex, they don't even know what true love is all about. Can you help me to overcome this?"

As a woman, this is one of the biggest challenges you will face in relationships: negotiating a man's desire for sex with your desire for the "something more" of true love.

Yes, all men want is sex.  Let's get that fact out into the open.  Men are wired to have a super-high sex drive in comparison to women.  According to Barbara and Allen Pease's book, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, the human sex center has a specific location in the brain (the hypothalamus) and can be weighed and measured.  Lo and behold, the part of the brain responsible for sex drive is larger in men than in women.  Added to the fact that men have 10 to 20 times more testosterone (a hormone responsible for stimulating the sex drive) than women, it's easy to see why over half of all men think about sex every day or several times a day (Source: Sex in America).

One commonly-given reason for the high male sex drive emerges from the cloudy history of human evolution, in which the aim of our ancestors was to procreate and ensure the survival of the species.  Men were driven by a biological imperative to spread their seed far and wide.  Women, on the other hand, knowing that they would need a supportive partner during the years it takes to raise a human infant to adulthood, tended to hold off casual sex in order to search for commitment.

So that's the science, but what does it mean for us?  Knowing the "why" and "how" of the human sex drive doesn't help us much when it comes to interpreting our experiences today.  Yes, men may have a higher sex drive, but they live in a modern world where culture privileges monogamy.

Here's one hopeful fact: the male sex drive peaks at age 19, while the female sex drive doesn't peak until age 36 to 38.  Could it be that if we just wait long enough, we'll meet a man more interested in love than sex?  Or will we be the ones at that point wanting sex more than love (e.g. Desperate Housewife syndrome)?  Here's what Barbara and Allen Pease have to say about such "December-May" pairings:

"A man's sexual performance level at age 19 is more compatible with a woman in her late 30s to early 40s … [while] the sex drive of a man in his 40s is compatible with a woman in her early 20s….  There is usually around a 20-year age difference between these older/younger combinations." (p.194)

Yikes, but I don't want to date a man 20 years older (or younger).  So what am I supposed to do?

Here's the answer.

1. Don't expect a young man to be as interested in monogamy as you are.  In his late teens and early twenties, it will take a special man to be less interested in sowing his oats than in having sex with the same woman for the rest of his life.
2. Respect your man's sex drive.  If your man told you that PMS was all in your head and that you shouldn't have wild mood swings/cravings/cramps, you would tell him he didn't know what he was talking about, wouldn't you?  Well, just as hormones can cause you to go a bit batty, so his hormones can control him at times.  Understand that his sex drive is part of his biology and not an indicator of immorality or licentiousness.  Women are not the "purer" sex because we have a smaller hypothalamus and lower levels of testosterone.
3. Realize that his sex drive does not define him.  This, I think, is the most crucial fact of all: your man is more than his sex drive.  I love what Alexandra Penney has to say about this is her book How to Keep Your Man Monogamous:

"A woman must recognize that her mate is part boy, part adolescent, part man.  The boy in him wants to know that she really cares for him and his well-being.  The adolescent wants to know that he's the object of her whole sexuality; the mature man wants to know that she's proud of him, approves of him." (p.90)

Understand and respect your man's sex drive, but if he is truly a man (and not a boy), he'll have a focus and a purpose in life.  He'll want to advance in his career and contribute to his community.  He'll appreciate the stability of a partner who supports, respects, and challenges him in his journey through life.  He may even find that he desires the respect and status that marriage can give him.

As you begin to attract higher-quality men, you'll find that these men are about much more than sex.  In fact, highly successful men in business learn how to channel their sex drive into their pursuits and passions.  (Napoleon Hill's seminal book on achieving success Think and Grow Rich, encourages men to do just this.)

As long as you keep these concepts in mind – that younger men are the least likely to be interested in monogamy, that your man's sex drive is part of who he is but does not define him, and that a man who hasn't learned to "transmute" his sex drive into other forms of achievement may remain at a lower level of growth – then you'll be able to make honest, informed decisions about whether a man is a suitable candidate for a long-term, monogamous partnership.

I stopped to get a coffee this morning at a different coffee shop than usual.  The cafe was narrow and humming with businesspeople standing and reading newspapers while waiting for their coffees to go.  Steam poured from the bar where a slender man with thinning hair scooped froth and poured milk with the delicate hands of a musician.

A few of the guys from the office at the end of the hall were waiting for their coffees as well.  They are all aspiring musicians, and to fund their creativity they've created online kits to teach people to play the guitar, piano, and other instruments. Their office has bare brick walls, framed prints of the Beatles, black leather sofas, towers of coffee cups, a jumble of instruments in the corner, and a sound studio behind a discrete door.  It's the feeling of geniuses at work.

I chatted with the guys as they waited for their coffees, then three of them left, leaving the last guy behind to wait for an extra order.  He brushed his hair out of his face and asked, "So, any exciting weekend plans?"

"Not much.  Having a barbecue this Friday with at a friend's house.  Then we're going out on the town."

"A female friend?"

"Nope, a guy friend."

"Right…"  He laughed.  "Not just a friend, then."

I didn't understand.  "Why do you think he wouldn't just be a friend?"

"Because you don't hang out at a guy's house and go partying with him unless there's something going on there."

It was the old Harry Met Sally conundrum.

Women find it easy to think of a man as "just a friend."  We can hang out with a guy, share our thoughts and feelings, enjoy activities together, and take pleasure in his company without ever thinking of him in a sexual way.  Similarly, we can even find joy in a merely platonic friendship with a man that we're sexually interested, if that's the best we can get.

Men, on the other hand, find that sexual desire often gets in the way of a platonic friendship with a female.  If they are sexually interested in a woman, it can be painful for them to continue a merely platonic friendship with her.  Some men even cut off friendships with women to whom they're attracted, because they don't want to torture themselves with sexual frustration.

One popular folk theory that explains this phenomenon is Ladder Theory.   Developed by Dallas Lynn, Ladder Theory is a crude, unscientific concept that purports to explain how male-female sexual attraction actually works.

According to Ladder Theory, when a woman meets a man, she subconsciously puts him on one of two "ladders."  On the first ladder, she ranks men that she would potentially be interested in as a sexual partner.  On the second ladder, she puts men that she considers friends.

The theory states that men can never jump from the "friends" ladder to the "real" ladder.  In other words, if a man is a woman's friend, she won't think of him sexually.  If he tries to upgrade his status from friend to lover, she'll spurn his advances with, "But I don't think of you that way!", causing him to fall into the abyss.

This concept makes sense on a certain level.  We all know lovely men who will make a great catch for a woman someday but, for whatever reason, don't turn us on.  You know the kind of guy I'm talking about, the kind that–no matter how hard you try–you can't think romantically about.  The kind that makes you say, "He's a nice guy, but he's my friend."

Most nice guys have had to deal with the fallout from Ladder Theory time and time again, when they become friends with a girl in hopes of eventually developing a relationship with her.  They don't realize that by placing themselves on the "friends" ladder, they've ensured that she will find it difficult to think of him "like that."

Now, I'm not saying that Ladder Theory is true!  I'm simply saying that this is one way that men explain women to themselves.

What is even more revealing is how Ladder Theory explains male attraction.

Ladder Theory states that unlike women, men just have one ladder, and it's not the friends ladder.  In other words, men will consider sleeping with anyone, including women they consider "just friends."

This can be hard for some women to accept.  I'm one of them.  I like to believe that my male friends see me as friends and nothing else.

But others believe Ladder Theory.  As I talked with the young musician at the coffee shop, I realized that even though he probably didn't know what Ladder Theory was, everything he was saying supported it.

He told me, "If you ask any guy what he would do if one of his female friends walked into the room completely naked and said, 'I want you,' I don't doubt that he would have sex with her.  If there's an opportunity for sex, a guy is going to take it."

So is impossible for a man and a woman to just be friends?  According to Ladder Theory, it is easy for a woman to be friends with a man, but a man will always hold out some possibility of sleeping with a female friend.

Whether or not you believe this theory, it is interesting to consider.  For me, I believe that Ladder Theory-style thinking is characteristic of less mature men.  As men mature, they are less driven by their hormones and more driven by a need to find meaning and satisfaction in their relationships.

What do you think?