To these people cohabitation offers similar benefits to marriage without the potential pain of divorce. "If you're just living together, and if one of you decides they want to leave..." said one participant, "you can leave and it will just be OK ... whereas if you're married you've got to go through lawyers and attorneys, and depending on the type of situation it is it can be an ugly divorce." Though cohabitation may be less legally tricky to end, whether it offers the same lifelong benefits as marriage in other important ways -- emotional and physical -- is still under investigation.