(5) Some de facto unions are clearly the result of a decisive choice.  “Trial” unions are common among those planning to marry in the future, but on the condition that they have the experience of a union without a marriage bond. This is a kind of “conditioned stage” for marriage, similar to “trial” marriage, [4][4] but, different from this, a certain social recognition is presumed.

Some other persons who live together justify this choice because of economic reasons or to avoid legal difficulties. The real motives are often much deeper.  In using this type of pretext, there is often an underlying mentality that gives little value to sexuality.  This is influenced more or less by pragmatism and hedonism, as well as by a conception of love detached from any responsibility. The commitment is avoided to the stability, the responsibilities, and the rights and duties that real conjugal love includes.

In other cases, de facto unions are formed by persons who were previously divorced and  are thus an alternative to marriage.  Through pro-divorce legislation, marriage often tends to lose its identity in personal conscience. In this sense, a lack of confidence in the institution of marriage should be pointed out which sometimes comes from the negative experience of persons who have been traumatized by a previous divorce or by their parents’ divorce.  This distressing phenomenon is beginning to become important from a social viewpoint in the more economically developed countries.

It is not uncommon for persons living together in a de facto union to make their rejection of marriage for ideological reasons known explicitly.  This then is the choice of an alternative, a certain way of living one’s sexuality.  These persons consider marriage as something to be rejected, something that is opposed to their ideology, an “unacceptable form of abusing personal well-being”, or even as “the tomb of passionate love”, expressions that denote a lack of knowledge about the real nature of human love and sacrifice, and of the nobility and beauty of constancy and fidelity in human relations.