Cohabitating?

[EeyoresButerfly]

My boyfriend and I are in somewhat of an ethical dilemma and I would appreciate your all’s help. I recently accepted a teaching job in his area and have bought a house. He’s hoping to get a teaching job in the same area and move out of his parents’ house. We’re both recent grad students, so not a lot of money, plus teachers don’t make that much.

We’ve been kicking around the idea of living in the same house. I have no doubt that one day we will marry. In fact, he has said he plans to propose once he has a stable job. We are both extremely committed to a Christian relationship in which sex takes place only within the confines of a monogamous marriage. In the year and a half we have been dating we have only kissed twice! We would not share a bedroom, he would sleep in one of the guest rooms.

Financially, it makes sense. Practically, it makes sense. We would be able to spolit the bills, and he would only have to move one time. But I know that cohabitating before marriage is generally frowned upon. It seems that the reason it is frowned upon is because there is an assumption that cohabitation= sex. But for us that would not be the case. We have stayed in the same hotel room (sleeping in separate beds) when travelling, and never had a problem. We are both very much committed to abstinence until marriage, so why would cohabitation be a problem? I keep going back and forth on this and wanted your advice. Thanks!

 

[EricDavis73]

My opinion is you’re creating a circumstance where things could go bad in a hurry. Even disregarding the ethical/moral/gossip factor of platonic cohabitation, think in more practical terms. You suggest a split of the bills, but even after being married for 12 years the hot button issue is money around my house. The wife and I argue but then we’re forced to make up because we’ve been married for 12+ years.

It just sounds like a really, really bad idea. You’re inviting a ton of problems into your relationship without the solemn vows you’ve made to each other at the altar (and the corresponding grace you get through that sacrament). I know you don’t want to think about it, but what happens if you have the ultimate smack down over his dirty socks and he breaks up, moves out and leaves you stuck with everything?

Stay separate, enjoy the courtship and romance, get married and you’ll have a whole new set of communication methods, a new level of commitment and a LOT more of the grace you’ll need to make living with another person work (especially when he leaves his dirty socks laying around).

 

[agapewolf]

Your freedom to make your vows on your wedding day will be severely lowered…as you own a house/couch/pet together, as well as look at the need to move if you were to discern you shouldn’t be getting married.

You will be distracted in your discernment by small issues of living together…so much that it can cast a veil over the big things that you should be focused on in preparing for marriage.

You do not yet have the grace that is given with the sacrament. You do not have the opportunity for sexual bonding either.

It causes scandal.

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

I just don’t get the scandal at all. Why do we assume to know what is going on in another person’s bedroom? I also just do not understand the comment about limiting your freedom to make your vows. We already feel this way about each other. He has already stuck by me through being diagnosed with one chronic illness and in the process of getting diagnosed with another. Just because we have not formally spoken the words does not mean that we do not already feel this way. Don’t all couples feel that way before they take the vows? Isn’t that the point?

I also don’t see why the opportunity for sexual bonding would be a big deal or why it should create a scandal? I had a male friend for a roommate one year (a friend from our Campus’s Catholic Newman Center). There was nothing remotely inappropriate and absolutely zero scandal. Everybody knew he simply needed a place to live at the last minute and I had a spare bedroom. Everybody who knows my boyfriend and I know that nothing would happen. I just don’t understand why two people living together should automatically be scandal. Why do we assume to know what is going on in another person’s bedroom? Whatever happened to judge not lest you be judged?

 

[agapewolf]

I just don’t get the scandal at all. Why do we assume to know what is going on in another person’s bedroom? I also just do not understand the comment about limiting your freedom to make your vows. We already feel this way about each other. He has already stuck by me through being diagnosed with one chronic illness and in the process of getting diagnosed with another. Just because we have not formally spoken the words does not mean that we do not already feel this way. Don’t all couples feel that way before they take the vows? Isn’t that the point?

I also don’t see why the opportunity for sexual bonding would be a big deal or why it should create a scandal? I had a male friend for a roommate one year (a friend from our Campus’s Catholic Newman Center). There was nothing remotely inappropriate and absolutely zero scandal. Everybody knew he simply needed a place to live at the last minute and I had a spare bedroom. Everybody who knows my boyfriend and I know that nothing would happen. I just don’t understand why two people living together should automatically be scandal. Why do we assume to know what is going on in another person’s bedroom? Whatever happened to judge not lest you be judged?

You are missing the point here. You will be living with your fiance, without sexual relationship. Your mutual attraction and love, as a married couple living together, uses the sexual relationship for bonding and bestowing grace upon your releationship so that living together is much easier. This part has nothing to do with the scandal part.

By your point about scandal, then you think it would be ok for a priest to live with a woman? No, that is scandalous. Why? He is called to a celibate chaste lifestyle. Right now, you are called to the chaste life that includes abstaining from sex. It is scandalous.

Right now you have stated things that have given off red flags. Vows are NEVER made on feelings. Ever. You vow your marriage on feeling that you will do it and you will not make it. It is a decision…a clear cut sober decision you make to give yourself completely freely to each other. Even though you may be completely committed to each other right now, you still must recognize you have the freedom to leave. You are not bound. You are still in a discernment/prep phase. You at any time could see something that could be a deal breaker but because you have already invested so much financially, as well as your own home would be causes a huge disruption, that freedom is lessened.

This is why $100,000 circus weddings are not a good idea. So many thousands of dollars invested…I know a marriage prep couple that was meeting with a couple that became aware that they should not be getting married less than 1 week ahead of the wedding. They married anyway because they had so much invested in each other and in the wedding. THey lived together too.

 

[tampagrl]

I hear what you’re saying, but there’s still too many what-if’s… he’s hoping to get a job…you’re sure he’s going to ask you to marry him… Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I hope that’s the case. But that said, I would not do this. If nothing else, like the last poster said, it causes scandal. People will see you living together and assume you’re also sharing a bed. A hotel room is not day in and day out livng…waaay too many chances for things to turn in the wrong direction. You both currently have a place to live…let that be good enough for now. Let your living situation show further your current commitment to live a Christian life together.

okay, I had to add this b/c I saw your post about your male roommate…I hear that, too, but you didn’t have feelings for him, right? I had a male roommate for a brief time in college…similar circumstance - he needed a place to live…I never ever thought of him as anything but a friend…until he moved in…we became really good friends and b/f I knew it, “the” tension was there. You see each other day in and day out…you hang your bras in the shower to dry…lol… but you know what I’m say’n… Fortunately, in my case nothing came of it…he moved out and we remained friends. I so know how you feel…but just trust that you’re doing the right thing in waiting to live together.

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

See, I guess I would not find it scandalous if a priest lived with the woman because I am one who always gives the benefit of the doubt.

And what is wrong with “feelings?” Love is a feeling given to us by God, it’s how we initially form relationships. I can’t imagine marrying somebody you did not have any kind of feelings for. That’s not to say that we haven’t had long “sober” (as you put it) conversations about the future looking at all the practical aspects of it. And again, if the two people involved are maintaing that chase lifestyle why should it be scandalous? To me that is just ridiculous that people presume to make such judgments about another person’s life.

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

I hear what you’re saying, but there’s still too many what-if’s… he’s hoping to get a job…you’re sure he’s going to ask you to marry you… Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I hope that’s the case. But that said, I would not do this. If nothing else, like the last poster said, it causes scandal. People will see you living together and assume you’re also sharing a bed. A hotel room is not day in and day out livng…waaay too many chances for things to turn in the wrong direction. You both currently have a place to live…let that be good enough for now. Let your living situation show further your current commitment to live a Christian life together.

We wouldn’t do this unless he did get a job in the area. He will be moving out of his parents’ house one way or the other so he does not have a place to live right now. Where in the Bible or in Church Doctrine does it say that this is wrong? I guess that is what my hang up is. It seems that we make it wrong because we erroneously assume that cohabitation=sex. But that is not the case for every couple.

 

[agapewolf]

See, I guess I would not find it scandalous if a priest lived with the woman because I am one who always gives the benefit of the doubt.

And what is wrong with “feelings?” Love is a feeling given to us by God, it’s how we initially form relationships. I can’t imagine marrying somebody you did not have any kind of feelings for. That’s not to say that we haven’t had long “sober” (as you put it) conversations about the future looking at all the practical aspects of it. And again, if the two people involved are maintaing that chase lifestyle why should it be scandalous? To me that is just ridiculous that people presume to make such judgments about another person’s life.

WHOA WHOA…Love is absolutely 100% NOT a feeling. DO NOT get married if you think that.
I didn’t say that feelings were bad. Feelings are a benefit of love, but absolutely NOT love itself.

Love is a decision. You make a decision every day to love someone you are married to. If it were based on feelings, you can leave 5 years into the marriage, when it “feels right” to go to someone else. Sometimes you don’t feel like you are in love. Loving is based on Christ’s death on the cross. he didn’t feel like it, but he made the decision to love us. To pour out his life. That is what we are called to do for our spouses…to decide…it is an act of the will, it is not a feeling.

This is why arranged marriages in certain cultures worked

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

WHOA WHOA…Love is absolutely 100% NOT a feeling. DO NOT get married if you think that.
I didn’t say that feelings were bad. Feelings are a benefit of love, but absolutely NOT love itself.

Love is a decision. You make a decision every day to love someone you are married to. If it were based on feelings, you can leave 5 years into the marriage, when it “feels right” to go to someone else. Sometimes you don’t feel like you are in love. Loving is based on Christ’s death on the cross. he didn’t feel like it, but he made the decision to love us. To pour out his life. That is what we are called to do for our spouses…to decide…it is an act of the will, it is not a feeling.

I guess you and I have a very different definition of Love. Love is being able to look past all the little things that annoy you and see the good in the person. Love is committing to being part of a relationship with the good and the bad. Love is sticking it through even when the attraction wanes, but attraction is certainly initially part of it. Maybe I didn’t say it right the first time, but believe me, I am a mature enough adult to know what love is and isn’t and to know what role that feelings play in a mature relationship. A relationship is not just feelings, but it cannot be devoid of feelings either. And what works for one couple may not work for another.

 

[agapewolf]

I guess you and I have a very different definition of Love. Love is being able to look past all the little things that annoy you and see the good in the person. Love is committing to being part of a relationship with the good and the bad. Love is sticking it through even when the attraction wanes, but attraction is certainly initially part of it. Maybe I didn’t say it right the first time, but believe me, I am a mature enough adult to know what love is and isn’t and to know what role that feelings play in a mature relationship. A relationship is not just feelings, but it cannot be devoid of feelings either. And what works for one couple may not work for another.

Actually, my definition comes from the catechism. You have just defined, in the first part of your paragraph, the DECISION that love is. sticking through things when attraction wanes.
That is definatley love…and that is a decision.

Love is NOT a feeling. Feelings are benefits that come from love and romance and attraction, but it is not love itself. Read the catechism on this.

You also don’t understand the meaning of the word “scandal”. Scandal has nothing to do with the truth of the matter, is about causing others to sin, or offend.

 

[agapewolf]

And, a relationship most certainly CAN be devoid of feelings. Its not the most pleasant thing, but it can.

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

Actually, my definition comes from the catechism. You have just defined, in the first part of your paragraph, the DECISION that love is. sticking through things when attraction wanes.
That is definatley love…and that is a decision.

Love is NOT a feeling. Feelings are benefits that come from love and romance and attraction, but it is not love itself. Read the catechism on this.

You also don’t understand the meaning of the word “scandal”. Scandal has nothing to do with the truth of the matter, is about causing others to sin, or offend.

Causing others to sin? Seriously? Since when do the choices that my boyfriend and I make cause others to sin? Maybe I’m just more liberal minded than most, but I can’t imagine letting what another person does lead me to sin. I think I learned that lesson about jumping off the bridge when I was 3. Judging by the thread on here about anybody doing it the “pure” way, there have been many couples who have not had a chaste relationship and cohabitation had nothing to do with it.

Like I said, I’m really torn. We both are. On the one hand, how is it any different from having a roommate? On the other hand, it is frowned upon, but why should we let what others say affect our relationship? I have already gotten a lot of snarky comments based on our disparate heights, complete with some very nauseating insinuations about what it must mean for our bedroom life. To some of our friends our relationship is already scandalous because apparently tall men should not date short women. But we do not let this affect us. That is their issue, not ours.

 

[Shin]

If you two think you would remain chaste after cohabiting you are taking temptation too lightly and too proud of your own self restraint. Be humble. It’s not going to happen. Temptations change. And when you get together they will be strong, unexpected, and convenient. And God isn’t going to help you out when you put yourself in such danger, you will fail because you took the first step that was wrong and showed yourself not cautious of sin.

The soul is more important than convenience.

This is called putting yourself in a ‘near occasion of sin’ which you are not allowed to do.

It also the sin of scandal – in the proper sense of the word scandal, in that it misleads others into thinking that people who are good Christians can do this. They can’t. It’s a sin. You’d be a bad example.

This doesn’t mean that people would be ‘outraged’ by seeing it, it means that they -would- think it OK, which it is wrong to think, just like you have related so far.

Additionally, you are too certain you two will work out. If it doesn’t, then you shared a house together. What will your future spouses quite rightly think? You have no right to have them be put through that.

It sounds like your feelings for one another go too far for people who haven’t been married yet, frankly. This is not uncommon, people do not know better until they think about how a different future spouse would feel to know about where your hearts and minds were. Or they think about how God thinks liberties before they are given.

This is a no, just no situation. No. It is called temptation, it is from Hell. This sort of lack of standard happens because of the society we live in – it is not the standard of Christians.

Take the opportunity to show a good Christian witness instead and take the choice that looks harder to the world, but is actually the easier choice.

People who marry take an oath, that is what it is – a contract between two people of fidelity. You’re not married. Until you aren’t you aren’t allowed any of the liberties of marriage. This isn’t just being formal. It’s the difference between an oath, contract, sacrament and the grace of God – and everything forbidden because there is nothing. At all.

Get married and then move in together, if it is so necessarily – but only get married because you are certain you should.

Be certain you two are two people who would live together and be faithful because of a promise to God of a marriage forever, abiding by all the laws of it – regardless of how you two feel about each other down the road – be certain that you both know, with your minds and not your feelings that you are two people who can go the distance no matter what because of your faith in God.

 

[Shin]

I can’t imagine letting what another person does lead me to sin.

That sort of false self confidence is part of exactly why you will sin and lead others into it. Please rethink it and disabuse yourself of it, the faith teaches the opposite of your words here. We are not to trust in ourselves, and we are not to be an occasion of sin to others. Without God’s help you fail, and others always lead people into sin – if everyone is doing it, you accept it, without even becoming aware of it. Like with cohabiting which you have already written about here – which Christianity does not accept, only worldly societies do. A Christian society condemns it rightly.

I will share the words of St. Basil, about what he thought of cohabiting even when there was no chance of the two sinning together.

‘I have given patient attention to your letter, and I am astonished that when you are perfectly well able to furnish me with a short and easy defence by taking action at once, you should choose to persist in what is my ground of complaint, and endeavour to cure the incurable by writing a long story about it. I am not the first, Paregorius, nor the only man, to lay down the law that women are not to live with men. Read the canon put forth by our holy Fathers at the Council of Nicaea, which distinctly forbids subintroducts. Unmarried life is honourably distinguished by its being cut off from all female society. If, then, any one, who is known by the outward profession, in reality follows the example of those who live with wives, it is obvious that he only affects the distinction of virginity in name, and does not hold aloof from unbecoming indulgence. You ought to have been all the more ready to submit yourself without difficulty to my demands, in that you allege that you are free from all bodily appetite. I do not suppose that a man of three score years and ten lives with a woman from any such feelings, and I have not decided, as I have decided, on the ground of any crime having been committed. But we have learned from the Apostle, not to put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in a brother’s way; (Romans 14:13) and I know that what is done very properly by some, naturally becomes to others an occasion for sin. I have therefore given my order, in obedience to the injunction of the holy Fathers, that you are to separate from the woman. Why then, do you find fault with the Chorepiscopus? What is the good of mentioning ancient ill-will? Why do you blame me for lending an easy ear to slander? Why do you not rather lay the blame on yourself, for not consenting to break off your connection with the woman? Expel her from your house, and establish her in a monastery. Let her live with virgins, and do you be served by men, that the name of God be not blasphemed in you. Till you have so done, the innumerable arguments, which you use in your letters, will not do you the slightest service. You will die useless, and you will have to give an account to God for your uselessness. If you persist in clinging to your clerical position without correcting your ways, you will be accursed before all the people, and all, who receive you, will be excommunicate throughout the Church.’

St. Basil the Great

“He that shall scandalize one of these little ones, that believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill-stone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Matthew 18:6

Think of the children, and your possible future children this bad example would serve for! This is what the meaning of the word scandal is. A bad example!

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

Why are you saying that our feelings have gone too far for a couple who are not married?

 

[agapewolf]

Causing others to sin? Seriously? Since when do the choices that my boyfriend and I make cause others to sin? Maybe I’m just more liberal minded than most, but I can’t imagine letting what another person does lead me to sin. I think I learned that lesson about jumping off the bridge when I was 3. Judging by the thread on here about anybody doing it the “pure” way, there have been many couples who have not had a chaste relationship and cohabitation had nothing to do with it.

Like I said, I’m really torn. We both are. On the one hand, how is it any different from having a roommate? On the other hand, it is frowned upon, but why should we let what others say affect our relationship? I have already gotten a lot of snarky comments based on our disparate heights, complete with some very nauseating insinuations about what it must mean for our bedroom life. To some of our friends our relationship is already scandalous because apparently tall men should not date short women. But we do not let this affect us. That is their issue, not ours.

You missed “and offend”. First of all, people hear you are living together and they start judging. That is not the “cause” of the sin, but its close to it. There is scripture that states it may be fine and moral to eat meat, but if it causes another to sin by doing so, don’t do it. Same exact thing here.

You can’t imagine letting what another person does cause you to sin? Really? You must be a saint. Reacting badly to an antagonistic remark… losing patience with children or in the car, etc etc. All started with someone else’s influence.

Just because others have fallen and were not cohabitating doesn’t mean that you won’t when you are. All the more reason to not to it. Its hard enough to stay chaste even when not living together.

The Church is not just another person telling you how to live. The church is trying to save souls and is guarding yours.

 

[EeyoresButerfly]

What I meant by the I can’t imagine letting what someone else does cause me to sin remark is that I don’t believe that just because another person does it makes it right. That doesn’t mean I don’t sin, but for me personally, “well, he did it” is not the excuse. And arguably, couldn’t just about every activity we do offend or cause others to sin? I’m sure to somebody who is more conservative, my wearing shorts would be offensive, or your example, eating meat. You can’t go through life without offending somebody somewhere. I’m sure that our decision share a kiss is offensive to those who believe a man and woman shouldn’t even touch before marriage. If you go through life trying not to offend anybody, you’re going to live a pretty miserable life.

 

[agapewolf]

What I meant by the I can’t imagine letting what someone else does cause me to sin remark is that I don’t believe that just because another person does it makes it right. That doesn’t mean I don’t sin, but for me personally, “well, he did it” is not the excuse. And arguably, couldn’t just about every activity we do offend or cause others to sin? I’m sure to somebody who is more conservative, my wearing shorts would be offensive, or your example, eating meat. You can’t go through life without offending somebody somewhere. I’m sure that our decision share a kiss is offensive to those who believe a man and woman shouldn’t even touch before marriage. If you go through life trying not to offend anybody, you’re going to live a pretty miserable life.

We are not talking about arbitrary moral judgements. We are talking about standards set by the church (the meat example is actually the one used in scripture).

A sinner cannot use the excuse of the other’s influence. That isn’t the point. A person can still influence.

We are not talking about going through life worrying about offending someone. We are talking about not putting yourself and others in a near occasion of sin.

 

[Shin]

Why are you saying that our feelings have gone too far for a couple who are not married?

I speculate that it is because it is the norm nowadays, but the truth is we are supposed to guard our hearts -until- we are married.

One of the [many] reasons people think marriage is a mere formality is that they have already given their hearts to each other entirely before they are married. But this is not what you are supposed to do.

There are also many reasons why not. One is fidelity – if in fact, you marry someone else – how would that person feel about all the feelings you had and have as memories in your heart of that other, former person.

And that future possible spouse will know, someday – all of our lives are revealed by God in the end. Exactly how faithful you were is revealed, completely, beginning to end. Every kiss, every deed, every thought, every motion of the heart and your desires and will.

So fidelity is one reason. And descending from this, is that the more you give your heart to others whom you do not marry, the less love you have for the next, and the next, and the next. Love becomes commonplace, cheapened, because it is treated lightly.

Now, I do not know what you have in your hearts for one another, but I do know you have been drawn in partly by the worldly view in respect to exterior circumstances — that is living together, which is immodest – a sin against modesty, too, because of the bad appearance it has.

A couple who are faithful would prefer to know their partner is faithful in exterior deed as well as the interior life because this is a good indicator – what is inside, comes out in our deeds on the outside. To know your future spouse lived a bad example, lived with someone else, etc. All these immodesties – is disheartening to someone, who expects more purity and reserve.

Because some people who come out of the world do not realize these standards immediately, does not mean what is truly in the heart is not still there, nor that in fact that not to hold them is not in fact, worldly.

Love is dangerous it cannot be treated lightly, the passions that come alongside it are strong, and there is the sacred and forbidden involved. But true love is love of what of God you find in another, and marrying someone because you believe through good knowledge you will help each other on the journey to God – not for each other’s own sake first.

We have to be reserved, more reserved than worldly people – Christians have to, to be good Christians, treat love very differently than people who are not. If they do not, then they already know they’re living badly simply by that fact even if they do not know how to live properly yet – because we know at least, that Christ in scriptures, condemned so often the ways of the world.

‘They fancy that they only mean to amuse themselves, but will not go too far. Little you know, forsooth! . . . Do you, in your folly, imagine that you can lightly handle love as you please? You think to trifle with it, but it will sting you cruelly, and then every one will mock you, and laugh at your foolish pretension to harbour a venomous serpent in your bosom, which has poisoned and lost alike your honour and your soul.’

St. Francis de Sales