Cohabitation explanation

[Guldenat]

Whaaat? No, not necessarily at ALL! Mirdath and I chose to live together for a few reasons, and had already decided to marry (a few more weeks, people - let the world tremble! ). Finances and health were primary, but also we felt very miserable apart from each other, whether chaste or not - not for nothing do even our best friends call us the ‘two-headed monster’! We are not Catholic nor do we hold ourselves up as an ideal in bedroom matters – but there are far worse ways to live and love than what we have managed.

These matters are not so simple no matter one’s faith, at least not for adults. Some sentences can begin with ‘I want’ and follow with ‘to earn for you, to cook for you, to nurse and shelter and worry over you and maybe raise children with you, trust and please you, talk and laugh with you and give you everything I can.’ If that is selfish, then call us gluttons, because when it comes to love, we are just that, for so long as we live. Catholics might say that such is our ‘calling.’

When I was engaged, I actually co-habitated. I never had sex, and their were excellent reasons for living together. I am now married, and I do not feel that living with my fiancee compromised our relationship in the slightest.

 

[NoxSineStellae]

When I was engaged, I actually co-habitated. I never had sex, and their were excellent reasons for living together. I am now married, and I do not feel that living with my fiancee compromised our relationship in the slightest.

Same here. We lived together, slept together, saw each other naked, showered together, yet refrained from sex until we were married (not for religious reasons). It’s called self-control. I’m stunned at the number of people who apparently can’t keep themselves from rutting like wild animals in heat at the slightest hint of temptation. Sure, it was very hard at times. But impossible? Far from it. And yes, we were and are very attracted to each other, are completely in love and filled with respect for the other person, and have a wonderful and fulfilling sex life now.

Just because you can’t keep your pants on doesn’t mean others have the same problem and lack of restraint. And what are the statistics on couples who have sex before marriage, but do not live together first? It IS possible to have sex without sharing the same address.

 

[puzzleannie]

found the article I was looking for
this was posted 8/29/07 on

inside.growthtrac.com/inside/2007/08/cohabitation-po.html

includes a link to the longer expanded article from which these statistics are taken (results of 30 years of research)

Living together before marriage can be hazardous to physical, emotional, financial, spiritual and future marital health.
(sources for all these studies are given on the site)

cohabitation:
does not lead to marriage in majority of cases, median duration of cohab is 1.3 yrs

risk of divorse for ch couples who marry is 50 to 100% higher

those couples who have had premarital sex are more likely to hae extramarital affairs

cohab couples argue, fight, shout and hit each other more than married couples

women are 62x more likely to be assaulted by live-in bf than by a husband

ch women have rates of depression 3x higher than married women

those who live together have much higher risk of std

pm sex creates emotional baggage that lays the groundwork for various marital problems

there is a lot more, but if you are looking for hard research data on various points this is a good starting point.

 

[thomasf]

I forgot I started this thread! Sorry about checking out for a week.

This has been very informative. I appreciate all the answers.

I am curious though. Is the biggest problem the church has with cohabitation based on the premarital sex part? Or is it considered a sin for some other reason? If a couple cohabitated without having sex, would it still be a sin?

From what I understand here, the biggest problem with cohabitating is the lack of committment that the couple has? In general, cohabitating couples aren’t really committed to each other to the extent that those that don’t cohabitate are?

Frankly, I don’t understand that. Why bother living with someone if you weren’t committed to them?

Again, I’m not trying to excuse it or promote it, but at the time we made this decision I was so not concerned with the catholic church and frankly didn’t care what other people said about it. It was a very secular decision, but not one I took lightly. It was something that I did with a great deal of committment and it was a very serious step. And at the time, I considered the living together step as a next step toward marriage. And the attitude and understanding I had of marriage was very secular and based in popular culture.

Obviously I’m not in that same place today, but it took a while for me to figure these things out. I always thought that our living together was a necessary step toward being married, which is why I asked the original question here. I have to admit, some of the responses really made me think and explore the issue in a different light and it has made me see things differently.

And I guess that the biggest problem I have in understanding the issue is that lack of committment thing. Because I made the decision knowing I was irreversably comitting to my wife and her girls. As much as I could in the place that I was in a secular/popular world. And while it was obviously not a religious committment or a sacramental marriage, I think that knowing that I was making an irreversable comittment, and knowing that there was no backing out really made the difference. And maybe the example of a real catholic marriage that I grew up with from my parents also help set me in the right way, I don’t know.

I will say this. I never heard, or at least I didn’t hear anything loud enough, from my parents about cohabitation being a bad thing. And my older sister also set an example when I was a kid by living with her husband to be. Although my mother didn’t approve, she never made the point of explaining why it was wrong and trying to set that into me. It might have made a difference. Not that it takes the responsibiltiy away from me for my decision.

 

[manualman]

LOL, a couple that gets naked together and showers together is not chaste regardless of whether or not they have actually had intercourse by Webster’s definition. Just ask Bill Clinton. (And I say that not in snide superiority, but as someone who learned the hard way when I was young and thought myself bullet-proof.)

Many a saint will advise you (if you bother to read them) that the way you resist your weaknesses is to KNOW your weaknesses and to modify your behavior to avoid being in situations where your weakness will overcome you.