Cohabitation: Okay In Exceptional Circumstance?

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So, someone tried to help you and instead of answering tactfully, you tell them their answer is moronic.
 
I agree, it isn’t just what people think or say. 😃 I wish I had a nice source for what apologists are thinking when they call the topic of this thread “scandal”. I was hoping you might know, since you often know stuff around here.
 
Irishmom2 said:
So, someone tried to help you and instead of answering tactfully, you tell them their answer is moronic.
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You really think that mid word caps are a good idea? It’s completely unreadable. I had a perfectly fine username I’d be happy to change it to. I dIdN’t NeEd SomE leSsoN on WhaT mAy bE a gOod iDea.

I offered to change my name out of respect for the fact there was a previous poster. I don’t need tips on how to look like an uneducated idiot with a cat that stepped on my capslock key.
 
I don’t believe I ever said it was a good or bad idea. I said your response was tactless. That’s all. Over and out.
 
Irishmom2 said:
I don’t believe I ever said it was a good or bad idea. I said your response was tactless. That’s all. Over and out.
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Whatever. I got my point across. Maybe you can dust off the old Websters before you make silly suggestions.
 
Xanthippe, welcome to Catholic Answers!

It’s kind of hot today. 😓
 
Come on, Irishmom2! Xanthippe has his or her reputation to think of! He or she doesn’t need you making suggestions that will make him or her look ridiculous! How could anyone take someone seriously who (gasp) has an unconventional use of capital letters in their username?

Don’t worry. No one’s going to confuse the two posters for very long.
 
I would be more concerned about your readiness for marriage, to be honest. If you feel like you’re dependent on him, it’s going to be harder to look at things with a clear head. That comes as much from secular advice as religious. When you feel like you can’t manage on your own without someone it’s harder for you to see things that might be problems. Conversely, it can more easily create resentment on his part later on. I’d try to get to where you can stand on your own two feet, and are, before moving into marriage.
 
Ukelala91 said:
Hey folks! So here’s my situation. I intend to talk it through with a priest/spiritual director, but in the meantime, I thought I’d ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ for advice.

I come from an abusive home: mostly emotionally, but on a couple occasions, physically. I’m in my mid-twenties, but was living at home as I prayerfully discerned marriage. I am now dating the man I will-- God willing-- marry, as soon as possible. I also lived at home because I didn’t have the money to afford rent in an expensive part of the country, nor to leave my good Catholic job and move out of state!

I was kicked out by my parents and am currently living with my boyfriend. We have separate bedrooms but do have to share a bathroom (not at the same time, obviously). We are both very faithful Catholics and adhere to chastity closely. It’s difficult, and sometimes we find ourselves in Confession for overstepping a line, but we are abstaining from sexual activity until marriage, and have kept that vow.

It looks like us living together is the only feasible option financially. I cannot afford my own rent, and I don’t have any close female friends who live on their own whom I can stay with on a charity-basis. Going home is not an option any more; I will love my family and keep as close to them as is healthy, but it’s not safe or good for me to live there anymore. My question is: can my boyfriend and i avoid scandal? Can we keep our situation quiet until our upcoming engagement and marriage? (Which will happen as soon as we’ve saved a little more) Is there any time when cohabitation, in a crazy circumstance like this, is okay?

EDIT: other comments asked why I cannot move in with a friend or someone I met through craigslist. It’s important to note that my budget allows me about $150 extra that I could put towards rent. I expect this amount to increase as I advance in my career, and I have savings for my future marriage, but I really cannot afford rent.
What I REALLY need advice about is how to avoid scandal.

Thanks and God Bless!
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I lived with my wife before marriage, so I understand your situation.

The way I see it, here are the issues with co-habitation in your situation:
  1. When you live together (even in separate bedrooms) it creates the near occasion of sin. In the Our Father prayer, we say “lead us not into temptation…,” but co-habitation is a situation where we are deliberately putting ourselves into temptation. So that’s something you have to work though.
  2. It’s very difficult to avoid scandal in this situation. Reason: very few people are going to believe that you are actually being chaste. Even if you have separate bedrooms & actually are chaste, most people will be saying in the back of their heads “come on, I wasn’t born yesterday!” They will either (a) not believe you actually have a separate bedroom or (b) assume that you don’t actually sleep in your bed.
  • Because it’s human nature to jump to conclusions, the only way I can see you avoiding scandal is by preventing people from knowing that you are living with your boyfriend. Because again, very few people (family included) will truly believe that you are remaining chaste.
My suggestion is for you to speak with your priest (or spiritual director) regularly and to go to confession regularly (assuming your priest doesn’t tell you to refrain from the sacraments). If you don’t have a good spiritual director, please ask your priest to help you find a good one.

God bless!
 
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Living in the same apartment is not intrinsically evil; you are not co-habitating in the sexual sense. So the morality depends on intention and circumstances. One circumstance is the near occasion of sin. Another is giving scandal. You can take various steps to avoid near occasion of sin and to avoid scandal. It’s difficult to judge whether this is the best living situation for you or not (so I won’t try).

I think people who know you will believe that you are not sleeping together. You can simply explain the situation. And then keep the information away from most persons; don’t volunteer it. Giving scandal is not intrinsically evil, so it is not always wrong. But it does weigh in the font of circumstances.
 
Yes.

It could also potentially create validity problems (or at least concerns about validity) if the relationship and marriage are the only path the OP has to escaping an abusive family.

So, even just from the point of view of the success of your future marriage, try to achieve enough independence so that you are freely choosing him.
 
DarkLight said:
I would be more concerned about your readiness for marriage, to be honest. If you feel like you’re dependent on him, it’s going to be harder to look at things with a clear head. That comes as much from secular advice as religious. When you feel like you can’t manage on your own without someone it’s harder for you to see things that might be problems. Conversely, it can more easily create resentment on his part later on. I’d try to get to where you can stand on your own two feet, and are, before moving into marriage.
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Ohhh good point, thank you! This is the kind of thing I was referring to when I was talking about the issues that the OP likely faces when going from an abusive home to a co-dependent relationship.
 
DarkLight said:
I would be more concerned about your readiness for marriage, to be honest. If you feel like you’re dependent on him, it’s going to be harder to look at things with a clear head. That comes as much from secular advice as religious. When you feel like you can’t manage on your own without someone it’s harder for you to see things that might be problems. Conversely, it can more easily create resentment on his part later on. I’d try to get to where you can stand on your own two feet, and are, before moving into marriage.
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Yes, statistics show that couples who live together before marriage have a higher probability of getting divorced. This is because their marriage is often not fully discerned.

It’s hard to explain online, but I will use this as an example. As I’ve stated before, I lived with my wife before we were engaged. I have no idea if we would have gotten married if we never moved in together. Maybe we would have or maybe not. I don’t know. What I do know is that when you live together, it becomes very hard to take a break, or have space to think. You become used to their presence, even if they are not the person who is truly compatible to you.

Finally, marriage compatibility has little to do with “do we get along when playing house” or sex. It has everything to do with kids and marital troubles. If a couple disagrees with how to raise kids, that will cause major strains on the marriage. And different financial priorities and other differences in priorities can become a major issue too, esp when there are priority conflicts. These are issues that are rarely experienced before marriage, even with living together. So when couples live together and think things are fine because they get along … they often don’t listen to the words in the back of their head telling them he/she isn’t a match because of X, Y & Z.

Anyway… as I said before, please see a priest and get a good spiritual director if you don’t have one.

God Bless.
 
It’s very difficult to avoid scandal in this situation. Reason: very few people are going to believe that you are actually being chaste. Even if you have separate bedrooms & actually are chaste, most people will be saying in the back of their heads “come on, I wasn’t born yesterday!” They will either (a) not believe you actually have a separate bedroom or (b) assume that you don’t actually sleep in your bed.

I’m single. Last Saturday night I invited a lady I am dating over for dinner at my place. We had a delightful evening, good conversation,listened to some “oldies” music we liked and watched a movie that she had told me about. She left my place at about 2 a.m. and drove home (about 3 miles) alone. That’s the extent of the evening.

Did I give scandal to the neighbors for entertaining a date at home? Because if I did, I can give you a whole bunch more innocent situations that can be considered "SCANDAL!!!.

The OP explained that she is not sleeping with here BF. Why not believe her, and congratulate her (and him) on their restraint and intention to color within the lines.

There’s an awful lot of judgment and pontificating going on here. I encourage her to do what other posters and she has said. Keep the situation to yourself, low key, and really, once explained it is nobody’s business. People are going to believe what they want.

And then again, my advice would be to set a drop dead date for the proposal and subsequent engagement. If he agrees and then finds excuses as to why he can’t commit, hire a good moving company and get out. I mean, one has to be awake and realistic.

Shalom
 
joeybaggz said:
It’s very difficult to avoid scandal in this situation. Reason: very few people are going to believe that you are actually being chaste. Even if you have separate bedrooms & actually are chaste, most people will be saying in the back of their heads “come on, I wasn’t born yesterday!” They will either (a) not believe you actually have a separate bedroom or (b) assume that you don’t actually sleep in your bed.

I’m single. Last Saturday night I invited a lady I am dating over for dinner at my place. We had a delightful evening, good conversation,listened to some “oldies” music we liked and watched a movie that she had told me about. She left my place at about 2 a.m. and drove home (about 3 miles) alone. That’s the extent of the evening.

Did I give scandal to the neighbors for entertaining a date at home? Because if I did, I can give you a whole bunch more innocent situations that can be considered "SCANDAL!!!.

The OP explained that she is not sleeping with here BF. Why not believe her, and congratulate her (and him) on their restraint and intention to color within the lines.

There’s an awful lot of judgment and pontificating going on here. I encourage her to do what other posters and she has said. Keep the situation to yourself, low key, and really, once explained it is nobody’s business. People are going to believe what they want.

And then again, my advice would be to set a drop dead date for the proposal and subsequent engagement. If he agrees and then finds excuses as to why he can’t commit, hire a good moving company and get out. I mean, one has to be awake and realistic.

Shalom
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Joey - I didn’t create the definition of scandal. The description of your date (which sounded lovely) most likely would not be considered scandalous to most adults. However, if you are 16 years old, then it very well could be scandals. Or if your date had younger siblings at home, where staying out late could be considered setting a bad example, then it might be scandalous. Of if you live a dorm a traditional Catholic College where their is a curfew of “no members of the opposite sex in the dorm room after 11PM or 12PM or 1AM.” Then, it would be scandals.

The point is: scandal is when our example could be used by someone else to justify a sinful act, even if we are not sinning.

And the notion that I can do what I want because “it’s really nobody’s business” is not Catholic, but is a result of the Americanism and Protestantism heresies.

Now, I NEVER passed any judgement on the OP. I never said she is subjectively guilt of scandal. Only God knows that. However, the OP’s living arrangement is OBJECTIVELY scandalous.

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I speak from personal experience. I’m the oldest of 5 kids. I lived with my girlfriend (now wife) long before we were engaged. My example was extremely scandalous on many fronts.
  1. It softened my parents (who were totally against co-habitation) to not only being accepting of the co-habitation, but starting to think it was actually a good thing. This allowed my brother to move in with his girlfriend while she was still in college, and they lived together for a few years until they have a terrible break up.
  2. My younger sister (who is 8 years younger) came to stay with us one weekend. My example, made her think that premarital sex was OK and she wound up receiving lots of psychological damage due to guys who used her before she found a good Christian man who wanted to wait until marriage.
  3. My youngest sister, who is 11 years younger than me entered into a serious relationship with her boyfriend while in middle school, got pregnant at 18 (out of wedlock), and today, 11 years later is still living with with the same boyfriend, unmarried after all these years. My example taught her that marriage isn’t a necessity.
  4. My two brothers both had children out of wedlock, and I really screwed up my one brother when he would come visit me in college with alcohol.
  5. My co-habitation was also used as a example by two of my cousins when they were trying to convince their parents to allow them to co-habituate. It worked on one, while the other would have if it wasn’t for the other set of parents saying “we will accept you spending the night in his apartment, but you will be cut off if you move in with him.”
  6. Finally, my mother-in-law, who was against co-habitation and who wanted to one day get re-married before my wife & I co-habitated, is now co-habitating with her “boyfriend.” She now has no desire to marry and has at least referenced our example as reason why co-habitation is now ok. One of the phrases that the baby-boomers who co-habitat or who now approve of co-habitation say “all the kids to it now-a-days.” So here is a 2nd example of my co-habitation causing scandal to parents (both my parents and my mother-in-law).
Now, do I know that things would have turned out differently if I didn’t commit all that scandal? No, I don’t. Each of them my still have done what they did, as I’m sure I wasn’t the only person providing scandal in their lives. However, do I know that my example contributed to all of their bad decisions? Yes, it did. Did I physically make them do all those things? No. But am I objectively guilty of scandal? 100%, yes. Am I subjectively guilt of scandal? I think so, but only God knows the level of my guilt.

I pray I’m making sense.

God Bless.
 
My opinion is that it’s nobody’s business except yours, your boyfriend’s, and your priest’s.
Please speak to the priest about your situation.

We are well past the times when a couple living together, or living separately but one is “staying over” a lot, caused any sort of “scandal”. The only things you have to worry about are 1) putting yourself in an occasion of sin, and 2) if you are planning to get married in your church eventually, dealing with the priest’s questions regarding your living situation. Depending on your priest, the latter may be an issue when you go in to make the arrangements to get married, and you don’t want any surprises.

If you are looking for people on the Internet to give you opinions that it’s just fine and dandy, coming to this board was definitely dialing a wrong number.
 
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I believe there are a lot of priests out there who don’t see cohabitation as an issue at all. So unless you have a good spiritual director, just beware of that. 😉

Some really good comments from 1ke, Ron_Conte already…

There are just so many things that could be considered “near occasions of sin” whether living together or not. For some, just seeing someone of the opposite sex, or just hearing their voice could be tempting. We could name all sort of things that could be considered concupiscent. Are we just going to end up plucking out our eyes as the Bible literally says?

We should not interpret Church teaching as the Pharisees did! Circumstances and situations do indeed matter especially when it comes to morality.

@OP: Think for yourself.
 
I might advise also a discussion with a marriage counselor before the actual marriage, as well as a therapist for yourself. From a purely secular point of view, it is often difficult for those coming out of abusive backgrounds to form healthy relationships, and being dependent upon your intended will only make that harder. It would be wise to have someone with the experience to help guide you.
 
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