Cohabitation

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Joshua66

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This question and story is not in regards of me, it is something that occurred in the past and I’d like an opinion of, if kind enough to read.

*A man was dating a woman for 1.5 years and they were both practicing Catholics. They lived good moral lives and lived by God’s laws. One day the man decided to move away from his home for his new job which was about 5 hours away from where the woman lived, but it was far.

The man did not want to leave the woman however, and he asked her to come with her. At this point in their relationship they felt very committed to each other but were still only regarded as a simple couple. She did agree, because she loved him very much and didn’t want him to leave her, and moved with him away from their homes. They both lived together, but never slept with each other, and lived together almost as if they were husband and wife.

This man ended up however proposing to this woman, whom he loved equally as much, 5 months later, and they became married. They are still together, practicing their faith, and raising their children up to a Catholic faith.*

In my heart, I know what God has made Holy men must acknowledge, and there are no special exceptions, otherwise it is unholy. But how grave is this sin considered, how evil is it and what effect could it have on them or any couple who knowingly go against God’s will to make it convenient for themselves to stay happily together.
In my heart, I believe the blessings and graces of Matrimony and the communion of two people with God, and the two flesh becoming one, can only be Holy and blessed with pure and sincere love, to be temperate and pure, and to wait for God to make your union true and complete in his eyes and the Church through actually receiving the Sacrament.
Was it evil of them to live together like this? What is wrong and did it ruin the marriage?
Could this sin in any way their children?
I feel like everyone is always doing what is easy for themselves and they are falling in with worldly opinion, and they are not pleasing God in some of the most important and unique ways, even though they follow the rest of His laws and His holy will and they are still regarded as good people. Your spouse to be, or the woman you are seeing that you admire and hold deeply in your heart, your union with her shouldn’t be ruined by living together before married, especially if you didn’t even know for sure you would be married. I feel like it corrupts and ruins the marriage and their love, even if they do become married. Am I the only one today who thinks this is wrong and has a serious effect of the fulness of the Vocation of Service to another? I stress over it because I believe that through Christ’s death He has given marriage the dignity to be a Sacrament makes it so much more holy, as opposed to living together or practicing it, whether or not you do marry. I just feel like it is such an abuse of the true gift, and I believe it was the greatest gift we could ever receive through Jesus, sanctifying and making a bond between to people holy and making them one with each other and God.
I just wanted some opinions is all.
*
I apologize for the long post, I tried to make it short and informative as possible… *
 
God does have a plan for the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the Church has wise rules for us to follow in order to remain closest to God. The Church wisely ask that couples do not cohabitate. Even when couples chose to cohabitate and refrain from sexual activity, it still can be a source of scandal. Their living together can cause others to feel they also should follow that living arrangement - most likely without the ability to refrain from sexual sins.

There is, however, no need for you to dwell on if the couple you mention were sinning or if it effected their marriage.

We can all look at our lives and see where we should have done something different.

The couple you mention seems to be currently following the teachings of the Church - in being married and raising their children in the faith. Let’s not look upon them and decide what they did wrong.
 
Why is this couple’s situation bothering you so? If it was sinful for them to do this at the time, they are now married, and we would presume they are in good standing with the Church.

Let it go.
 
There is nothing wrong, per se, with two people of the opposite gender living in the same house. There are, however, three problems which very often accompany this kind of living arrangement, especially if the abovementioned people are in a romantic relationship.
  1. Actual sexual sin
  2. Near occasion of sexual sin
  3. scandal (encouraging others to sin by giving the appearance of sinning and so making the idea of sinning appear to be morally ok)
Now, in the above scenario, 1 and 2 don’t really seem to be a problem, but there is a very good chance that 3 would still be a very real concern. So it was still most likely a sinful thing to do.

Did it ruin the marriage? That would depend on the particular couple involved. If entangling their finances and lives to this degree caused them to avoid breaking up because it would be too much hassle when they should have broken up then yes, it will effect their marriage. If, however, they carefully discerned marriage with each other, both being willing to break up if their discernment led to that conclusion despite the added difficulty their financial entanglement would bring, then I don’t really see why it would detrimentally effect their marriage.
Will it effect the Children? Again, that depends on the particulars involved in that case. If their children learn of their parents example and so think that such behavior is perfectly ok, they may get into a similar situation, and, at the very least cause scandal, but also, if they are not as disciplined as their parents, end up falling into sexual immorality as well. They may also not discern marriage as carefully because of their financial and life entanglements. Again, this may or may not happen. There is absolutely no gaurantee one way or the other. 🤷

But why waste time worrying about it? Whats done is done. What is left to this couple now is to live their life as well as they can, working in the present to become the best people they can be. We are all sinners. We all fail to be perfect. We are all called to repentance and to attempt to improve ourselves, to pick up our own personal cross and follow Christ. Worrying about the past will not really help anyone here.
 
the OP could just be using the story as an example to emphasis his feelings towards cohabitation and reasons why people who are dating should not cohabitate, at least that is how i took it.

Cohabitation does happen more often than not, it probably would be ideal for those who are dating and are practicing catholics / christians , to not cohabitate…

though society now has brainwashed the majority into thinking it is the norm and okay, perhaps the question might be is it okay to cohabitate as long as there is no sexual relationship ? More over how does one convince a family member who is catholic, but not practicing, and is in a good a loving relationship, not married, and also sexually active in that relationship, that what he or she is doing is morally wrong / or against catholic teaching ( or what ever is the proper technical terminology to explain ) .

and then how do you bring that message across with out sounding like you are damning that family member or turning your nose up at him or her.

Cohabitation is hard to wrap ones brain around when those in question are not practicing catholics, and are in a wonderful relationship , on top of that try explaining to a couple why they should not have premarital sex , even though they honestly do love each other and more likely than not will end up getting married and live a peaceful and happy life together.
 
I agree with No. 3, it really doesn’t seem to be your business especially since they’re happily married and practicing Catholics. maybe they confessed their sin, were absolved are are no longer wringing their hands over it.

that kind of sin is probably a lot more common than you think but people confess, are forgiven and move on. and believe me, if you are ever married, you’ll face challenges magnitudes worse than this one and after 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years or marriage, whatever happened back then will be totally forgotten.

and how do you know that “they both lived together, but never slept with each other, and lived together almost as if they were husband and wife.” that seems kinda creepy that someone would share or ask that kind of question.
 
I take this to be a hypothetical question. It seems to me that the living together needs confession and then whether the children are affected would depend on whether they found out and if so if it did change their beliefs and actions, as thewanderer posted.
 
According to Saint Paul, “All things are permitted, but not all things are of benefit.” (Excluding obvious mortal sin, inferred from context)

“Cohabitation” means most directly living as a married couple. This really shouldn’t be done outside of marriage. Marriage is a not just the fun business of producing children, but also the unpleasant business of paying bills and cleaning the toilet. A romantic relationship with one, but not the other, is incomplete, which could be damaging. Sin is damage to relationships, whether the relationships is with God, or one another.

It was a temporary solution to a difficult problem that the couple experienced in the OP’s narrative. Any longer, and frustrations could have caused them to break up, or engage in explicitly sinful behavior. They probably did no long term harm in this arrangement, but going through the trouble of establishing two households, even for just those few months, could have actually strengthened their bond!
 
Joe_5859 said:
Why is this couple’s situation bothering you so? If it was sinful for them to do this at the time, they are now married, and we would presume they are in good standing with the Church.

Let it go.
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Fairwinds said:
I agree with No. 3, it really doesn’t seem to be your business especially since they’re happily married and practicing Catholics. maybe they confessed their sin, were absolved are are no longer wringing their hands over it.

that kind of sin is probably a lot more common than you think but people confess, are forgiven and move on. and believe me, if you are ever married, you’ll face challenges magnitudes worse than this one and after 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years or marriage, whatever happened back then will be totally forgotten.

and how do you know that “they both lived together, but never slept with each other, and lived together almost as if they were husband and wife.” that seems kinda creepy that someone would share or ask that kind of question.
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I say all this because this is how my parents lived and behaved. They saw their love seriously and with great respect and holiness and never wanted to do anything against the will of our God or our Heavenly Mother, whom they both relied on greatly for their love and courtship.

This is very frustrating for me because my parents are the most old fashioned, religious people I’ve ever known and my father was my role model to be Holy and he made me realize how important our faith is , and it does not sway me or inspire me to act like them, but I do not mean to judge them either. I just feel that no one seems to respect the sanctity and purity of man an woman living together as one through the will of God, not through their own will. And I feel almost in a sense let down because my father who valued his family and his values so much would do this, but perhaps he was ultimately moved to do this and so was my mother.

It’s my belief that man should meet the woman God has chosen for them and to do His will and grow in love with their spouse for God and each other.

I feel let down and I’m lost again. I have always looked to my father as my inspiration of faith and virtue, and to know he did something like that just let me down. I held him at a high regard, and I’m just aggravated. I swore to myself I would never co habitat with another woman or give up my chastity in any circumstance. This only inspired me more not to be like my parents, if God willing I should ever be blessed with a woman in my life, to not live with them before blessed with marriage.

I don’t know if what my dad did was wrong, I don’t know what he thought in his heart and I know he won’t tell me because he doesn’t want me to do what he did. The fact that my grandparents knew of it as well also makes me question what their judgement was of them as well.

I pray to my Holy Mother, that she may remind everyone the importance of chastity and love in all it’s forms, and the importance of the married life, because I feel everyone has neglected the holiness and significant values of it. I pray for peace amongst all couples and spouses that they may live holy lives and teach their children the importance of it as well. I wish more people shared my opinion, but I guess I’m just more different from everyone else, or I’m more of an old geezer than my parents.

Thank you for your posts and replies, I appreciate the other posters as well giving their advice and their opinion. This was significantly important to me. God Bless.
 
Joshua66 said:
I say all this because this is how my parents lived and behaved. …
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You discovered your parents were human, that’s all.

here’s my story Dad dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Navy a month after Pearl Harbor. before he shipped out, he married Mom in a civil ceremony. my sister was one of those wartime babies with a gestation period of only 5 months (a priest told me that joke). they were married 67 years when she passed away. other than them, no one in the family knew when their anniversary date was. further, they married in the Church 10 years later and this wasn’t discovered until we were going through papers after her death. (that’s right, they got married in the Church and my then-10 year old sister didn’t know).

did this have downstream effects on the next generation? probably, almost certainly yes in particulars that aren’t important to this post. not because of the sin … the sin could be forgiven and that should have been the end of it. maybe it was. I know that there was a lot of shame over the pregnancy, and what is shame but a tool of the devil) and much secrecy that can poison relationships even in the following generations.

all in all, it would have been better, I think, if they’d brought it up and explained it to us kids when we were old enough to know as a object lesson of things not to do (sex before marriage) and things to do (confession and let it go).

I can’t give advice*, but I wish I’d asked Dad about all this long, long ago.

F/
ok, I can give advice: in early position, fold any pair of aces against two raises and multiple callers.
 
Joshua66 said:
I say all this because this is how my parents lived and behaved. They saw their love seriously and with great respect and holiness and never wanted to do anything against the will of our God or our Heavenly Mother, whom they both relied on greatly for their love and courtship.
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I suspected this might be the case. The concern with which you asked about this specific situation that was definitely in the past made me think this was not just a hypothetical thought exercise.

I understand feeling let down and somewhat disillusioned. It is always difficult to find out less-than-perfect details about our parents’ past. I have been there.

I would suggest focusing on the positives and doing your best to withhold judgment on those aspects where you don’t have the complete story (and you probably really don’t need the complete story).

The positive is that your parents remained commited to chastity, even in that situation. That is very rare and very admirable. Further, they are now validly married in the Church, they are Catholics in good standing, and they obviously did a pretty good job instilling the faith in you for you to be bothered by this. So regardless of the past, where things stand now is very good. And that’s far more important.

I wouldn’t judge them or your grandparents too harshly over it. Trust me, just because your grandparents knew about it does not necessarily mean they were okay with it. Knowing when to bite your tongue is a skill every parent must learn eventually.

Obviously, in hindsight and having the benefit of not being in the midst of the situation, it is easy to think of better ways they might have handled it. But we all encounter circumstances where we have to make a judgment call. And as you said, you don’t know what was in your Mom’s and Dad’s heart at the time.

There is a temptation, I think, to let knowledge of the past change our perception of the present. That is a natural inclination, but when it comes to matters of sin, God’s forgiveness and mercy has no memory. It is in the past and cannot be changed. Focus on who your parents are now. That hasn’t changed. And certainly their past action does not change who you are: a child of God created in His image and likeness, endowed with inviolable dignity and loved unconditionally by the infinite God.

Keep praying. Draw close to the Lord. These types of things unsettle us for a time. But God brings peace. Stay close to Him and that peace will come.
 
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