Engaged----and NO I'm NOT living with my Fiance!

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Footprints04

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Hi All,

So in the last several months I’ve had several people…not close friends but aquaintances and yes, even extended family, ask me if my fiance and I are living together :confused:

It just annoys me that so many people ask me this question! I’m very much in line with the church on this issue…no I’m not a perfect person by any means, only Jesus was! 👍…but it just bothers me that people ask me this just in casual conversation. It just feels intrusive, but at the same time, I guess it gives me a chance to state a different answer from the assumed one! (I say no and sputter out something about living with a friend right now…just feels awkward though…even though it shouldn’t!!)

Has this happened to anyone else? What do you usually say to them?
 
It has not happened to me, but, in a perverse sense, I hope it does, as I am single. I would be proud to say, “How dare you presume I am so animalistic that I would sleep with my fiance before we were married. What kind of a sick person do you think I am?”

Okay, I would not actually say that as that is rather uncharitable. But I would still react with honest indignation.
 
It actually happens to me a lot. I am 37 and not living with my boyfriend and folks are very confused when they find out. They always assume that I am living with him. I give them no reason to think I live with him. I always say “his house” or “my house” and never “our house”, well 'cause it ain’t our house. But when they ask me why I’m not living with him, all I say is “becauase we aren’t married”. That simple statement actually astonishes them. It’s almost like a slap in the face. Makes me want to laugh. 👍
 
I’m not engaged yet, but I’ve been dating the love of my life for almost eighteen months. We’re in a long-distance relationship now, but people always assume that we lived together before, or if they don’t know he’s out of the country, they assume we live together now. When people ask me why we don’t live together, or why we’re not planning to live together right away, I take the opportunity to explain that I don’t believe in living together before marriage. My answer is just that if you’re ready to live together, you should be ready to get married. I’ve gotten into a few debates on it before, but they’ve always remained charitable.
 
Say you don’t want to ruin the marriage: and that you are not married: so why would they assume you can’t control your temptations, or aren’t true to your religion.

Or my Favourite: say you are Catholic, or Christian, so you don’t.

I don’t have a fiance, or girlfriend (currently), but that response usually leads to interesting, worthwhile communication, when used in other issues.
 
“I keep hearing that the divorce rate is higher for people who live together. I figure not living together is like marriage insurance.”
 
People are always asking me when my son and his girlfriend are going to take the next step and move in together… It’s a sad world we live in. 😦
 
Join the club! ^^ I am also engaged, and not living with my fiance. We are currently attending different schools, so no one has asked why we’re living apart, it’s pretty obvious. 😛 But for those who don’t know, and do assume, I just say “Oh, we’re Catholic, we’re not in to that sort of thing,” or something along those lines. I try to be friendly and casual about it, don’t make it a big deal. It should be normal, treat it like it is! 👍
 
I had forgotten about that, yes we did get asked that (and I went to school 802 miles away from where he worked). I would answer along the lines of “No, we won’t live together until we are married”, but trying not to sounds holier than though kind of thing, like pumpkinbeast said, casual, not a big deal, because that is how its supposed to be. Two situations came to mind, one where the girl who had asked replied with a “How romantic!” (she was serious, not sarcastic) when I told her, and another time that stands out was a couple months after we had gotten married, I was talking with a girl that worked at a store (I didn’t know her) and mentioned in conversation that I had gotten married that year, and she then proceeded to ask if we had lived together before getting married. I was like (in my mind) what kind of question is that?
 
Just smile and say, “No, and I’m not the kind of person who opens her presents before Christmas morning either.”

😉
 
Footprints04 said:
Hi All,

So in the last several months I’ve had several people…not close friends but aquaintances and yes, even extended family, ask me if my fiance and I are living together :confused:

It just annoys me that so many people ask me this question! I’m very much in line with the church on this issue…no I’m not a perfect person by any means, only Jesus was! 👍…but it just bothers me that people ask me this just in casual conversation. It just feels intrusive, but at the same time, I guess it gives me a chance to state a different answer from the assumed one! (I say no and sputter out something about living with a friend right now…just feels awkward though…even though it shouldn’t!!)

Has this happened to anyone else? What do you usually say to them?
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Hi “Footprints”. First of all, I wanted to say… GOOD for you and your fiance! 👍

I haven’t had this particular question asked of me. But a lady I once worked with, asked me a similar “none-of-yer-business” type question.

She very casually asked… “So, what method of birth control do YOU use?”

My reply: “ABSTINENCE”… left her with this expression :bigyikes: lol!!! It was priceless. She looked like I had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. :rotfl: But I bet she never asked anyone else that question.
 
MarieVeronica said:
Hi “Footprints”. First of all, I wanted to say… GOOD for you and your fiance! 👍

I haven’t had this particular question asked of me. But a lady I once worked with, asked me a similar “none-of-yer-business” type question.

She very casually asked… “So, what method of birth control do YOU use?”

My reply: “ABSTINENCE”… left her with this expression :bigyikes: lol!!! It was priceless. She looked like I had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. :rotfl: But I bet she never asked anyone else that question.
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Good on ya MarieVeronica!! I am not engaged but if I was and it was asked of me, I would say,

I’m just a good Catholic boy!
 
My girlfriend and I have been dating for years, and I get this question from time to time. I usually reply “Because I don’t want to” without specifying why I don’t want to. It’s not untrue, and seems to satisfy whomever is asking (I’ve never been asked to explain why).
 
My husband and I didn’t live with each other either and occasionally I come across someone who assumes we had. Especially now. People are still in the “So how’s married life?” phase because the wedding was fairly recent. But the “So how’s married life?” is sometimes followed by “Probably the same as pre-married life I’ll bet.” And I get that warm, fuzzy, newlywed smile and say “No! It’s totally different!”

The shock ranges from pleasant shock that there is a young couple that can do that…to…“you’re nuts!” shocked that we haven’t drawn blood yet because of all the fighting that is inevitable if you don’t know each other’s living habits. :rolleyes: But most calm down a little when I mention just how long I’ve actually known my husband. We’ve been buddies since we were wee freshmen in high school. There’s very little that would surprise me now.

Hope the person who ask me about what BC I use has a loooot of patience. I could rave about how awesome NFP is all day! We love it!
 
wynd said:
My girlfriend and I have been dating for years, and I get this question from time to time. I usually reply “Because I don’t want to” without specifying why I don’t want to. It’s not untrue, and seems to satisfy whomever is asking (I’ve never been asked to explain why).
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I’m in the same boat. I moved to a different city in the same state for school. We’ve been good with the not seeing each other thing. Anyway, she’s moving down here this fall to attend another school in the same city. Everyone is so surprised when I say, “Hey, you know any girls looking for a roommate?”

Her friends asked her why we’re not moving in together and my girlfriend said that she wasn’t going to “play house”. That cracked me up.
 
Yep, nobody in my family believed me when I said my fiance (now DH) and i were not planning to live together before marriage. And they didn’t believe we weren’t having sex before the wedding. Probably because my brother and his girlfriend were living together. Also they just didn’t trust me to be mature.

We got married a year after we got engaged; shortly before the wedding DH went out and bought a queen bed for our future home; he got a good deal and had it delivered to my apartment, so that I would have an extra bed for guests. My mom was scandalized: “you have a queen bed!” Ugh.

The priest who was preparing us for marriage said he was preparing about 15 other couples, and we were the ONLY ones not living together. He was so elated to hear we weren’t living together. I remember at the pre-Cana couples retreat, one of the women at our table was actually going around asking every other woman if they were having sex with their fiance! She wanted to see if they were the only “bad Catholics” as she put it. UGH. When I said, “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, we’re not living together or having relations,” she said, “Ooooh, I feel so sinful now!”

Even one of my best friends, who was living with her boyfriend, asked me, “How do you NOT?” (she meant, how do you not have sex) I said, “How do you not step in front of a moving vehicle? How do you not eat that last cupcake, if you know it will make you feel horrible?”

Geez Louise.
 
That happened to me all the time when I was engaged. At the time I was in grad school at a state university…so I ran into all sorts of people with all sorts of ideas about how things should go. When they asked I’d just look them straight in the face and say “No” as if to say, “next question?” Nobody pushed further or seemed to have too much of a reaction - but I can see where it gets a little irritating.😉
 
My usual answer is something like, blank stare “No…” questioning stare “… why would you think that?”

I like to convey to people how bizarre the concept is to me, without being uncharitable.
 
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