Having girlfriend stay over at my house, with my parents and in separate rooms

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Hi, I live at home with my parents and i have a girlfriend. Is there anything wrong with her staying over occasionally in a separate room downstairs (my room is upstairs)? I do not stay with her at her house as she only has one room and has no parent living with her and i could understand people getting the wrong idea from that.

BUT I thought that if my parents live with me, this will make a difference since she is a guest in my parents house and we are both developing christians.

Other things that may need to know, we USED to have sex but we gave it up as a response to GOD working in our hearts (which was very transforming), we used to stay in the same bed, and gave that up as well.

when we did all these things, i spoke to my friends and confessed to them what we had done and now what we were going to do about it (i.e. not have sex and not stay in the same bed)

I thought as a second question, what are your thoughts about the time i leave my girlfriends place. I would never stay over but i thought that if i went in there and didn’t come out until 2am (because we watch movies and just hang) that this may cause people to think that we are having sex or getting up to know good. DO catholics (especially Uni students) have to have a curfew? (this might be a bit scrupulous)

just wanted peoples thoughts about this.
 
You’re in the clear. Seems like you and your girlfriend have made some sensible decisions, based on your growing faith.
What more could people want from young Christians?
You are an example to other young people.

As for the matter of staying up late, let people think what they like. If your conscience is clear, there’s no problem.
 
I’m very proud of you both for turning from lust and entering more deeply into a relationship centered on Christ. “For a three-fold chord is not easily undone” not only helps unite you two to one another but to Christ, such that you honor Him by your obedience and honor one another by your chastity.

When making decisions like this, and it’s clear you’re thinking very well on them, worry first about yourselves and what your limits and mindsets are, and second about what others think. Strictly speaking, a boy can visit a girl for 15 minutes and commit grave sin while another couple could watch a 22-hour movie marathon (Lord of the Rings on blu-ray! With all the extras! And bathroom breaks! And lessons in Dwarvish!) and only be guilty of the venial sin of wasting a perfectly good Saturday.

So I think sleeping in separate rooms is probably best from a self-control standpoint. She’s your girlfriend, you’re attracted to each other, separation is good. Having your parents there of course presents the opportunity for them to be chaperones but in reality she’s a guest at your house and you’re under their rules and bound to respect your parents even when your parents are away.

Likewise with not sleeping over at her place. If it is 2 a.m., I’d rather you sack out on the couch or on a bedroll than drive home that tired.

And if you doze off cuddling on the couch watching a movie, that’s no sin - you’re asleep - and you’re probably mature enough to not expect every physical contact to lead to …ahem…
 
I think you’ve made a good choice as far as her staying in a seperate room at your parents. It’s what happens with my FH and I when I go over to his parents house and end up staying late.

As far as “what people think” - some people see scandal wherever they look. Don’t worry about it. If you and your girlfriend want to fall asleep watching movies, or if you want to sleep on her couch because it’s so late, do it. Send a text to your parents letting them know what’s up so they don’t worry when you don’t come home, and then get some rest. If other people choose to be scandalized by it, that’s their problem.

My FH and I make a lot of jokes about it, because we live in a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, and everyone is Catholic. He was walking me home from mass one Sunday, and we were holding hands. He stopped to give me a kiss on the cheek, and tell me how beautiful I looked. When we got back to my apartment, he had a message on his phone from his mother. Apparently one of her neighbors had seen us “making out on the street corner”. You can’t control what some people decide to tell themselves to pass the time. There are a lot of negative people who feed on scandal.🤷
 
My husband and I had a long distance relationship for most of our courtship. We relied very much on our parents to provide us with a place to sleep. During our courtship, I lived with my parents (as did all my adult siblings. My mom argued it was to help us save a nest egg while we were single, but I’ve realized since that deep down she didn’t want to be an empty nester). My husband was a student and multiple living arrangements. During our courtship, he rented a house with some friends, he dormed, he rented his own apartment and he lived with his parents.

The situation that helped us remain the most chaste, honestly, was when my husband slept on the couch in my parents’ house while I slept in my bedroom. This brought with it supervision. It was obvious if we were going to my room and it didn’t provide us with “his room” for us to be tempted to go into as well.

My sister and her husband also acted similiarly. They, too, had a long distance relationship. He moved up to be with her once they were engaged. Since he was just settling in the area, my parents’ offered their place to him. He had a room downstairs while she had a room upstairs. Once they got married, she moved into his room for the first couple of months of their marriage till they finally got a place of their own.

Our very conservative priest approved of this. In fact, when it came to establishing my own apartment that my husband would move into after we were married, I hesitated and considered delaying it till we were closer to our wedding date. My experience from when he had his own apartment that the access to a lone apartment was a greater temptation than access to a bedroom at your parents’ place. I talked about this concern with my priest and he agreed that neither choice was perfect and adviced me to pray about it. Another priest admitted that while in publically he condemns living together before marriage, that when he councils couples individually, he admits that its not so clean cut. You can do just as wrong by staying up later and later (like 2am or 4am) at your fiancee’ place.

Another thing to consider is that when people moved away from having suitors call on you, to going out on dates, dating actually increased couples opportunities for sexual immorality. Its the whole moving from the front porch with your parents’ lurking, to the back seat of a car hidding out from everyone’s sight. I mean, if you think about it, in Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice”, Jane spends the night at Mr. Bingley’s house for over a week. You read it in the book and there is most certainly no undertone of “Oh they’re going to be unchaste now.”

I would say, though, to warrent her spending the night, you need a real reason. It can’t be because you want to hang out when she’s getting too tired to drive home. You have to call it a night and in many respects limit your time (and thus your opportunities) together while still adequately spending time getting to know each other.
 
I think it is good that you live with your parents so that when she comes over there is supervision. However, the issue comes when the two of you are alone in her apartment late at night. It’s not so much the scandal that is the problem as it is the fact that you are alone at 2 am. When it is late and people are tired they are less likely to listen to their inhibitions. Also, if you are tired you may be less likely to want to drive home after and you may be tempted to spend the night. Is there a reason you need to stay over so late? Sometimes its best to limit time spent together. If you plan your day right, you can still watch a movie and go home by 10pm.
 
Thankyou all for your replies,

You have given me a large amount of comfort in dealing with this area of life! Thanyou for the time and effort you have all given in answering my question.

May God Bless you all on your journey!
 
You said you confessed to your friends. Have you confessed to your priest?
 
Hello! I have a similar situation. I’m 25 years old and my fiancée is 22 years old (we hope to marry young 🙂 )

We don’t live at the same city and at weekends I usually go to visit her. I live with a (male) friend and she lives with 4 (female) friends. During summer I used to go to her mother’s home, and sleep there. Now we try to sleep at different houses, but when she visits me she has no place to stay, so she sleeps at my bedroom and I sleep at the sitting room.

We have been together since a year and a half ago, and we have not had any problem.

Try to love her, pray for remain chaste and pray together in front of the Blessed Sacrament. And forget about what people might think, you’re not hiding anything.
 
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