Help!...surrounded by fornicating, cohabitating neighbors

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…your never going to be able to move away from sin (logistically speaking)… you will always see sin… especially if you look REAL hard for it…

http://mediasoftware.free.fr/index.1.jpg
…look for ways to ignore what’s going on next door…
good luck with your situation… if i sounded a little harsh to start with i apologize, … it just appears that you spend a lot of time looking… i’m sure that i am mistaken…Peace:thumbsup:
 
space ghost:
…close your curtains and quit being so nosey…:cool:

…you won’t have to look far to find sin all around you…anywhere!!:eek:

…yep, go to daily mass and pray to be more concerned with your timbers rather than someone elses splinters…:cool:

…continue to be a shinning christian example… 😃
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You got it right Space Ghost.I found that the more time I spend praying and studying the bible the less time I have to worry about my neighbors.
 
:dancing: Good call, Space Ghost! Perhaps when the cnildren start to notice the actions of the neighbor it would be a good time to start pointing out that not everybody lives the same way, and seque into why Catholics believe they have a better way. If they get that, solicit suggestions from the children about how they can help the neighbor learn about godliness. You can be neighborly without condoning a lifestyle. But kindness, kindness! When you turn down a sleep-over, simply say no. You don’t have to explain, you know. Tact and kindness do not require you to explain if it would harm your neighbor. Be friendly, say hello, offer to snow-blow his walk as well as yours, or water the lawn, or some such act of non-commital kindness. He doesn’t necessarily want to offend you, probably doesn’t realize it does. But even if he is selfish enough to flaunt it on purpose to insult you (doesn’t sound that bad though) remember to return insult with kindness. Perhaps the children would like to pray for his conversion, and watch for the results of their prayers…they are natural evangelists, just need to be taught forbearance and tact sometimes… 😉
 
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felra:
I live in a transitional neighborhood where retired long-term residents are moving out, and young adult single folks purchasing a starter/transitional home are moving in. There are 3 cohabitating couples within a stones throw distance away. I have preteen children. Our strategy thus far has been to keep aloof to minimize exposure to this sinful lifestyle.

Now, a young adult gentleman has moved into the house next door. Two nights, two different females spent the night. I find myself wincing, preparing for the worst, and forming an impression and disgustful attitude toward this person already. The houses are in close proximity.

The only strategies I can think of with this new neighbor is to 1) avoid/minimize exposure, 2) sooner than later note and clarify his lifestyle intentions and let it be known my Christian values, and/or 3) pray/fast, be patient, bide time for example/words to witness to the truth of the Gospel (with the sinful lifestyle as a symptom of need for conversion). I tend not to be a head in the sand type of person. Note: We plan to move out in @ 3/5years time. Any thoughts as we consider our coping options?
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Wow, for a moment I thought that I was being described, then I saw that this was a recent development, and I’ve lived in my home for about 15 years. My advice is to MYOB! It could be a lot worse… you could live in a ‘hood’ full of crack dealers, druggies and criminals like I do.

Peace.
 
space ghost:
…your never going to be able to move away from sin (logistically speaking)… you will always see sin… especially if you look REAL hard for it…

http://mediasoftware.free.fr/index.1.jpg
…look for ways to ignore what’s going on next door…
good luck with your situation… if i sounded a little harsh to start with i apologize, … it just appears that you spend a lot of time looking… i’m sure that i am mistaken…Peace:thumbsup:
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Woe, now it’s a photo hear of the Reaper? Do you acknowlege the source? Or do you paste pictures here at random?:nope:
 
I use to have Gang neighbours , and I didn’t know they lived there until they come back from a Gang convention. It was hard as I had 4 children to bring up with the music , people coming and going ,seeing women getting beaten up and taking refuge at my place. Of course I had my odd moments with them. I live there for 7 years and bit by bit we got to know each other and under all that toughness and Gang machoness , I saw them individually as people. We ended up respecting each other and helping each other out. Oddly my house was the only one not burgled in the neighbourhood.
Ok you don’t like what your neighbours are doing , quite understandable. Just maybe your neighbour could the most reliable one you ever encounter and just maybe respect will follow and he may get to understand your situation… Just hope so. But it goes both ways too.
 
And you know for a fact that these two girls weren’t his sisters or friends or cousins crashing on the couch for the night?

You can’t do anything about the behaviour of other people. They are free to make their own choices in life. Pray for them if you feel so lead but remember not to judge as you may be getting the wrong impression.
 
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felra:
I fail to see how I am being judgmental or nosey…Who is intruding upon whom? :o
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As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Mind your own business.”

– Mark L. Chance.
 
The_Angelus said:
[cue**soapbox]

I think your best option may be to ignore. The first couple years of college, I lived in the dorms. Darned if I didn’t perfect the art of ignoring in there. I insisted on a non-coed dorm, but that didn’t seem to stop the other girls from bringing in “gentlemen friends” at all hours of the day or night. It was one of those practices that the school couldn’t really stop, so they just winked at it.

Pray for grace for him and you, and if your kids ask, say that he is not a Catholic and is not acting in accordance with Catholic morality by having young ladies do overnighters. If they don’t ask, don’t tell them.

Who knows - they may be his sisters!!!

😉
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Live and let live, but PRAY.
 
Since this thread apparently resurrected, I will give a bit of an update:

We have one less less cohabitating couple next door as they had their Catholic Church wedding this past weekend. White dress, large wedding party, Humer limo … We did have a few across the fence extended conversations to express our sincere congratulations of them tying the knot and the blessing of marriage. It was apparant (I leave for work the same time that they do in the am and wave good morning) that either they did not disclose their living arrangement, or that the priest did not insist that they cease cohabitating before the wedding day (note, I am not assuming anything, or judging by appearances, just noting my observations). We pray for them, since this cohabitating couple before marriage is statistically at greater risk for divorce.

We have been all but friendly with our new next door neighbor, though our comings and goings do not significantly overlap. It would appear that his one female “sister/family” is not just there for a short visit. I was hoping that he would at least mention or introduce her (I did not feel it was appropriate to ask), even with her standing in close proximity during one of our over the fence conversations, …hhhmmm. I continue to pray for him also. I did turn our statue of Mary toward his home, but after a few days, my wife insisted that he share Mary with use, so at present Mary is kinda facing between our homes.

Again, thank you to those posters who have offered constructive (name removed by moderator)ut (this does not include those who offered judgmental comments while accusing me of being a judgemental, nosey neighbor. 😛 ).
 
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StratusRose:
I agree with TarAshly and Space Ghost. You sound like Mrs. Kravitz on “I Dream of Genie.”
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Mrs. Kravitz was on “Bewitched”.

"Abner, Abner…"She kept seeing what Endora and Aunt Clara did.

Now Dr. Bellows was on “I Dream of Jeannie”.
 
There is much advice about tolerance, but tolerance is not a virtue. We do not have to tolerate the false beliefs of others, but we do need to love them regardless.

Prayer is effective. Direct confrontation may not be effective. Lack of confrontation does not mean tolerance. Other people do affect us by their actions and the example they present to the world.

Consider use of sacramentals to leverage your prayers and faith so that these neighbors can be brought to the truth and experience conversion. The truth will set us free!
 
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felra:
I fail to see how I am being judgmental or nosey. It’s called in your face when I can practically touch my neighbor’s home from our abutting driveway. No way to not notice some of your neighbors’ activities. (Example: Having a cup of coffee while helping my son water our perennial plants the other morning before I go to work, and out walks a female and scoots into the car parked over night 20 feet away in the driveway of our new neighbor). Who is intruding upon whom? :o
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I’m sure it’s as you say it is, but you shouldn’t automatically assume anything by her walking out to get into her car. That IS judgemental.

Also, the key words: his house, his driveway. He ISN’T intruding on you at ALL. Sin or no sin, it isn’t any of your business or mine or anyone else’s. You don’t have the right to dictate how your neighbors live their lives. You have the right to teach your children, but you have no right to demand that other people act as moral examples to your kids. It would be nice if they did, but they don’t have to.
 
C S P B:
There is much advice about tolerance, but tolerance is not a virtue. We do not have to tolerate the false beliefs of others, but we do need to love them regardless.

Prayer is effective. Direct confrontation may not be effective. Lack of confrontation does not mean tolerance. Other people do affect us by their actions and the example they present to the world.

Consider use of sacramentals to leverage your prayers and faith so that these neighbors can be brought to the truth and experience conversion. The truth will set us free!
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Thank you for the sound thoughts and charitable advice.
 
I have to say that I am a little concerned about assumptions you are making about the information you know. Let me give you an example from real life.

Imagine that you see a young man walk from his house to a young woman’s house accross the street at say about six in the evening. You do not see him leave. The next morning you see the same young man walk out of the woman’s house and walk to his house at about seven in the morning. Would you assume that he stayed the night and that something sinful was going on?

You would be mistaken. If you had paid close attention you would have seen him leave the house at about one in the morning and then return at about five thirty in the morning. He was then leaving again to get ready for work at seven. These people are real people who work together and were getting ready for work the next day. This happens basically every other week. I know nothing is going on as I am one of the people.

If you assume the worst in people before you get to know what is going on you may miss a great chance to get to know a wonderful person. Both of the persons in the above example are faithful Catholics who are very committed to their faith and their jobs. But you would miss that if you did not have all of the facts and assumed the worst.
 
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Aesq:
I have to say that I am a little concerned about assumptions you are making about the information you know. Let me give you an example from real life.

Imagine that you see a young man … is going on as I am one of the people.

If you assume the worst in people before you get to know what is going on you may miss a great chance to get to know a wonderful person. Both of the persons in the above example are faithful Catholics who are very committed to their faith and their jobs. But you would miss that if you did not have all of the facts and assumed the worst.
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Who is assuming the worse? I am simply hoping that this young man is not short changing himself, though the statistics are strongly against him.* I* *am *getting to know this young man as opportunity allows. I am being prudent in wanting to know the value base of my next door neighbor(s) who will inadvertantly have contact/interactions with my family. What is wrong with this? Are not you the one guilty of making assumptions about another?

I am still gathering the facts, hoping for the best, but, so far the information I have has not ruled out that I have another statistic, that has been ballooned by this recent generation, living next door to me. Why should this not give me cause for concern regarding how to filter, manage the interactions that I will have with this next neighbor of mine, so as not to contaminate the Chrisitian value base of my family; if it turns out that he is living an arrrangement that directly contradicts my values? O course I am reserving my judgment, but being prudent in hoping for the best, preparing for (not assuming) the worst.
 
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felra:
I am being prudent in wanting to know the value base of my next door neighbor(s) who will inadvertantly have contact/interactions with my family. ** His values are his own business and none of anyone else’s.**

I am still gathering the facts, (as someone has already pointed out, shades of Gladys Kravitz!) hoping for the best, but, so far the information I have has not ruled out that I have another statistic, that has been ballooned by this recent generation, living next door to me. Why should this not give me cause for concern regarding how to filter, manage the interactions that I will have with this next neighbor of mine, so as not to contaminate the Chrisitian value base of my family; *if it turns out that he is living an arrrangement that directly contradicts my values? ***You teach your family that “this,” whatever it is, “directly contradicts our values.” You can’t set it up so they’re not confronted with this sort of thing, you can only train them as to why it’s forbidden to Christians and how to behave when confronted or tempted by it. **O course I am reserving my judgment (wow, it certainly doesn’t sound like it), but being prudent in hoping for the best, preparing for (not assuming) the worst.
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You’d really dislike having me for a neighbor, as I smoke outside.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
You’d really dislike having me for a neighbor, as I smoke outside.
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I strongly suspect that this would be the least of my objections. 😉
 
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felra:
I strongly suspect that this would be the least of my objections. 😉
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Which is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. You know no more about me than I have just shared and it isn’t your business to know.
 
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