How to deal with cohabiting children

[CoffeeHound]

I guess I’ll never quite understand why any woman would wish to be an unpaid prostitute for any man.

Why not call wives unpaid prostitutes or call children that do their daily chores unpaid slaves? What you did was an unnecessary appeal to emotion that only hurts your actual point.

May I ask what is wrong with cohabitation while still remaining abstinence?

Scandal: It’s not a sin to share a home with two separate bedrooms, except that others will assume the two cohabitators are fornicating, thus that they support sex before marriage. This creates scandal.

 

[JimG]

Why not call wives unpaid prostitutes or call children that do their daily chores unpaid slaves? What you did was an unnecessary appeal to emotion that only hurts your actual point.

There’s a big difference. Wives are married to their husbands, who have exchanged lifetime and public vows with them in front of family, friends, and God. They have pledged lifetime fidelity and permanence. They have assured their future children of a place in a family with both a mom and a dad.

Merely fornicating couples have done none of that, have not made that commitment, and jeopardize their future as a family as well as their children’s future.

My post was not a response to the original poster, but a comment on an increasingly common trend. For handling specific situations, I think Willowreed’s experiences related in post #27 are instructive.

Never condone the fornication. But never reject the daughter. And expect and demand that a daughter’s suitor behave honorably.

 

[Apagano]

We are to avoid ALL near occasions of sin. I would call living with a boyfriend/girlfriend as a near occasion of sin. If you are in a position where you think that living together is the only option, maybe you need to re-look at things. Moving back in with parents. Having another same-sex friend move in. Renting a smaller place. There are always better, sometimes less desirable, options than living together.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

There’s a big difference. Wives are married to their husbands, who have exchanged lifetime and public vows with them in front of family, friends, and God. They have pledged lifetime fidelity and permanence. They have assured their future children of a place in a family with both a mom and a dad.

So that would make them smarter prostitutes but you could still call them prostitutes according to your definition. They received more assurance of support before they gave it up but they are still having sex in exchange for something.

 

[JimG]

I realize that the state of marriage has been declining over the past four decades. I don’t really think it has quite declined to the point where the bride would be considered merely a smarter prostitute. If it has come to that, I mourn the passing of a once great institution.

In the past, at Catholic weddings, there was a little exhortation read by the priest just before the couple exchanged vows. Reading it may give an insight as to what marriage once was.

The full text can be found here.

And here is an excerpt:

This union, then, is most serious, because it will bind you together for life in a
relationship so close and so intimate, that it will profoundly influence your whole
future. That future, with its hopes and disappointments, its successes and its failures,
its pleasures and its pains, its joys and its sorrows, is hidden from your eyes. You
know that these elements are mingled in every life, and are to be expected in your
own.
And so not knowing what is before you, you take each other for better or for
worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death.

Truly, then, these words are most serious. It is a beautiful tribute to your undoubted
faith in each other, that recognizing their full import, you are, nevertheless, so willing
and ready to pronounce them. And because these words involve such solemn
obligations, it is most fitting that you rest the security of your wedded life upon the
great principle of self-sacrifice.
And so you begin your married life by the voluntary and complete surrender of your individual lives
in the interest of that deeper and wider life which you are to have in common.
Henceforth you will belong entirely to each other; you will be one in mind, one in heart, and one in affections.

 

[floresco]

Scandal: It’s not a sin to share a home with two separate bedrooms, except that others will assume the two cohabitators are fornicating, thus that they support sex before marriage. This creates scandal.

I was at a wedding earlier this year for a couple who had lived together without fornicating. It seems that everyone assumed that they were sexually active. The MC at the reception even made a (not funny) joke about how they had finally stopped living in sin. This couple really felt that, due to financial circumstances they had no choice, but they did contribute to people thinking this behaviour is acceptable.

 

[floresco]

So, I don’t know what I will do yet-- I actually need to stand back & give myself a chance to get to a better place emotionally before I do or say anything.

You sound like you have good self-awareness. That will help you in the long run.

I have a grown son who is cohabiting but he has not lied to us about it. He knows that we think it is wrong. He knows that we do not want them in the same bedroom when they visit. I have talked to the younger children about it being wrong and why.

While it was a very emotional topic at first, my son and I can talk about it now, even half joking about it. The subject came up when I was talking to him on the phone recently and I was expressing my disapproval. He said that he already knew that I disapproved. I said that I still needed to tell him so on occasion. He said that I should do it once a year and he would listen to a “cohabiting is bad” speech as a birthday present to me. I’m planning to really do it when my next birthday comes around.

It is hard to take a stand about moral standards at the same time as letting your children know you love them. But it will get easier after the initial shock wears off.

 

[mini_me640]

We are to avoid ALL near occasions of sin. I would call living with a boyfriend/girlfriend as a near occasion of sin. If you are in a position where you think that living together is the only option, maybe you need to re-look at things. Moving back in with parents. Having another same-sex friend move in. Renting a smaller place. There are always better, sometimes less desirable, options than living together.

I don’t recommend cohabitating, although I did so chastely with my now husband. It was no more tempting to me than being alone with him any other time - in fact in may have been less tempting because when you live with someone you don’t just see the best of them - you see them flossing their teeth and clipping their nails and throwing their dirty towels on the floor.

As far as others assuming you are fornicating if you live together, most people these days assume any long-term couple is fornicating… Sad, but true.

 

[CoffeeHound]

There’s a big difference. Wives are married to their husbands, who have exchanged lifetime and public vows with them in front of family, friends, and God. They have pledged lifetime fidelity and permanence. They have assured their future children of a place in a family with both a mom and a dad.

So, a civilly married non-Catholic couple, who therefore haven’t exchanged vows in front of God and who haven’t necessarily made a lifetime commitment in their mind are really just formalizing a prostitute - John relationship? What if the woman is the primary breadwinner? Is the boyfriend then a gigolo? (and to be clear, those are rhetorical - I’m not trying to “badger” you)

I get what you’re doing - trying to elicit extreme emotions to make a point - but to claim that all women who live with their boyfriends are prostitutes is not only uncharitable, but hateful. You have to see the broad bush you’re using here.

As far as others assuming you are fornicating if you live together, most people these days assume any long-term couple is fornicating…

I know. It’s unfortunate, but what are you going to do about it? Really all you could do is date in secret, and that’s not really conducive to a healthy relationship (are you going to wait until the wedding night to introduce your boyfriend to your friends and family?). On the other hand, you can usually do something about cohabitation*.

• “Usually” because you could foresee a scenario where it’s the lesser of two evils. Another reason not to paint with a broad brush.

 

[knitndshaped]

Thank you, Jim G, for your comments and the link to the entire “Exhortation Before Marriage”. It is a beautiful reading, and a great reminder of the covenant my husband and I made 28 years ago. Marriage isn’t easy, and there have been times when the only thing that have kept my husband and I together is that covenant. It’s so much more than a mere commitment that two people make when they choose to live together before marriage. I pray daily to Saint Joseph for his intercession on behalf of my husband and son to be Godly men and husbands. A friend recently told me that St. Ann is also a powerful intercessor for engaged and married couples.

 

[abrasam16]

I don’t recommend cohabitating, although I did so chastely with my now husband. It was no more tempting to me than being alone with him any other time - in fact in may have been less tempting because when you live with someone you don’t just see the best of them - you see them flossing their teeth and clipping their nails and throwing their dirty towels on the floor.

As far as others assuming you are fornicating if you live together, most people these days assume any long-term couple is fornicating… Sad, but true.

By the “near sin” method, she we just avoid all contact with women before marriage. I’m sure every single male in the entire world, no matter how old or young, have had thoughts about a women in a less than appropriate manner. I think that sex before marriage is a sin and a grave one. But I think living together is borderline important for couples that consider marriage sacred. I know the statistics about couples that cohabitate have a higher rate of divorce, but I do not believe that that rate is because they are cohabitating, but because they do not appreciate marriage as a sacrament. My personal experience with divorcees are things that IMO should be figured out before marriage, i.e. communication issues and the like. I cohabitated with my (now) spouse and I found no more such temptation to have intercourse with her. If the cohabitation issue does stem from the temptation issue, and that temptation does not occur in a relationship, doesn’t that mean it is okay?

It really angers me that members of both of our families “looked down” upon us and I guess that is where my feelings get a bit disgusted with our culture. Members of our families have been divorced and engaged several times, almost none of them waited, half are drunkards, yet the couple that doesn’t do any of that, including have waited, gets the cold shoulder. Our society borderline glamorizes mistresses, swinging and other damning activities, and that is with married couples.

 

[CoffeeHound]

I cohabitated with my (now) spouse and I found no more such temptation to have intercourse with her. If the cohabitation issue does stem from the temptation issue, and that temptation does not occur in a relationship, doesn’t that mean it is okay?

I think the Near Occasion of Sin argument has to be made on a case-by-case basis, so I agree with you in this case. Where cohabitation remains an issue is Scandal. Unless you’re going to have a billboard outside your house affirming your chaste relationship, I don’t see how you can avoid that.

 

[jrcurtisjr]

Regardless of one’s position on living together, perhaps, before or instead of marriage, the fact is the America has become a cohabitation nation. Years of condemnation and negative research studies have had no effect on slowly the rate of cohabitation since most couples reject the guilt-laden, fear-mongering attempts to discourage their living arrangement and neither will your rejection as her mother.

Instead, most cohabiters fear a failed marriage even more than the criticism, so opt to live together despite the odds. Now over 60% of all couples who marry will cohabit first and while the rate of marriage continues to decline, the rate of cohabitation will skyrocket since 75% of high school students believe living together is worthwhile and harmless.

Additionally, many of the latest blogs and newspaper stories critical of cohabiting are either using old research, in some cases going back years or the researchers are being quoted, out of context, to substantiate the reporter’s personal bias. Regardless of the results from the studies on cohabitation, please show me one couple who falls in love, decides to cohabit but as a result of a study on the downside of cohabiting, cancel their plans. Furthermore, if you consider the decades long trend… did you know that getting married increases the possibility of getting divorced to nearly 50%. However, when was the latest time you talked to someone who was planning a wedding but called it off due to the often-quoted, well known 50% failure rate of marriage?

Like it or not, for many, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the new family role model and cohabitation has become a viable institution for over 12 million Americans. Furthermore, if you base your anti-cohabitation opinion on concerns about children and family stability… here’s an interesting little known fact. A child born to a cohabiting couple in Sweden is more likely to grow to adulthood in the same stable home with the same unmarried parents than a child born to a married couple in America.

Cohabitation does not destabilize marriages or families… people who do not understand commitment do. The goal needs to be teaching the meaning of commitment and walking down the aisle does NOT mean commitment. Another recent study found that among newlyweds… the ones who DID walk down the aisle, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women had an affair within two years of the wedding. Obviously, for millions of newlyweds, the wedding did not increase their commitment.

The point here is that while many promote marriage as the “gold standard” for what ails American families, keep in mind that ANYONE of legal age can marry. On the other hand, I think we need to be putting more of an emphasis on building COMMITTED relationships which is something that requires lots of hard work and emotional maturity and can happen WITHOUT marriage, as evidenced by the Swedes.

Yes, let’s keep pushing for changes that range from city initiatives by the clergy to educate couples before marrying, to changes in tax laws or to elimination of no-fault divorce. At the same time, let’s work to develop a productive response to the millions of cohabiting couples who are far too often judged, condemned and ignored by society.

I think we must “re-invent” and raise our expectations of cohabitation, and our attitudes toward those who decide to live together. There is a commonly held myth that marriage means you will “live happily ever-after.” However, there is no similar assumption of cohabitation other than “it won’t last” which helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s time to take a serious and non-judgmental look at cohabitating couples of all ages and help them strengthen and sustain their relationship whether they ever plan to marry. Let’s consider finding a new approach to this reality.

 

[jeana12]

In reply to jrcurtisjr co habitation post …and lets all ignore God’s sacrament of marriage while we are at it … why don’t we and while we are at why don’t we just ignore all the sacraments of the church and go on your advice on how to live an immoral life… your media pushed role models angelina jolie and Brad pitt …are you serious???co habitation? just because its being done does not and will not ever make it right in the eyes of God… whatever… There are numerous abominations going on in this world of ours but just because there are facts on them and lots of people are doing them does not make them okay… unless your blind of course…No one should be judging anyone on any matter at all… including murderers, thieves, co habitators or others… It is God’s job to judge us all…And God will judge us all…

 

[Waiting]

Regardless of one’s position on living together, perhaps, before or instead of marriage, the fact is the America has become a cohabitation nation. Years of condemnation and negative research studies have had no effect on slowly the rate of cohabitation since most couples reject the guilt-laden, fear-mongering attempts to discourage their living arrangement and neither will your rejection as her mother.

Instead, most cohabiters fear a failed marriage even more than the criticism, so opt to live together despite the odds. Now over 60% of all couples who marry will cohabit first and while the rate of marriage continues to decline, the rate of cohabitation will skyrocket since 75% of high school students believe living together is worthwhile and harmless.

Additionally, many of the latest blogs and newspaper stories critical of cohabiting are either using old research, in some cases going back years or the researchers are being quoted, out of context, to substantiate the reporter’s personal bias. Regardless of the results from the studies on cohabitation, please show me one couple who falls in love, decides to cohabit but as a result of a study on the downside of cohabiting, cancel their plans. Furthermore, if you consider the decades long trend… did you know that getting married increases the possibility of getting divorced to nearly 50%. However, when was the latest time you talked to someone who was planning a wedding but called it off due to the often-quoted, well known 50% failure rate of marriage?

Like it or not, for many, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the new family role model and cohabitation has become a viable institution for over 12 million Americans. Furthermore, if you base your anti-cohabitation opinion on concerns about children and family stability… here’s an interesting little known fact. A child born to a cohabiting couple in Sweden is more likely to grow to adulthood in the same stable home with the same unmarried parents than a child born to a married couple in America.

Cohabitation does not destabilize marriages or families… people who do not understand commitment do. The goal needs to be teaching the meaning of commitment and walking down the aisle does NOT mean commitment. Another recent study found that among newlyweds… the ones who DID walk down the aisle, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women had an affair within two years of the wedding. Obviously, for millions of newlyweds, the wedding did not increase their commitment.

The point here is that while many promote marriage as the “gold standard” for what ails American families, keep in mind that ANYONE of legal age can marry. On the other hand, I think we need to be putting more of an emphasis on building COMMITTED relationships which is something that requires lots of hard work and emotional maturity and can happen WITHOUT marriage, as evidenced by the Swedes.

Yes, let’s keep pushing for changes that range from city initiatives by the clergy to educate couples before marrying, to changes in tax laws or to elimination of no-fault divorce. At the same time, let’s work to develop a productive response to the millions of cohabiting couples who are far too often judged, condemned and ignored by society.

I think we must “re-invent” and raise our expectations of cohabitation, and our attitudes toward those who decide to live together. There is a commonly held myth that marriage means you will “live happily ever-after.” However, there is no similar assumption of cohabitation other than “it won’t last” which helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s time to take a serious and non-judgmental look at cohabitating couples of all ages and help them strengthen and sustain their relationship whether they ever plan to marry. Let’s consider finding a new approach to this reality.

If this doesn’t give us a clear view of how far we’ve strayed from the narrow path, then I don’t know what will. Once you take your eyes off the goal – God’s will – you quickly become a casualty to satan’s will.

 

[CoffeeHound]

Regardless of one’s position on living together, perhaps, before or instead of marriage, the fact is the America has become a cohabitation nation. Years of condemnation and negative research studies have had no effect on slowly the rate of cohabitation since most couples reject the guilt-laden, fear-mongering attempts to discourage their living arrangement and neither will your rejection as her mother.

Why is cohabitation (by itself) a sin? The sin of scandal. Are non-Catholics subject to scandal? No. So then what is morally wrong with the non-Catholic members of American society (those that make up the majority of the population) cohabitating?

I’m not saying that cohabitation a good thing, but I think people here are enforcing some level of morality against cohabitation based on old social norms and then falsely representing those societal norms are Divine Law.

 

[JimG]

I think we must “re-invent” and raise our expectations of cohabitation, and our attitudes toward those who decide to live together. There is a commonly held myth that marriage means you will “live happily ever-after.” However, there is no similar assumption of cohabitation other than “it won’t last” which helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of course there is an assumption that “it won’t last,” because the cohabiting couple have not promised to make it last. They have entered into a sort of trial relationship, not having promised fidelity, or permanence, or sacrifice for the spouse. (I refer to cohabitation with sex, not chaste cohabitation with expectation of marriage, which is nevertheless a bad idea.)

I haven’t studied the supposed research on this, so I don’t claim any scientific accuracy, but I do claim moral accuracy.

I just don’t believe that living together without marriage is good for couples or families, or children, because it is almost by its nature a tentative arrangement.

The fact that people marry without meaning it is also a disservice to families and to their children. Children also suffer from divorce.

When a friend of mine and his wife decided to divorce, they announced the news one morning to their children, who were about to be reduced to the status of visitors in their own parents homes. The kids thought it over. Then the oldest daughter spoke up. “You sure didn’t think about us, did you?”

The result has been a generation or more of children who are raised with no expectation that love can be permanent. And that’s sad.

 

[jeana12]

Am I missing the point here???
Its not about what WE THINK on the issue of co habitation, fornication is against God’s law and if we don’t want to offend God then simple Don’t CO HABITATE and if you want to offend God then go ahead and CO HABITATE … but lets call a spade a spade no matter who is using it and lets be clear about one thing God says fornicating CO HABITATING couples are committing a sin… So there you have it… No ifs or buts about it regardless of what they do in sweeden or elsewhere

 

[jeana12]

Regardless of one’s position on living together, perhaps, before or instead of marriage, the fact is the America has become a cohabitation nation. Years of condemnation and negative research studies have had no effect on slowly the rate of cohabitation since most couples reject the guilt-laden, fear-mongering attempts to discourage their living arrangement and neither will your rejection as her mother.

Instead, most cohabiters fear a failed marriage even more than the criticism, so opt to live together despite the odds. Now over 60% of all couples who marry will cohabit first and while the rate of marriage continues to decline, the rate of cohabitation will skyrocket since 75% of high school students believe living together is worthwhile and harmless.

Additionally, many of the latest blogs and newspaper stories critical of cohabiting are either using old research, in some cases going back years or the researchers are being quoted, out of context, to substantiate the reporter’s personal bias. Regardless of the results from the studies on cohabitation, please show me one couple who falls in love, decides to cohabit but as a result of a study on the downside of cohabiting, cancel their plans. Furthermore, if you consider the decades long trend… did you know that getting married increases the possibility of getting divorced to nearly 50%. However, when was the latest time you talked to someone who was planning a wedding but called it off due to the often-quoted, well known 50% failure rate of marriage?

Like it or not, for many, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the new family role model and cohabitation has become a viable institution for over 12 million Americans. Furthermore, if you base your anti-cohabitation opinion on concerns about children and family stability… here’s an interesting little known fact. A child born to a cohabiting couple in Sweden is more likely to grow to adulthood in the same stable home with the same unmarried parents than a child born to a married couple in America.

Cohabitation does not destabilize marriages or families… people who do not understand commitment do. The goal needs to be teaching the meaning of commitment and walking down the aisle does NOT mean commitment. Another recent study found that among newlyweds… the ones who DID walk down the aisle, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women had an affair within two years of the wedding. Obviously, for millions of newlyweds, the wedding did not increase their commitment.

The point here is that while many promote marriage as the “gold standard” for what ails American families, keep in mind that ANYONE of legal age can marry. On the other hand, I think we need to be putting more of an emphasis on building COMMITTED relationships which is something that requires lots of hard work and emotional maturity and can happen WITHOUT marriage, as evidenced by the Swedes.

Yes, let’s keep pushing for changes that range from city initiatives by the clergy to educate couples before marrying, to changes in tax laws or to elimination of no-fault divorce. At the same time, let’s work to develop a productive response to the millions of cohabiting couples who are far too often judged, condemned and ignored by society.

I think we must “re-invent” and raise our expectations of cohabitation, and our attitudes toward those who decide to live together. There is a commonly held myth that marriage means you will “live happily ever-after.” However, there is no similar assumption of cohabitation other than “it won’t last” which helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s time to take a serious and non-judgmental look at cohabitating couples of all ages and help them strengthen and sustain their relationship whether they ever plan to marry. Let’s consider finding a new approach to this reality.

In reply to jrcurtisjr co habitation post …and lets all ignore God’s sacrament of marriage while we are at it … why don’t we and while we are at why don’t we just ignore all the sacraments of the church and go on your advice on how to live an immoral life… your media pushed role models angelina jolie and Brad pitt …are you serious???co habitation? just because its being done does not and will not ever make it right in the eyes of God… whatever… There are numerous abominations going on in this world of ours but just because there are facts on them and lots of people are doing them does not make them okay… unless your blind of course…No one should be judging anyone on any matter at all… including murderers, thieves, co habitators or others… It is God’s job to judge us all…And God will judge us all.

Maybe i am missing the point here???
Its not about what WE THINK on the issue of co habitation, fornication is against God’s law and if we don’t want to offend God then simple Don’t CO HABITATE and if you want to offend God then go ahead and CO HABITATE … but lets call a spade a spade no matter who is using it and lets be clear about one thing God says fornicating CO HABITATING couples are committing a sin… So there you have it… No ifs or buts about it regardless of what they do in sweeden or elsewhere.
It is up to each individual what they do its not about what there parents say they should do…If someone can continue to love there child no matter what they do then God will do the rest… Children should want to please God and keep his sacraments by there own free will and not because there parents want them to.

 

[JimG]

Am I missing the point here???
Its not about what WE THINK on the issue of co habitation, fornication is against God’s law and if we don’t want to offend God then simple Don’t CO HABITATE and if you want to offend God then go ahead and CO HABITATE … but lets call a spade a spade no matter who is using it and lets be clear about one thing God says fornicating CO HABITATING couples are committing a sin… So there you have it… No ifs or buts about it regardless of what they do in sweeden or elsewhere

Well, you did get right to the point. At some point in the last 40 years it somehow became socially acceptable for people to shack up instead of marry. I’ve live long enough to live through the change. It seems to me that women no longer value themselves or marriage, and men no longer value women. .