Just had to vent about cohabitating

[GregoryPalamas]

God has a plan for chastity outside of marriage and faithfulness within. His plan is given to us for our good. There is no reason to get upset about another pathway to destruction unless we care about them. I’m tempted to be jealous or angry but I realize as another poster has pointed out that the tables will be turned when chastity is rewarded. Fornication is destructive to society and is a terrible example to children. It is a shame that this young couple do not know God’s plan for their lives.

Pray for them and live a holy life despite the pressures others put upon you to stray. God will reward you.

CDL

 

[Katie1723]

Your point is irrelevant and is not relevant besides it is beside the point and not relevant.

CDL

Your post is run on AND redundant.
There are no guarantees in life. Cohabitating prior to marriage is not necessarily a “death sentence”. Just as NOT cohabitating is a guarantee that the marriage will work.

Kathy

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Your post is run on AND redundant.
There are no guarantees in life. Cohabitating prior to marriage is not necessarily a “death sentence”. Just as NOT cohabitating is a guarantee that the marriage will work.

Kathy

Your repeated statements have nothing to do with this thread. Who cares whether or not this or that “works” whatever that means. I certainly don’t care and it has nothing to do with the OP. Keep posting this same point over and over if you wish it still has nothing to do with this thread.

I have an idea. Start another thread and advise God and the Church on why fornication is a good thing. At least it will have some relevance to something.

CDL

 

[Katie1723]

Your repeated statements have nothing to do with this thread. Who cares whether or not this or that “works” whatever that means. I certainly don’t care and it has nothing to do with the OP. Keep posting this same point over and over if you wish it still has nothing to do with this thread.

I have an idea. Start another thread and advise God and the Church on why fornication is a good thing. At least it will have some relevance to something.

CDL

No where did I say the “fornication” or "cohabitating " is a good thing. I am merely asking a question that YOU seem unable to answer, sir.
Kathy

 

[jmcrae]

Your post is run on AND redundant.
There are no guarantees in life. Cohabitating prior to marriage is not necessarily a “death sentence”.

Disobeying God’s laws causes people to go to Hell.

Just as NOT cohabitating is a guarantee that the marriage will work.

But obeying God’s laws causes people to go to Heaven - and what is more important? You can survive a broken marriage and go on to better things. You cannot survive Hell - once you are in Hell, there is no hope left.

 

[Katie1723]

Disobeying God’s laws causes people to go to Hell.

But obeying God’s laws causes people to go to Heaven - and what is more important? You can survive a broken marriage and go on to better things. You cannot survive Hell - once you are in Hell, there is no hope left.

I agree with you. All I am saying is that not every marriage that began with living together prior to the nuptials is doomed. Some go on . The couple makes peace with the Lord and their union survives. By the same token, “waiting” is not a guarantee that the marriage will last.

Please, don’t jump to conclusions.

Kathy

 

[jmcrae]

I agree with you. All I am saying is that not every marriage that began with living together prior to the nuptials is doomed. Some go on . The couple makes peace with the Lord and their union survives. By the same token, “waiting” is not a guarantee that the marriage will last.

Please, don’t jump to conclusions.

Kathy

The ones who don’t cohabit will be more likely to succeed in the ultimate purpose of marriage, which is to help each other get to Heaven - this is probably what most people are meaning by a “successful marriage.”

It’s true that not all marriages that start well end well. But it is less likely that a marriage that starts badly would be able to end well.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

The ones who don’t cohabit will be more likely to succeed in the ultimate purpose of marriage, which is to help each other get to Heaven - this is probably what most people are meaning by a “successful marriage.”

It’s true that not all marriages that start well end well. But it is less likely that a marriage that starts badly would be able to end well.

Yep.

CDL

 

[jman507]

Your post is run on AND redundant.
There are no guarantees in life. Cohabitating prior to marriage is not necessarily a “death sentence”. Just as NOT cohabitating is a guarantee that the marriage will work.

Kathy

I guess there is no guarantee adultery is going to end a marriage either, but it’s probably not the best of ideas to preserve a good marriage.

 

[HouseArrest]

It does seem unfair. But you do not know what is REALLY going on with this couple by seeing them once in 2 months, apparently “happy”. Not that you want things to be bad for her (them), but maybe something is going on like she’s not getting married because she wasn’t asked. I used to find that was usually the case in the couples I knew who were cohabitating. Maybe if you had a heart to heart with her you could help her.

 

[Norseman82]

Although it is not a 100% death sentence for cohabitators nor a 100% guarantee of success for people who stay virgins until their wedding night, there have been statistics that show that the less sexual activity before marriage, the less likely you are to get divorced. I have heard a general rule of thumb at Theology on Tap presentations that cohabitation increases the risk of divorce by 50%, and Ray Guarendi some years back said on his show that if you cohabitate with someone other than the person you end up marrying, your chances of divorce quadruples.

Also, there is a report on the USCCB website regarding marriage preparation and cohabitating couples which contains a section devoted to “What are factors that put cohabitors who marry at risk”:

usccb.org/laity/marriage/cohabiting.shtml

This might be helpful reading for not only the OP, but anyone else.

My apologies if this response contributed to anything going on a tangent, but when I hear statements that cohabitation is not a death sentence I just had to put forth the evidence I had presented to me that it does do damage and is not some innocent activity.

 

[Shlemele]

One thing that isn’t taken into account it the couples that are cohabitating before marriage and are pressured to “make it an honest marriage” these people didn’t want to get married in the first place and it’s no wonder that they would have a much lower statistical probability of staying together. I’m not saying this has any bearing on a moral stance but rather that it would have an effect on the statistical reliability of these studies.

I’ll put a disclaimer on this, I’m a psych major and this specific subject was studied in our class. The statistic tends to be over-emphasized and for what we’re talking about there are too many discriminators to point to causal data. If the study had separated the groups further by social pressure as a catalyst to marriage the study would be a lot more accurate. Again this isn’t a reaction tot he situation, just to bad statistics.

 

[jman507]

One thing that isn’t taken into account it the couples that are cohabitating before marriage and are pressured to “make it an honest marriage” these people didn’t want to get married in the first place and it’s no wonder that they would have a much lower statistical probability of staying together. I’m not saying this has any bearing on a moral stance but rather that it would have an effect on the statistical reliability of these studies.

That’s just a bad philosphy of living arrangments if the couple ends up with kids, just a terrible situation to put kids into. Granted it might be fine for the adults, but the kids really aren’t developed enough to be using their will to make living choices, much less the law gives that kind of freedom.

 

[kamz]

I lived with my husband before we got married and I got pregnant and we married when I was five months along.
I was far away from God but deep in my heart I of course knew it was the wrong thing and that I had been raised to know better and it ate away at me. After my daughter was born I broke down and could not stop crying, I knew I had sinned and as soon as I was out of the hospital I went to confession and we also got remarried in the Catholic church.

Your friend can pretend this isn’t bothering her but you don’t know, on the outside I acted like all was so great but deep down I was so unhappy and scared. Pray that your friend will turn to God and change her ways and ask for his forgiveness, God loves her very much and he is just waiting for her to call on him… he will continue to wait until the very end, she need only turn to him and ask forgiveness of her sins and sin no more.

On a bright note… once we put God first in our lives our marriage has been truly blessed, 14 yrs of marriage and four kids… with God all things are possible!!!

 

[GregoryPalamas]

I lived with my husband before we got married and I got pregnant and we married when I was five months along.
I was far away from God but deep in my heart I of course knew it was the wrong thing and that I had been raised to know better and it ate away at me. After my daughter was born I broke down and could not stop crying, I knew I had sinned and as soon as I was out of the hospital I went to confession and we also got remarried in the Catholic church.

Your friend can pretend this isn’t bothering her but you don’t know, on the outside I acted like all was so great but deep down I was so unhappy and scared. Pray that your friend will turn to God and change her ways and ask for his forgiveness, God loves her very much and he is just waiting for her to call on him… he will continue to wait until the very end, she need only turn to him and ask forgiveness of her sins and sin no more.

On a bright note… once we put God first in our lives our marriage has been truly blessed, 14 yrs of marriage and four kids… with God all things are possible!!!

That is most encouraging. God is blessing you. Thanks for relating this.

People have been sold a big lie about free sex. There isn’t any such thing. I’m glad God brought you back to Himself and that you have found joy in your life.

CDL

 

[jman507]

I lived with my husband before we got married and I got pregnant and we married when I was five months along.
I was far away from God but deep in my heart I of course knew it was the wrong thing and that I had been raised to know better and it ate away at me. After my daughter was born I broke down and could not stop crying, I knew I had sinned and as soon as I was out of the hospital I went to confession and we also got remarried in the Catholic church.

Your friend can pretend this isn’t bothering her but you don’t know, on the outside I acted like all was so great but deep down I was so unhappy and scared. Pray that your friend will turn to God and change her ways and ask for his forgiveness, God loves her very much and he is just waiting for her to call on him… he will continue to wait until the very end, she need only turn to him and ask forgiveness of her sins and sin no more.

It can really be hard to see what is going on in the inside of a person. It is especially easy to hide if your just around a person for a few minutes. Maybe she does feel this way, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she feels fine right now, but may turn later.

In the end, it doesn’t matter to try to guess what she feels, there is a problem with trying to come up with a ridged and unchangable assessment. No one wants to feel that you now more about what they feel then him or herself.

What is important is to try to be there, and there to be a friend. Be firm in your disagreement in the arrangment, but you need to be a friend. And pray, pray that God can help you change and grow enough to meet the needs of the situation.

 

[slackernerd]

For some reason, I just stopped being sad for her and for all the people I know who live like this. I used to have these feelings that I should pray and feel sorry for them because ultimately they are hurting themselves.

My 18 yr old sister is cohabiting with her boyfriend who is her age as they live at her boyfriend’s mom’s house. Neither she nor my parents are Catholic, so Church teachings do not apply here. When she moved in with him, the cohabitation was the least of her issues.

I don’t feel anger toward her or her bf, but I do feel it toward his parents, who are in the middle of divorcing themselves, for enabling them.

At the same time, I don’t think a marriage certificate between my sister and her boyfriend would mean anything. Any idiot can go pay a nominal fee at city hall and get a marriage certificate. They are only 18, and they are both immature for 18 at that. They do not hold jobs steadily enough to get their own apartment. They have trashed the little credit they had. Neither graduated from high school but both have earned GEDs. Both had very troubled teenage years, but both are doing better now(as in no drugs or criminal behavior, and at least one of them is generally employed at any given time). They both still have a lot of growing up to do.

Honestly, I think that if they were to marry in the church, their immaturity would honestly be grounds for annulment. I’m not saying that all 18 year olds are too immature to marry, but those two are. I especially don’t think they are prepared to be responsible parents as they haven’t quite learned how to take care of themselves.

So, mostly I’m just hoping my sister will grow out of this…