Living With Fiance

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JHaas07

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I know this has been covered many a time and I’ve learned a great deal by going through previous topics.

Here is my story:

I’m engaged and me and my fiance are planing to get married later this year. I was recently laid off and am now using my Realtor license/looking for a job. My fiance has a good steady paying job at Washington Mutual.

One of her customers is the manager of an apartment complex and is offering a great deal to her. $799 for a 2 bedroom apartment. Regularly it’s around $1,000. I know it is frowned upon to live together but if we are not sexually active and are living in separate rooms would that causes any issues with getting married in the Catholic church? I think I read somewhere that under certain economic situations you can work around it.

I don’t want to cause any scandalous situation either. Wouldn’t even tell anyone we we’re living together and make a big deal about it until after we were married.

We also are working to get married as quickly as possible. Do any of the married couples know the quickest route to taking care of all the requirements to get married in the Catholic church? Also does anyone know of any good links/books that will outline all the steps. I’m ready to get the ball moving and get married sooner rather then later.

Thanks for all the help!

-Joe
 
Where do you live now?
What’s wrong with getting the apartment for ONE of you to live in until after the wedding?
 
Get the good deal on the apt, then, one of you live there.

The other can live with parents until the wedding. If parents are hundreds of miles away, then, rent a room with someone from your Parish or bunk with a friend until the wedding.

Living together without being married is putting oneself in the near occasion of sin and could create scandal.
 
I have somewhere to live until March 1st. After that I don’t have anywhere to stay at the moment.

Let me pose another question- What is a legitimate time frame to get married if we started working on the requirements today? 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? I’ve heard various answers.
 
JHaas07 said:
I have somewhere to live until March 1st. After that I don’t have anywhere to stay at the moment.

Let me pose another question- What is a legitimate time frame to get married if we started working on the requirements today? 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? I’ve heard various answers.
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That is a question for your Priest. Give him a call today 👍
 
Every church deals differently with circumstances like these (I know that shouldn’t be the case in a universal Church, but anecdotally it seems to be the case - I’ve heard of plenty of couples who live together still managing to get married in the Church, and others who have gotten turned away, or asked to live separately during their engagement).

So you’ll have to ask at the church where you’re planning to get married. Given that there are two separate bedrooms and extenuating economic circumstances, maybe they will be lenient.

About getting married as quickly as possible, most parishes have a 6-month waiting period because they don’t want you to rush into anything. I’d caution against sounding overly in a rush when you meet with your priest. You may need to consider a Friday instead of Saturday wedding to be able to get availability at your church or at reception sites if you’re thinking of less than a year in advance.

Again, each church and each diocese has different requirements for what needs to happen before you get married … for us, we needed to fill out forms at the church, talk to the priest once, attend a marriage-prep course such as Engaged Encounter (highly recommended, by the way!) and have our baptismal certificates sent to the church at we were being married, and that was literally it. But it’s very common to also have more meetings with the priest and to take the FOCCUS test and possibly an NFP course … it really varies based on where you are.

Before my husband and I got married, I bought a ton of books on Catholic wedding planning from Amazon - pretty much all of the ones if you search on there. That was definitely overkill, as a lot of them all gave the same information, and most of it we’d already found out anyway. What was the most useful thing though was the booklet that we got at the church - I think it was called Together for Life - that helps with planning the Marriage Liturgy (which readings you can pick, etc.).

Hope this helps! 🙂
 
TryingOptimism said:
Every church deals differently with circumstances like these (I know that shouldn’t be the case in a universal Church, but anecdotally it seems to be the case - I’ve heard of plenty of couples who live together still managing to get married in the Church, and others who have gotten turned away, or asked to live separately during their engagement).

So you’ll have to ask at the church where you’re planning to get married. Given that there are two separate bedrooms and extenuating economic circumstances, maybe they will be lenient.

About getting married as quickly as possible, most parishes have a 6-month waiting period because they don’t want you to rush into anything. I’d caution against sounding overly in a rush when you meet with your priest. You may need to consider a Friday instead of Saturday wedding to be able to get availability at your church or at reception sites if you’re thinking of less than a year in advance.

Again, each church and each diocese has different requirements for what needs to happen before you get married … for us, we needed to fill out forms at the church, talk to the priest once, attend a marriage-prep course such as Engaged Encounter (highly recommended, by the way!) and have our baptismal certificates sent to the church at we were being married, and that was literally it. But it’s very common to also have more meetings with the priest and to take the FOCCUS test and possibly an NFP course … it really varies based on where you are.

Before my husband and I got married, I bought a ton of books on Catholic wedding planning from Amazon - pretty much all of the ones if you search on there. That was definitely overkill, as a lot of them all gave the same information, and most of it we’d already found out anyway. What was the most useful thing though was the booklet that we got at the church - I think it was called Together for Life - that helps with planning the Marriage Liturgy (which readings you can pick, etc.).

Hope this helps! 🙂
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Thank you- I wouldn’t consider us rushing it as we’ve been together for nearly 3 years. But I definitely understand what you’re saying. Thanks for the wealth of info.
 
JHaas07 said:
One of her customers is the manager of an apartment complex and is offering a great deal to her. $799 for a 2 bedroom apartment. Regularly it’s around $1,000. I know it is frowned upon to live together but if we are not sexually active and are living in separate rooms would that causes any issues with getting married in the Catholic church?
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Talk to your priest for guidance. But, you already know the answer to this. It is a near occasion of sin and scandal.

Live separately until you are married.
JHaas07 said:
We also are working to get married as quickly as possible. Do any of the married couples know the quickest route to taking care of all the requirements to get married in the Catholic church? Also does anyone know of any good links/books that will outline all the steps. I’m ready to get the ball moving and get married sooner rather then later.
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The way to get the ball rolling is to make an appointment with your priest. That is where it all starts and ends. It will be between 6-12 months for marriage preparation and the particulars depend upon the individual diocese and parish program. There is no “quickest route” to taking care of the requirements. It is what it is, and you need to talk to your priest to find out what is required in your diocese.
 
When it comes to living together, please keep this advice in mind. Our priest explained to us that even without the sex, living together is bad for this reason: For those months that you live together before the wedding, there is a feeling between you that if things go wrong it would be easy to leave. That official committment has not been made. Then, when you get married and make the official commitment, there’s no change in the situation. You are still living together and you unconsciously continue that feeling of “it’s easy to leave,” even though are now officially married.
It made sense to me…we did not live together before marriage and we so glad we did not.
However, I can name several couples in our community who dated for 5 years, lived together for six months, were married for 6 months, and got divorced. Just because you’ve been dating for a long time does not mean you are ready…unfortunately.
 
Joe–

First off, I see that you are quite new to posting on CAF–welcome!:tiphat:

And God bless you for staying chaste. I was in your situation roughly five years ago. My boyfriend and I (who had been dating for over 4 years) were near broke and living separately. But continuing to rent separately was more than we could handle and living together would help our finances enormously. Since we had been set on getting married for quite a while, we set a wedding date for 4 months from that time. Normally, a priest will want 6-12 months notice, but we were able to work around that because we had another priest who knew us well vouch for us. He knew we were not rushing into the marriage blindly and had been dating for a long time. There were other circumstances too but I don’t have the time to go into detail.

Talk to your priest about the fastest way to get the marriage prep moving–each parish is unique. See if there is anyway to speed things up.

What is your current living situation now? That would be helpful to know in regards to giving advice for a solution. If you are both living with parents it would seem odd to rent extra months unnecessarily–they’ll eat up the savings you get at that lower price and the whole thing would be pointless.

But if one or both of you are already renting, it’s a different story. The only thing I can think of is to get the apartment and get a temporary roommate to help defray the costs of a larger apartment that you don’t immediately need. Your fiance could do that and if you are renting too, maybe you could cut costs by quitting your apartment and becoming a roommate to someone else for a few months too. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

The thought of renting a place together and living as “brother and sister” came into our heads too before we were married. But we realized that it would be an occasion for sin and didn’t want to tempt ourselves. Even so, we didn’t want to create a scandalous situation. Every time an unmarried couple decides to live together (even if they are chaste) people see it and their mentality that cohabitation is ok 👍 is further solidified. Couples who are not as strong as you may see and attempt your same arrangement and then fall into sexual sin due to their weakness. 😦

Do all you can to not set an example that could lead others into perdition. Even if you made sure to tell everyone you knew that you two weren’t having premarital sex while living together, folks who are ignorant of this :confused: will still see you living together and it will set the wrong kind of example. Some people complain that the Church is so rigid and black and white, but it’s only because the Church loves her flock so much that she refuses to start one inch down a slippery slope that will eventually hurt her flock.

Even if your were to somehow keep it a secret, finding out about it afterward is JUST AS BAD and will still cause scandal. I am not aware of any situations in which the Church allows cohabitation which would apply to you regarding your particular dilemma. I’m sure temporary cohabitation can be justified in EXTREME situations related to war or disasters, etc. where there is no other viable living arrangement.

From a purely secular point of view, couples who cohabit have a much higher rate of divorce. You can get statistics on this by merely searching the internet.

I hope this has been somewhat helpful. I think that occasions of sin and scandal should be avoided despite the best of intentions. I will pray for you and your fiance to find an honorable solution to your dilemma. :gopray2:
 
1ke said:
Talk to your priest for guidance. But, you already know the answer to this. It is a near occasion of sin and scandal.

Live separately until you are married.

The way to get the ball rolling is to make an appointment with your priest. That is where it all starts and ends. It will be between 6-12 months for marriage preparation and the particulars depend upon the individual diocese and parish program. There is no “quickest route” to taking care of the requirements. It is what it is, and you need to talk to your priest to find out what is required in your diocese.
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Just a thought but I think you guys should do a little more reading on the sin of scandal, I know it surprised me.
 
I am ashamed to admit this, but we were one step worse. before we married we bought a place together. it took so much money, work, and time, we had no choice but to live together. we were “good” but there was a LOT of temptation. our priest was not happy but given the situation that we couldn’t afford a second place (we were both paying into the mortgage and the loan we took out to fix it up, and we have no close friends/family around to take one of us in for an extended time) he accepted it. it took us 6 months to complete the marriage prep… I’m not sure why though, we only officially met maybe a half dozen times with the priest before the wedding. it can be done. it’s not an ideal situation but there comes a point where you just have no choice. 🤷

Good luck!
 
JHaas07 said:
I left a voicemail with Priest. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 9 months to get everything done.
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JHaas07 said:
Thank you- I wouldn’t consider us rushing it as we’ve been together for nearly 3 years. But I definitely understand what you’re saying. Thanks for the wealth of info.
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Our parish is so big that often each Saturday has all 3 available wedding times booked many months ahead of time. 🤷
It doesn’t necessarily matter how long it takes you to go through all the Marriage Prep stuff if the parish is already booked! :o
 
Hello, and welcome to CAF!

I am leaning in agreement with 1ke, in the putting yourselves in temptation’s path (near occasion of sin) Just a few questions though–if your financial situation was different/better, would you want to live together? If it was better, would you be in a rush to marry? How long have you been engaged?

I personally think it’s unwise – I think that living together sometimes create a false sense of security, and many people feel obligated to marry, rather than just enjoying the courtship, and then marrying. I think that happened to my nephew and his wife. Not saying it happens for all people, but I’d think to myself…suppose I was single? What would I do then?

Most couples I’d bet live together for financial reasons. To me, it would be better to find a different solution.
 
I like the idea of getting a roommate. Here’s the breakdown:

*One of you signs the lease, moves into the apartment.

*Person in the apartment finds a roommate. Charges, say, $400 a month.

*Person not in the apartment finds a room to rent for about $400 a month.

See, you spend the same amount overall. Of course, you don’t have someone quite so nice to live with! but you will get that when you’re married.

Try craigslist to find roommates/rooms to rent, or (for someone you might get along with better) advertise in the parish bulletin, homeschool newsletter, whatever. I have a friend who sent out an email to the homeschool email group and got a great mother-in-law apartment in someone’s house.

The minimum requirement is usually six months from your first contact with the priest. So call right away!

Talk to the priest about your situation – he may have more ideas. Perhaps even having a third person in the apartment would be enough to reduce the “scandal factor” for him – though, in my opinion, even if you found a priest to okay your living arrangements, it would still be better to live apart. That way, when you find out they squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, you’re married and have some nice perks to make up for it. 😉
 
I lived with my DH for 3.5 years.

Some say that living together b4 marriage lessens the committment. It did not lesson our committment at all. In fact, when we got married, I felt a calmness and a strong bond that I didn’t feel before we got married.

I will admit; however, that while we were living together, I hated it. It was like we were married, but there was always the “I’m outta here” cloud over our heads. I was always afraid that if we had a big fight, one of us would leave. I sometimes felt used and unappreciated. I wasn’t considered family by my in-laws, but I was expected to take care of their son/brother as though we were married. My SIL looked down on me for living with her brother and she treated me as though I weren’t good enough for her brother.

I like the idea of one person renting the apartment to someone and then giving the money to the other person to rent a room. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Is there a university/college nearby? Perhaps you could sublet to a college student and in the contract, state that it’s only for 6 months or something like that. Advertise at the local college.
 
I was in a situation similar to yours when I was engaged. I had quit my job at a social services center (personal reasons), and my fiance had a job that paid well. He offered to pay for my apartment and support me (we were engaged to be married in about 9 months). We lived two hours apart.

We combined our finances, and I was in charge of paying the bills–this was a good exercise for me, since I had never been allowed to balance a checkbook or handle money when I lived at home with my parents. I worked diligently on being as frugal as possible (I read books like the Tightwad Gazette, and any budgeting books I could find at the local library). I ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast. I was determined to not be a heavy financial burden on my fiance! I focused on wedding preparations and my own (free) hobbies such as reading, walking, crafting.

I had a two bedroom apartment, and on the occasions that my fiance drove up to visit me, he did stay in the guest room. We never shared a bed. And he would only stay for one night, so as to avoid as much temptation as possible. And if i drove down to visit him, I stayed only one or two nights, as well.

We discussed the situation with our priest. Amazingly enough, he was just impressed that we weren’t living together—all the other couples he was preparing for marriage were! Sad. He said that he personally saw nothing sinful in offering a room to a traveler for a night, but living together was entirely different. “You can’t get away from each other, and the tempation is greater,” as he put it. It was true that having our own place to go if the temptation got too great was a HUGE help in remaining chaste before marriage.

If i could do it over again, I would it just like that. If your fiance has a good enough job, you should be able to trim expenses so you may each have a place to live. Or you could live with your parents, if that is feasible and they live in the same town where you’ll be married. (Makes wedding prep easier, to live where the church is!)
 
Serap said:
I lived with my DH for 3.5 years.

Some say that living together b4 marriage lessens the committment. It did not lesson our committment at all. In fact, when we got married, I felt a calmness and a strong bond that I didn’t feel before we got married.

I will admit; however, that while we were living together, I hated it. It was like we were married, but there was always the “I’m outta here” cloud over our heads. I was always afraid that if we had a big fight, one of us would leave. I sometimes felt used and unappreciated. I wasn’t considered family by my in-laws, but I was expected to take care of their son/brother as though we were married. My SIL looked down on me for living with her brother and she treated me as though I weren’t good enough for her brother.

I like the idea of one person renting the apartment to someone and then giving the money to the other person to rent a room. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Is there a university/college nearby? Perhaps you could sublet to a college student and in the contract, state that it’s only for 6 months or something like that. Advertise at the local college.
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In your second paragraph, I have heard that often from friends and family who lived together before marriage…or lived together, and didn’t end up married, largely because of those reasons. I had a friend who used to say that her (now) MIL would say…‘so once you both are done playing house, when are you going to get married?’ I think it’s best to wait to be married before living together–I’m glad you both married though, and seem to be very happy! 🙂
 
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