Marriage questions?

[jmk_ak]

My fiance’ and I are both Catholic. To be honest, I question the Catholic church and the people in it a lot. At the same time, I have no desire to find a new religion. I live in my fiance’s house. I moved in when he was doing work rotations and would be gone for 2 weeks at a time, and my roommate moved to Hawaii. I needed a place and he needed someone to watch his place while he was gone.
I do not feel guilty about living with him and I hate it when people try to make me feel guilty when I have a wonderful, very open and honest relationship with my future husband. To me it feels like they are trying to create problems that don’t need to be created. I never moved in to “try it out”. We both knew what our commitment level was. We attend mass every Sunday, and I ask God everyday to show me what I am supposed to do. We want the wedding ceremony to be near our families even though we live thousands of miles away from them it is very important to us. My family is constantly lecturing me about living with my fiance, and I appreciate their concern, but I don’t feel supported. I am one of 11 children and my parents have been married for 36 years. So there are a lot of people putting stress on us. They love the man I am going to marry as well and that is why they say they do it.

My question is, should I even try to get married in the Catholic church?I thought I wanted to, but now I just want to say forget it, we will get married somewhere else, a marriage is a marriage. and we know that means a commitment of a lifetime. That is why we are getting married after all.

I guess i am just confused right now. We both see the value in pre-marriage prep because we know this is the rest of our lives we are talking about. Is there anyone who has any good advice? Has anyone been in a similar situation and can give some insight either way? Thanks in advance.

 

[cargopilot]

Well, of course you’ll get ripped on a little for the shack-up thing, but we’re all sinners, so just consider that as people cast their judgements on you for shacking-up. My advise? Do the best you can and celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation often. That is if you care about such things.

Now, the marriage thing. For a Catholic, I’m sure you’re aware that we are required to marry in the proper form. It isn’t ‘marriage is marriage’, for us. I’m sure someone will refer you to the correct canon law.

So why not marry in the Church? If you have no impediments, there is no reason not to. Unless, you don’t really think you can stay married for life.

I don’t know, but I’ve been told that there are Catholics who will ‘marry’ outside of the Church with the sole purpose of having an ‘easy out’ if things don’t work. Pretty clever. If you don’t marry in the Church you’ve never really been married…

So, why don’t you want to marry in the Church, anyway?

 

[cargopilot]

jmk_ak:

My fiance’ and I are both Catholic…

I do not feel guilty about living with him…

We attend mass every Sunday…

I’m just curious…You’re both Catholic and you do not feel any guilt for living together and I’m assuming you both know you’re in a state of mortal sin, with no repentance, whatsoever. I’m also assuming that you don’t have any use for ‘confession’.

Do you receive Holy Communion like that?

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

jmk_ak:

My fiance’ and I are both Catholic. To be honest, I question the Catholic church and the people in it a lot. At the same time, I have no desire to find a new religion. I live in my fiance’s house. I moved in when he was doing work rotations and would be gone for 2 weeks at a time, and my roommate moved to Hawaii. I needed a place and he needed someone to watch his place while he was gone.
I do not feel guilty about living with him and I hate it when people try to make me feel guilty when I have a wonderful, very open and honest relationship with my future husband. To me it feels like they are trying to create problems that don’t need to be created. I never moved in to “try it out”. We both knew what our commitment level was. We attend mass every Sunday, and I ask God everyday to show me what I am supposed to do. We want the wedding ceremony to be near our families even though we live thousands of miles away from them it is very important to us. My family is constantly lecturing me about living with my fiance, and I appreciate their concern, but I don’t feel supported. I am one of 11 children and my parents have been married for 36 years. So there are a lot of people putting stress on us. They love the man I am going to marry as well and that is why they say they do it.

My question is, should I even try to get married in the Catholic church?I thought I wanted to, but now I just want to say forget it, we will get married somewhere else, a marriage is a marriage. and we know that means a commitment of a lifetime. That is why we are getting married after all.

I guess i am just confused right now. We both see the value in pre-marriage prep because we know this is the rest of our lives we are talking about. Is there anyone who has any good advice? Has anyone been in a similar situation and can give some insight either way? Thanks in advance.

Living together is not a mortal sin. However it can place you in a situation tempting you to commit mortal sin. Assure your family that you both live in separate bedrooms and do not venture into the other persons while they are there. Many people are tempted to Marry outside the Church. It is always a conflict between what I want and what God wants. Most are sorry they did later on down the road.