Please provide me with material....cohabitation

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Mijoy2

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As to why cohabitation before marriage is wrong.

Please keep in mind that the person of whom I want to send this material is highly unlikely to read a book. So articles/pamphlets would be best. Or possible chapters of some book.

Internet articles would also be helpful. I am conduicting my own search too, this is an attempt to reach out to others who may have found some document truly inspiring.

Thanks much
 
kage_ar said:
Is this person Christian?
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Catholic, yes. But like most Catholics, virtually totally ignorant of the Faith.

I am not really lookinig for something like a list of statistics. These are easily attainable. I am more looking for theological discussion that helps communicate why cohabiting is wrong in the eyes of God. An argument put forth was, " I feel Gods love that He has for me and I trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. We love because God loved us first. ".

I’m looking for articulate and charitable responses that define in terms better then I can put it, why this line of reasoning is wrong. What I hope to get across is that the individuall will understand why love is sacrificial and not a flower child type love which is a selfish and non-commital love.

Hope I am clear, not sure I am.
 
Just want to make sure that you get something useful -

We are talking about fornication here, not just room-mates?

See the tab/link at the top of this page that says “Chastity” - there are great pamphlets and booklets available there.
 
As kage asked, are we talking forncation or “simple” cohabitation?
 
you may have better luck going at it from a “why contraception is wrong” view point. I assume she is on the pill?
 
If you have ever had sex, then you know that the following is true: Objectivity flies out of the window when the clothes come off. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It helps blind us (mercifully) to one another’s warts in marriage. Or, at least it keeps those warts looking not so bad. 😃

Courtship is the discernment process for marriage. Dating is only part of courtship. This phase of the relationship is when we are supposed to be taking a good hard look at the other person’s character. It’s the biggest job interview of one’s life. To do it right, we need our objectivity. Sex and cohabitation, absent the lifelong commitment and the grace that comes with marriage, tends to short-circuit that process of discernment.

Properly discerned, properly married, committed, engaged in the marriage covenant, the sex smoothes over the rough edges and becomes an occasion of grace. Cohabiting with its attendant sex is a process whereby we give the very best part of ourselves away to another, before we have fully come to know that person, or even decided if we want them for a lifetime.

Its destructiveness resides in its backwardness.
 
Then it would probably be best to search the for material teaching against premarital sex, rather than cohabitation-take it from an extreme skeptic, the arguments in that arena are much more persuasive.
 
tjm190 said:
Then it would probably be best to search the for material teaching against premarital sex, rather than cohabitation-take it from an extreme skeptic, the arguments in that arena are much more persuasive.
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Actually, the argument against cohabitation takes in the pre-marital sex issues, but is not limited to them. The intimacy of sex, its unitive dimension draws much of its power from the totality of the shared reality of daily life in all of its other facets. There is a reciprocity between the unitive activities in bed and those in the rest of the house.

The key word here is INTEGRITY.

Cohabitation, by engaging sex and shared living outside of the marriage covenant trains people in **DISINTEGRATION **of marital functionality and dignity. It does this by learning how to wrest the fruits of commitment from the tree without having to make the commitment. This assault leads to the ultimate denigration of the couple and their faith in the denigration of the very institution God created to serve as the prefigurement of the life of the Trinity and the Marriage of Jesus and His Church. Both are characterized by radically complete reciprocal self-donation. That doesn’t happen without a covenantal commitment. The arrangement becomes a farcical mime, a counterfeit.

The whole talk of cohabitation, absent this theological reality, misses the mark. There is a purpose for sex, for cohabiting, for sharing life and its joys and sorrows, within the context of marriage. Marriage is the crucible where the impurities of character are burned away as we refine our love. By definition, love requires commitment. It’s no small wonder, then, that cohabitation and marriage that rejects God’s wise design become the crucibles that consume the couple, rather than their impurities.
 
So, if they were not having sex, what would your arguments be?
 
Arwen037 said:
So, if they were not having sex, what would your arguments be?
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Let me turn that around on you. Suppose the Church said that people could cohabitate, so long as they did not have sex. What do you suppose the arguments/objections would be?
 
Thank you! Gerard, you have given some very thoughtful and well spoken answers. I hope I can help my sister to realize her error. She is hurting and this is the cause, but for some reason she can’t see it or refuses to admit it. I hope that through prayer and discernment all people suffering in this kind of relationship can come to fully know God and His love and love themselves.
 
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