Sleeping in same room

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philippeans413
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Philippeans413

Guest
I was wondering what the Catholic Church’s views were on my boyfriend and I sleeping in the same room? We weren’t in the same bed, just the same room, and I was later told that the Church doesn’t approve of this. Is this right?
 
This is generally called “a near occasion of sin.”

You’re needlessly putting both of yourselves in temptation’s way.
 
I don’t think the Catholic Church has any particular point of views on this, at all.

Other than the fact that both individuals are putting themselves in “the near occasion of sin.”

:eek:

In other words, you’re right when you say that the “Church doesn’t approve of this.” It’s because you and your boyfriend are giving yourselves the opportunity to sin.

Not that you intend to, mind you. Just that you are providing the location and situation for it.
 
Does anybody see you stay there together and know your not married ?
 
Hmmm.

I agree that i puts you in the near occassion of sin. Personally I am guilty of fornication before marriage (albeit to my now wife - who i married outside the Church therefore not a valid marriage - but ignorant of that at the time - but now regret knowing what I know now - not the marriage itself but the fornication and outside the Church part). Anyway enough about my problems.

There is also the concept of living as brother and sister. Well my son and daught sleep in the same room but not in the same bed. However they are 8 and 5.

However I think Scandal has more weight that Living as Brother and Sister, i.e. people could conclude that you are living in sin and be scandalised if you permanently reside with your fiance.

If this is a one off, like you went on a holiday, stayed with relatives etc and efforts were made to find separate rooms but this could not be accomodated then I would mention this in confession to get it of your chest.

Craig
 
Philippeans413 said:
I was wondering what the Catholic Church’s views were on my boyfriend and I sleeping in the same room? We weren’t in the same bed, just the same room, and I was later told that the Church doesn’t approve of this. Is this right?
Click to expand...
It is both a near occasion of sin, a scandal by bad example to others, and something which if you marry someone else than this fellow in the future, that future husband will rightly not think approvingly of.

As you two should now think about the idea.
 
I think it all depends on who you talk to. For example, when my husband and I talked to our Priest before we were to be married, he was telling us about a seminar he attended about couples living together. He said there are some studies that show a reduction in divorce when a couple lives together. However, if you go to another Catholic church and talk with another Priest, they might have more traditional views and believe a couple living together is a sin and should not be done.

Are you living together? Or was this a one time occasion?

My husband and I were engaged and went to visit his grandparents out of town. We slept at his grandparents house, in the living room, my husband on the floor and me on the couch. His grandmother wanted us there and did not want us to leave to stay in a hotel room. By no means do I think we sinned because we were in the same room or near each other.
 
No we aren’t living together-it happened one time, and it wasn’t even planned
But later when I heard that it was wrong, I felt guilty and needed some information–so thank you
 
I don’t think it is wrong, per se. Especially in rare or dire circumstances. On one of our first dates, my husband and I got snowed in and I ended up staying at his apartment. Yes, a small couch (too short for either of us) or carpeted floor were available, but we both kept insisting “no, you take the bed” until finally I suggested we sleep in the same bed together. We never even touched. It was not a “near occasion for sin” for us, but might have been for other couples. (Just as having one cocktail is not a “near occasion for sin” for me, but might be for an alcoholic.)
 
Philippeans413 said:
No we aren’t living together-it happened one time, and it wasn’t even planned
But later when I heard that it was wrong, I felt guilty and needed some information–so thank you
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t get bent out of shape about it. Same situation for me and my now wife. We started dating over one summer and upon our return to college for our senior year, we were1,500 miles apart. I went to school in Chicago and she was in Fort Myers, FL. We visited enough so there wasn’t more than a month or so that went by that we didn’t see each other and while most of the time it was when we’d meet back up in Jacksonville for designated breaks, we did also take long weekends to visit the other in between those breaks.

She had a suite but her suitemates weren’t keen on my sleeping on the couch in the common area for whatever reason, so I slept on the floor in her room. I had a single so I let her take my bed and I slept on the futon I had.

If you’ve moved in or something and sleeping separately, there’s still some scandal there and it’s just putting yourself in a situation where sin is all too tempting; why would you want to do that to someone you love?! But for short visits, emergencies, whatever, I don’t see any harm to your soul or reputation. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone in college is going to assume you’re having sex no matter you do to disavow them of that idea simply because of the culture we have. You can’t control that. Just don’t put yourselves in a near occasion of sin or give the entire world the idea that you’re engaging in pre-martial relations by moving in together regardless of the sleeping arrangements and you’re fine imo.
 
Philippeans413 said:
No we aren’t living together-it happened one time, and it wasn’t even planned
But later when I heard that it was wrong, I felt guilty and needed some information–so thank you
Click to expand...
If it wasn’t planned, I wouldn’t stress about it, but it’s not something I would plan to do in the future, either. It definitely happened to me when my husband and I were dating, on two different occasions, when we ended up sleeping in the same room. We were long distance, so he would sometimes stay the night in the same town as me, and we would make arrangements to sleep in different rooms. Once, while I was in residence, I was going to sleep on in a friend’s room on a mattress while I gave him my bed in my room, but my friend ended up staying out really late, so I ended up falling asleep on the second bed in my super-single room (one person in the room, two beds), and he slept on the other.
The other time was a lot more awkward… I was living in a kind of flat with 2 other girls, and I was going to sleep in one of the other girl’s room while he slept in my bed, again. The other girl came home after I had already fallen asleep in her room… aaand I was woken up by her, and a guy coming into her room. :eek::eek::eek: I decided to cut my losses and go sleep on the couch in my own room. She apologized afterwords, but yeaaaah… not very cool. >.>

Anyway, moral of the story: life happens, don’t worry about it, but do your best to avoid it, near occasion of sin and all that. 👍
 
Philippeans413 said:
I was wondering what the Catholic Church’s views were on my boyfriend and I sleeping in the same room? We weren’t in the same bed, just the same room, and I was later told that the Church doesn’t approve of this. Is this right?
Click to expand...
Short answer: no.

Long answer: The Church has no explicit position on this issue, which is understandable because otherwise we would end up with 100000000 commandments that would take the form of legal provisions and everybody would try to find a way around them and lose sight of charity. Details are sometimes left to the informed conscience and this does not at all mean that there is no absolute or objective truth there. It means we’re responsible for making judgement calls in accordance with the teaching of the Church.

The teaching here at hand is that near occasion to sin is avoided. This means that if something pits you against temptation that’s hard to resist for you, then you need to avoid that something. However, there is no teaching to support a claim that e.g. staying in the same room is near occasion to sin. This is a matter of fact, not of principle. If it is near occasion of sin, then you want to avoid it. If it’s not, then you don’t have to.

Then there is scandal. You don’t want to give people impression that you’re sinning and condoning sin and to make them think sin is okay or otherwise challenge their faith. This does not mean that you’re inevitably culpable for rumours that prying people repeat behind your back.

Another important consideration is that a relationship is not a marriage. To a young person in love, a relationship may look like half a marriage, so to say, but it’s not. At this stage, you’re basically “discerning” (finding out) whether your boyfriend is a right man for you to marry. It’s natural that you’re attracted, you’re in love, you feel affection etc., but the girlfriend-boyfriend relationship doesn’t really come with a set of rights attached to it. It’s basically premarital discernment. For this reason, one should be careful with expressions of intimacy–after all, such relationships don’t always work out and then people have to split up and there are regrets when one finally marries someone else and would like to turn back the time to “undo” certain things from the past.

Besides, occasion of sin is not a trivial matter. It is easy to overstate it and it’s easy to forget oneself, be misguided by pleadings from the other person for (physical) affection, taken over by one’s own senses and hormones, thinking about the wrong things etc. It’s easy to justify things before one does them, but it’s very hard afterwards when one has some mess to clean up (I know something about that from experience).
 
If you are willing to explain the circumstances surrounding the reasons you slept in the same room, it would be easier to more definitively give an answer.
 
Forget near occassion of sin. Put that aside. It’s the intention that matters. If nothing happened or was intended to happen then don’t worry about it. GOD knows the heart. In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with sharing a room if it’s not a hardship or temptation for you. For me it would be a different story. One night would be ok but I don’t think I could share a room with someone I loved and not be sorely tempted to share more but that’s just me. Only you can know how good your will power is. :o
 
Sierrah said:
Forget near occassion of sin. Put that aside. It’s the intention that matters. If nothing happened or was intended to happen then don’t worry about it. GOD knows the heart. In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with sharing a room if it’s not a hardship or temptation for you. For me it would be a different story. One night would be ok but I don’t think I could share a room with someone I loved and not be sorely tempted to share more but that’s just me. Only you can know how good your will power is. :o
Click to expand...
I like how you said that, but in my situation I met my girlfriend online we are both Catholic and live no where close to each other to see one another on a regular basis. We started out as friend and after a year of that we started to date. We only get to see each other one weekend out of every month and I’m the one that does the traveling, because she was diagnoised with cancer a while back so she stays close to home. So, I mentioned to her maybe one night out of the weekend that I am up if she would stay the night in the single room double bed hotel room so I didn’t have to cut the night short by taking her home and start all over again in the later afternoon because she sleeps in most morning due to her illness. But that idea was shot down by one of her parish members of her church. I had no other intention other than spending as much time possible with her in the short time I am there on my visit.

Any thoughts on that?
 
Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with sleeping in the same room. It’s greatly frowned upon because if the conotations, but in and of itself, there isn’t sin in it, as far as I know.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top