When your children are cohabitating

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ellen18

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My daughter lives with her boyfriend at his home on the weekends. They’ve been going out almost 2 years now.
She is divorced and they plan on getting married next year. They got engaged this Valentine’s weekend. I feel upset because I feel uncomfortable about this but am powerless to change this situation since they feel since they are contemplating marriage they are not doing anything wrong. They want to stay over at my house occassionally and say they will not be performing any activity other than sleeping. She is divorced as I said before and has been living at home with us 2 years.
Please help me assuage my thoughts as to what to do or say. My conscience and scruples are working overtime. I have an unmarried son, 28, who stays over on the weekends as he goes to school and works about an hour away so he has his own apt. which he lives in during the week. He is pretty much a devout Catholic and also has scruples about certain matters.
 
Treat him as your future son in law and as the person your daughter has chosen to marry. Aside from insisting they sleep in separate rooms while under your roof, I don’t think that you can do much more than that (unless you want to anger them and make sure they shut you out of their life).

Your daughter knows that you disagree with her choice, but that is her problem. She is an adult and is entitled to make her own mistakes.

cheese

P.S. If they don’t like sleeping in separate rooms, they can get a hotel room. That needs to be a hard, non-negotiable rule.
 
Love her, but, I would not allow my adult child to sleep in the same room with thier sweetheart in my house. You can love the child but not condone the sinful actions.

You might also look at Jimmy Akin’s book on Annulments, then, give it to your daughter 👍
 
Lay out your house rules and let them decide if they want to visit overnight. They can get a hotel if they don’t like your rules. —KCT
 
Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut. I will put it to use this weekend.
Ellen18
 
When I was married to my ex and we hadn’t yet told his mom I slept in a different room or house if I was in town. OK that just sounds confusing… I was married but because of my parents we didn’t tell any of the family for about a year. During that year I was living in IL and my husband in PA. His father died and I went there for the funeral. I stayed at his sisters house because nobody knew we were married. Then later when I came to PA to visit at Christmas, I was staying at my mom’s but we got into a huge fight (about my ex of course) and I went to his mom’s to stay for my visit. She allowed me to stay there but not in the same room as my husband. I thought it was only right considering it was her house and she didn’t know we were married.
 
BlestOne said:
When I was married to my ex and we hadn’t yet told his mom I slept in a different room or house if I was in town. OK that just sounds confusing… I was married but because of my parents we didn’t tell any of the family for about a year. During that year I was living in IL and my husband in PA. His father died and I went there for the funeral. I stayed at his sisters house because nobody knew we were married. Then later when I came to PA to visit at Christmas, I was staying at my mom’s but we got into a huge fight (about my ex of course) and I went to his mom’s to stay for my visit. She allowed me to stay there but not in the same room as my husband. I thought it was only right considering it was her house and she didn’t know we were married.
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Without a doubt, this is one of the nuttiest things I have read here. Any reason for the “secret” marriage?!

To the OP: in your own home and with respect to slacker adult children camping out on the weekends–you have every right, if not duty, to state, enforce and expect compliance with your very reasonable and moral rules. Anyone who feels unduly burdened is welcome and long overdue to take on the mature, responsible decision to fund their own apartment.
 
Island_Oak said:
Without a doubt, this is one of the nuttiest things I have read here. Any reason for the “secret” marriage?!
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I don’t dispute that… It was a nutty thing to do, but it made sense to me at the time considering how horrible I was treated but kept trying to get approval from them. The reason for the secret marriage was that my mom was totally against the marriage and was going crazy looking into any skeletons in his closet she could dig up(to the point of having police checks done and calling his doctors and pretending to be his mother to get medical info. I’ll put it this way… I was too naive to understand where their doubts were coming from and they were too judgmental of anyone who didn’t earn 6 figures. I called them on our first anniversary and told them…then told them I was expecting. Dad came around, but mom never did.
 
Thank you for your response; Having the online support this website provides is very comforting to me. I understand your dilemma while being married secretly to your ex and understand the reasons why things were done as they were. Morally,it’s very disconcerting to me and I can’t wait for their wedding sometime next year.

Ellen 18
 
ellen18 said:
Thank you for your response; Having the online support this website provides is very comforting to me. I understand your dilemma while being married secretly to your ex and understand the reasons why things were done as they were. Morally,it’s very disconcerting to me and I can’t wait for their wedding sometime next year.

Ellen 18
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God Bless you Ellen 18 for being a good supportive mom. Keep encouraging them to holiness.
 
Thank you for this thread.

I’m 21 and live with my boyfriend, we live 2 hours from our hometown for college. I know it distresses my mom(though I would never even think that I’d be sleeping in the same room with him at home!) but this helps me maybe understand a little more how stressful it can be. We are practicing chasity, but my mom thinks otherwise(as I haven’t always been practicing it) and would never believe me just because we live together. Which I both understand and find quite annoying at the same time.

I hope your daughter will respect your wishes and everything goes smoothly.
 
I’m with homewardbound. It is interesting to see a mother’s perspective on this thread.

My df and I have maintained chastity in our relationship and we are both eagerly awaiting unity in marriage.

But his mom is always expressing her concern about us being in a long engagement. She makes comments all the time about chastity and even handed me a brochure on purity and Church teaching.

It has been hard for me to remain unoffended by her actions. It helps to see this side of the story.
 
ellen18 said:
Thank you for your response; Having the online support this website provides is very comforting to me. I understand your dilemma while being married secretly to your ex and understand the reasons why things were done as they were. Morally,it’s very disconcerting to me and I can’t wait for their wedding sometime next year.

Ellen 18
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Ellen, all I can say is: Your house…your rules!

Kathy
 
Ellen, I sympathize because I’m there too. My oldest son doesn’t believe in marriage, and he lives with his girlfriend. He asked if they could stay with us while he was apartment hunting when they moved back to our city. I said sure, but she sleeps upstairs and you downstairs.
He was furiously angry, but got over it pretty quickly and even apologized later. It was funny to me, because I remember being on the other side of the argument 40 years ago – I just didn’t get it. (Don’t you trust me, mom!)
They didn’t stay with us, but with another family member. We all get along fine now.

You might try telling them that couples who live together before marriage have a much higher divorce rate than those who don’t.(including those who stop for a period before they are married – so it’s not too late.)
Living together gives you a mindset that if something goes wrong, you can always walk away. . . it seems to carry over into marriage.

God bless. Stick to your guns.
 
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