Is it okay to be living together?

I would do anything to save living with my future husband for marriage. A lot of people make sexual temptation the primary focus for the reasoning behind this argument, but I'm not even going to go there.
Lol, my mom always says, "Why would you buy the cow if you are getting the milk for free?"
In these days of "anything goes" I feel as though something should be reserved for marriage. Sometimes, just like your parents, tradition is wise and dictates for a reason. Living together is something special and to be looked forward to. It's like opening Christmas gifts before Christmas...you already have it and have nothing to open when the big day comes and everyone is all excited. I don't see any fun in living together and getting married one day and coming home the next and being like.....ok, we're married, big difference, now what? Plus, statistics show that divorce rates are higher among couples who cohabitate. I would believe it because from observation, I would say that the cohabitating couples I know are far less stable. You share everything you have with them, your lives become so intermingled, but it is easy enough to decide at any moment that you just "don't feel the same way anymore" etc. If you think of it in terms of a "trial run" (you know...seeing whether or not you can deal with their little quirks) it becomes easier to opt out instead of working through things. If you are in a marriage, you have gone out of your way and committed yourself to working things out for the rest of your lives. Plus if you make it all about saving money, I think you get cheated out of a lot of the joy. Don't let money be your God.

I read an article the other day about a woman who found herself pregnant by her bf and said something along the lines of "This isn't the proper order of things...it's supposed to go 'dating, move in together, get engaged, get married, have a baby...'" Ah, the sweetness of modern times. It just illustrates the point. Plus it's all over TV in sitcoms etc...its the thing to do. And anything that's cool on TV MUST be awesome in real life too.

I really hate judging other people's situations as right or wrong, but that is how I feel about things for myself and my boyfriend. A few people I know ended up in that situation because they absolutely had no choice or something. To each his own I guess.

As best as I can see, flufBrown doesn't specify whether or not he and his fiancee are sleeping together. So that would be one question to ask. Sexual intimacy before marriage is indeed a sin. Plus, keeping sex as a way of expressing deep and permanent commitment as well as love is a wonderful way of building a terrific and very fulfilling sexual relationship that gets better and better during your marriage. Trust me. I know.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't live together before marriage under platonic circumstances because (1) I wouldn't want the "do we / don't we sleep together" issue to dominate our relationship, and (2) if we trained ourselves to push that question aside, I wouldn't want to train ourselves out of the potential of deep passion for one another.

Face it -- married intimacy is way too wonderful to take risks with. Totally not worth it.

James 4:16

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Also,
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

Put those together...what would living with your fiancee be doing to flee sexual immorality? You are putting yourself in a very vulnerable position.

Statistically, the divorce rate of married couple who live together climbs to 80% from the already-too-high divorce rate of 50% for couples who don't live together.
The reasons to not live together include more than just sexual things. The first year of marriage is going to be the roughest year of your marriage. Just getting used to eachother, him providing for a family, you taking care of one. It's harder than you think to get used to. BUT you have those little things that make the first year of marriage SO great, great enough to overpower the fact that it's a hard time for you guys. Stuff like sharing a bedroom, brushing your teeth together, learning to love eachother in spite of the faults that you don't see before you actually start living together, him being enthralled by waking up to your face every morning, you feeling completely secure in his arms, plus tons more things that would be better if they were saved for the first year of marriage instead of wasting them when times are good, then coming into marriage with hardly anything to keep the hard times fun.

Transformed.... Nice statistic. What's your source? (i'd like to follow up on this and quote it to a few people, but I won't do it unless I can back it up with the actual research)

ChildofGod1586 said:

Actually, I agree with this as well. People will always be thinking that sex is involved in a relationship.

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I agree. But, then again, I think it depends on the person as well. I don't know how many people I've seen living together but haven't had sexual relations. It's unheard of, I know, but not impossible. Of course you need to take the Lord into account and think about how you're demonstrating a God-centered relationship. And, like most have said, 70% of the time when a couple is living together they're not demonstrating a God-centered relationship.
People assume things about everyone all the time. Just because Joe down the street thinks Yickty and Yack are sleeping together doesn't mean they are. They're not going to change their living conditions soley because Joe (whom they don't even know) thinks they should...when he truly doesn't even know what's going on.
*Shrug* Whatever. We all have different opinions. There's mine.

Ashley Lynne

It might be relevant to reflect on 1 Corinthians 10 about this:

"All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor." (1 Cor 10:23-24)

If a couple lives together before marriage, it would be natural for others to suppose that they are sleeping together, causing scandal to the witness of Christ. Yes, the couple might know (or hope) that they will continue to be chaste, but to the casual observer, the couple appears to be "conformed to this world" (Rom 12), enabling the weak or new believer, as well as the skeptic, to be deceived about the nature of Christ's call to purity in their lives.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus doesn't pull any punches about our responsibility to be mindful of caring for the others in his body. "If anyone causes any of this little ones who believes in me to sin, better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea (Mk 9:42). It's at least inconsiderate, and perhaps sinfully unloving, to take a "who cares what they think" attitude about such a serious issue.

As someone said, even when you are not living together, ppl assume yo are sleeping together. But that is mostly non-christians and the ppl who dont really know you, such as acquaintances and co-workers. But if you are living together, even ppl who do know you, may assume you are sleeping together. Its definitely worse.

Briseis said:

As someone said, even when you are not living together, ppl assume yo are sleeping together. But that is mostly non-christians and the ppl who dont really know you, such as acquaintances and co-workers. But if you are living together, even ppl who do know you, may assume you are sleeping together. Its definitely worse.

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What makes it worse is that you are following through with their original thoughts and perceptions by living together. People can assume all they want, yes they're going to. But why affirm those thoughts by going ahead and living together?

Briseis said:

As someone said, even when you are not living together, ppl assume yo are sleeping together. But that is mostly non-christians and the ppl who dont really know you, such as acquaintances and co-workers. But if you are living together, even ppl who do know you, may assume you are sleeping together. Its definitely worse.

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But is that necissarily a problem?

At one point a lot of people that I knew in college thought that my dance partner and I had a relationship going. I mean we would practice together and then maybe grab something to eat together. . . or the other way around. . .

But really we where competative dance partners and we wanted to do this thing called winning.

It wasn't true but it didn't kill us.

Although personally I'm not sure if I endorse living together or not. If you do then I would recommend sleeping in different bedrooms. I think if you sleep in different rooms then its probably ok, but definatly wouldn't recommend sleeping in the same room or the same bed.

Of course nothing actually biblically wrong with sleeping in the same bed but the idea is to avoid getting too physical.

Luther073082 said:

But is that necissarily a problem?

At one point a lot of people that I knew in college thought that my dance partner and I had a relationship going. I mean we would practice together and then maybe grab something to eat together. . . or the other way around. . .

But really we where competative dance partners and we wanted to do this thing called winning.

It wasn't true but it didn't kill us.

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It is not a sin to be dating your dance partner, it is a sin to be sleeping with your roommate.
Whether you agree with avoiding the appearance of evil or not does not matter, the fact is it is in the Bible.

Briseis said:

It is not a sin to be dating your dance partner, it is a sin to be sleeping with your roommate.
Whether you agree with avoiding the appearance of evil or not does not matter, the fact is it is in the Bible.

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Avoid the appearence of evil?

Where does it say that?

If thats true then maybe you are right but then the better question is what more restrictions are there on our lives?

I mean since my GF is in cali can I stay a few nights in her apartment if I come to visit?

And does the passage qualify as advice or an order? And I'm not trying to get off on technicalities but the bible also recommends against taking out debt and purchasing things for vain reasons but that doesn't stop a lot of Christians from buying their new cars.

Luther073082 said:

Avoid the appearence of evil?

Where does it say that?

If thats true then maybe you are right but then the better question is what more restrictions are there on our lives?

I mean since my GF is in cali can I stay a few nights in her apartment if I come to visit?

And does the passage qualify as advice or an order? And I'm not trying to get off on technicalities but the bible also recommends against taking out debt and purchasing things for vain reasons but that doesn't stop a lot of Christians from buying their new cars.

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I am unsure whether you have actually never heard that before, since its a very common verse to me, or whether you knew very well where it is and were waiting for me to quote it, giving you the opportunity to correct me on a misinterpretation.

I just looked it up and apparently the word 'appearance' only appears in the NKJV and meant avoid evil wherever it appears, wherever it is found. It has nothing to do with the worlds interpretation of your actions.

Briseis said:

I am unsure whether you have actually never heard that before, since its a very common verse to me, or whether you knew very well where it is and were waiting for me to quote it, giving you the opportunity to correct me on a misinterpretation.

I just looked it up and apparently the word 'appearance' only appears in the NKJV and meant avoid evil wherever it appears, wherever it is found. It has nothing to do with the worlds interpretation of your actions.

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No I have never actually heard that verse before. But it sounds very possible to be a verse.

But thats the problem is I don't think we neceissarily need to worry about the world's interpretation of our actions. Many churchs don't allow women to be pastors and the world interpretes that to mean that those churchs are sexist (and I'm not even in one of those churchs btw). A lot of churchs believe homosexual activity is a sin, I belive that. . . but if you say that in public everyone thinks that means you hate gays. Well no I don't hate gays, its a sin to hate anyone. Besides I've had gay friends before. . . I just think its a sin. But if you arn't a Chrsitian you really don't understand that doesn't mean you hate someone.

And I've been on the non-Christian side long enough to understand their ignorance.

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to post something interesting I found regarding living together and marriage.

I too have heard the "living together increases your risk for divorce" statement. I have also head that with each sexual partner you have your risk for divorce increases. But check this out:

Cohabitation Facts Rarely Mentioned

• In France and Germany cohabiting couples have a slightly lower risk of divorce.
• If cohabitation is limited to a person's future spouse, there is no elevated risk of divorce.
• In the U.S., cohabiting couples taking premarital education courses or counseling are not at a higher risk for divorce.

I found this very interesting. Actually, I found it on about.com and the source mentioned is this book:
Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage
by Stephanie Coontz

gem062385 said:

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to post something interesting I found regarding living together and marriage.

I too have heard the "living together increases your risk for divorce" statement. I have also head that with each sexual partner you have your risk for divorce increases. But check this out:

Cohabitation Facts Rarely Mentioned

• In France and Germany cohabiting couples have a slightly lower risk of divorce.
• If cohabitation is limited to a person's future spouse, there is no elevated risk of divorce.
• In the U.S., cohabiting couples taking premarital education courses or counseling are not at a higher risk for divorce.

I found this very interesting. Actually, I found it on about.com and the source mentioned is this book:
Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage
by Stephanie Coontz

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I wish there were more studies to show living together vs. living only in marriage on the effects of divorce.