#1 Reason Why Living Together Before Marriage Will Hurt Your Relationship

my parents were divorced and it was really sucky I've never seen a good marriage my parents never got married and they were just fine I've never seen anybody who had a successful marriage so they kind of made it work but I want something different for myself so I want to figure out if this person is going to be a good long-term fit for me [Music] hello hello it's Elizabeth Busby here the director of programs for the Theology of the Body Institute I am joined by my baby Blaze who just wants to be with Mama and today we are going to be talking about the number one reason why living together before marriage will hurt your relationship before I get into that really important topic make sure you subscribe to our Channel hit that notification button and like this video it forces YouTube to evangelize and it gives you the opportunity to learn more about what we're doing here at the Tobi so when I talk about cohabitation living together before marriage the first thing I think that people hear is I'm judging and you're going to hell and it's really I've been very hesitant to film this video because I do not want you to think that I am judging you and I do not want you to think that I am damning you if you are making these choices but after a lot of prayer and a lot of discussion with my producer we have decided that it is the most charitable thing we can do to just tell you the truth um I'm convinced that the culture is feeding you a lie and I am not here to judge you nobody nobody has the ability to judge you except God right nobody has the ability to judge your soul but as someone who does care about you someone who does care about marriage and someone who is a licensed marriage and family therapist so I have spent a lot of time learning about what helps people succeed in marriage I do feel like it is a good idea to just tell you um some things that I think are important to think about when you're considering living with someone or when you're currently living with someone and trying to figure out what you want to do in order to pursue getting married and pursue a lifelong commitment so the number one reason in my opinion why living together will actually hurt your marriage is because living together elevates things in your relationship that aren't actually super super important for long-term marital success it elevates those things to be to the level of a make or break most people move in together because they want some confidence that the person that they're with will make a good spouse in a certain sense they're attempting to divorce proof their relationship they want to learn if this person is going to be a good fit I have heard the really insulting analogy of you test drive a car before you buy it there are a lot of people out there talking about how that's not a good analogy because men and women are not cars but you don't buy a car without taking it out for a test drive but then you know a woman's not a car they are not things they are not Commodities that you have to test um so I'm not going to go into that but I do think that the heart of what most people are thinking about when they live together is my parents were divorced and it was really sucky I've never seen a good marriage my parents never got married and they were just fine I've never seen anybody who had a successful marriage so they you know kind of made it work but I want something different for myself so I want to figure out if this person is going to be a good long-term fit for me at the core of like deep down that desire is a good one it's a good desire to know or to try to figure out is this person going to be a good fit for me framed in a certain way that's good discernment right the desire is a good thing I am here to tell you that living together though is a poor execution of that desire it is not going to give you a good answer about whether or not you are going to be a good fit for each other and in fact it sows seeds of um distrust and Betrayal on a certain level that actually make it to where it it could hurt your relationship in the long run some of you are thinking betrayal seeds of betrayal like no this person is committing to me to this next step obviously they love me so much that they're willing to move in obviously they want my good or they wouldn't be trying to figure out if we're a good fit on some level I could see how that is what you're interpreting but on another level there is a sense in which they are test driving the relationship and elevating these things that are not actually super important to the level of make or break and you are kind of interviewing um for if you would be a good fit for them and to a certain extent that is not super helpful so let me get into those couple of things that I think are not make or breaks that living together does elevate to that level the two things are whether or not you're a good roommate whether or not you guys have compatibility doing the actual Act of living your lives together in a home and two sexual compatibility and you guys are like what sexual compatibility is super important I'll get to that in a second but I want to talk about the roommate piece first so when you live with someone obviously you learn a lot of things about them like are they messy or are they tidy um how do they load the dishwasher how do they put their clothes away how do they where do they put their keys when they walk in the house so they just like drop them somewhere do they put them where they belong how do they spend their Leisure Time right if you guys are spending a lot of time together if you're living together you're going to see them all the time how do they spend the time where they don't have something to do like what do they do with themselves are they on video games for 55 hours a week or are they reading a book or are they going out on a run or are they you know who knows are they tidying their house right basically the the nitty-gritty of living with someone think about when you grew up and you were living with whoever you lived with growing up all of the different things that played into being in a home together um being roommates with people you don't really think of yourself as a roommate when you're a child but you are you are roommates with your siblings and your parents and whoever you're living with um those things are objectively really hard humans have a really hard time being challenged in the things that matter to them humans have a really hard time getting outside of themselves and doing things differently than they normally like to do it is always going to be hard to live with someone like just from a roommate perspective and that's a bold statement but I stand by it it is always going to be difficult to live with someone because not everything's going to go your way and we don't like as humans when things don't go our way the problem with this in a relationship that you're using to discern marriage is those the vast majority of those things actually I think I would Vision to say every single one of those things is something that you can learn how to die to yourself and overcome right so if you're a really tidy person and the person you're with is really messy both of you have an opportunity to die to yourself for love of the other person and choose to put your shoes where they belong and choose to not be complained complaining pants when they don't put their shoes where they belong right um You can learn to overcome those elements of roommate life through virtue now people talk about not marrying someone thinking they're going to change and that is true you the core pieces of their personality are not going to change over time but you can expect in a Christian marriage for both people to grow in virtue and to become Holier versions of themselves so any sort of virtue like self-control or respect or charity or there are bajillion versus you can look them up you can expect that your partner is going to grow in those which means that if one person's messy and one person's tidy they can both learn to grow in love for the other person and sacrifice for themselves sacrificing Is Not a Bad Thing sacrificing is a good thing sacrificing allows you to die to yourself a little more and be formed a little more in the image of Christ and that is a very good thing for both you and the world so if you live together before you get married the odds are that you are going to find some things that are really hard and you might think that those things are a reason to break up and I'm here to tell you that probably they are not a reason to break up but when you are in the like instant pot of living together those things can feel so insurmountable and they really might end a relationship that otherwise could have survived and even thrived they could have totally thrived with the proper posture of I'm gonna sacrifice for love of you so the second thing is sexual compatibility we live in a culture that elevates sex to be like the end-all be-all of every human experience and while sex is wonderful and climaxing and sex is wonderful it is a wonderful feeling and a wonderful experience it is not the best thing in the entire world right the best thing in the entire world is knowing and loving and being formed in the image of Jesus so that you can achieve eternity with him one day that is the ultimate best thing in the entire world is knowing that we are fighting for heaven and working to get there now in sexual intimacy is a foretaste of Heaven but so are things like cheesecake and creme brulee and a perfectly cooked steak and a glass of wine and a beautiful sunset and hiking in the mountains and the crisp fresh gorgeous air of the beach that smells like salt and there are so many incredible things in life that lend us to know and love and serve God and and to hope for heaven one day right and sex is one of those things but it is not what the culture has told you which is the end I'll be all sexual compatibility I'm just going to be totally Frank with you that is the sort of thing that you can learn when you are engaging in marital intimacy as a true gift of self not focusing entirely on how to be as pleasured as you possibly can but truly wanting to give yourself to the other person in love wanting to communicate to them I love you freely totally Faithfully fruitfully you are my person I'm going nowhere you are perfectly safe with me and we are going to get to heaven together when you are using the marital act to communicate those things and both people are doing that this actual sexual compatibility of being able to climax in a way that is pleasurable that will come that will come and that is something you guys can learn you can learn each other's bodies you can learn how to love each other's bodies well you can learn the nitty-gritty details of having a healthy sexual relationship that is satisfying and beautiful but those elements of sexual pleasure are not a reason to not be in a relationship with someone and if you are having sex before you get married whether or not you're living together or if you're living together and having sex which most people who are living together are having sex if you are doing those things before you get married it is very tempting to think if this person is not good in bed I'm going to be miserable for the rest of my life and so I'm going to use that as a way to determine if this person would be a good fit for a long-term partner for me and I am just going to totally frankly say whoever told you that or however you got that idea they were wrong when you are the kind of sex that you have before you get married when there's not that Total Safety and Security of being there tomorrow there's not the Total Safety and Security of being able to raise a baby together there's not the total um confidence that this is the only person you're going to be with forever because there's no vow keeping you there that is a totally different kind of intimacy than once you get married and all of those safety measures in a certain sense are in place right the safety measures that God designed of I'm giving to you freely I'm holding nothing back I'm never going anywhere it's only you for me for the rest of our lives you're safe here you're safe here that is a totally different kind of sexual intimacy and frankly it's the kind of sexual intimacy you can't even really experience until you're in a marriage because those safety piece of the vows just aren't there so when you're engaging in sexual intimacy and when you're living together and engaging with sexual intimacy before you get married the intimacy you have can't even be compared to what would happen after marriage and so you're getting this false idea of the other person's like performance capability and you're using that to determine if they're a good fit for you and that's just it's just not gonna work now the reason why these things will hurt your marriage if you do end up living together and getting married is because you have sown seeds in the other person of how you are a roommate determines whether I'm going to leave you or not how you perform in bed determines whether I'm going to leave you or not and there's always going to be this underlying sense of maybe they're going to leave one day right and so there's not this total sense of safety and abandon that comes in a marriage that didn't have those things present before and so I want to challenge you that um recognizing that those things the roommate piece and the social compatibility piece aren't as important as you think that they are and even if they are important to you not as important but even if they are important to you what you're communicating to your partner is your value and worth as my spouse is reduced to your ability to perform in these areas and frankly they're saying that same thing to you that's what they're communicating to you and at the end of the day those are not the kind of doubts that you want in your relationship so if you are living together or sleeping together and you want to make a change I strongly encourage you to just do it if finances are the reason that you're wanting to be in this place and you think that it's gonna be so much cheaper to just stay living together now and you're going to risk it in your marriage I will tell you divorce is so much more expensive than what you are doing now um it can be fairy and almost always as very financially ruinous to a person um to get a divorce so as a way of divorce proving your relationship I really encourage you to find another living situation to begin to live in a sexually absent way before you get married it is so hard it is so hard I know it's hard but I know that you can do hard things and if you're convicted that this is something that you want to make a change in I strongly encourage you to try and do it give it to the Lord give it to Mama Mary ask her to intercede for you to find a way to live in the freedom of God's desire fear sexuality and God's design for your marriage discernment I just want you to know I'm praying for you I hope you haven't felt judged in this video I would love to talk more about this if this is something that you want I hope you have received it in the gentle posture that I've tried to give it and I want you to know that I am rooting for you I want you to be a saint I want to be a saint I want us all to get to heaven together and if I can do anything that helps you learn how to do that then I want to so until next time y'all stay close to the Heart of Jesus and Be not Afraid bye foreign [Music]

Channel: Theology of the Body Institute

Views: 10,246

Keywords: #1 Reason Why Living Together Before Marriage Will Hurt Your Relationship, Living Together Before Marriage, Does It Help Or Hurt The Relationship?, 3 Reasons Catholic Couples Don't Spend the Night Together Before Marriage, The Real Problem with Living Together, spend the night, living with boyfriend, spend the night with you spend my life with you, before marriage after marriage, Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Live With Your Significant Other Before Marriage, jordan peterson

Id: PbNn4I8EsBA

Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023