Hello,

My partner and I are both Catholics. When I met my partner she was already married, but separated. We tried very hard for a long time to resist temptation and maintain a platonic relationship. Eventually though we fell into sin. We knew it was God's will for us to remove ourselves from sin. For us this meant ending our relationship, as we found it impossible to maintain a platonic relationship.

On each occasion that we ended the relationship, neither of us was able to remain separated. So, even though we knew it meant spoiling our relationship with God and pointing our souls in mortal danger we stayed together. We continued to pray for the strength to do God's will and for forgiveness and continued to attend mass, though our consciences would not allow either of us to receive Communion.

During this time we had a daughter, and I moved in with my partner to support her and our child. While living together my partner and I had terrible problems within our relationship to do with living together and the problems and stresses that came with it. These problems were very serious and almost ended our relationship. As our daughter got older my partner and I decided we should live separately again not least because of the problems we had living together.

My partners previous marriage has been annulled now. Currently we are in a relationship, but are living separately and are as happy as we can be considering our circumstances. We are both at peace and manage to maintain a stable relationship while living separately. We are both trying to work out, with God's help, some of the things that caused the problems for us in the past with a view to being able to live together when we marry which, for the first time in our relationship, is a real possibility. My question is this:

In light of the problems we had living together before, which were very serious, are we right to enter into marriage, knowing that those problems exist, and that we may never be able to live together, in order to remove ourselves from sin?

Or should we stay in a sinful state, and try to solve the problems which we know exist so that we can enter into a marriage which is more stable.

I know that if we had done things the way they should have been, then we would have been married *before* we lived together, and the problems we had would have happened within a blessed union, which perhaps would have changed how we coped with them or even lessened them to some extent. It's the pre-knowledge that we have now, of the problems that is making things so very hard for us.

-- Don (DontThrowAnySpam@Me.Please), January 12, 2005

Answers

Response to Should marraige be entered as a way of relieving sin?

Allow me to start off by saying YES!

First things first the first five years of a relationship is the hardest...expecially if you are living together. God will fogive you for your sin if you ask him sincerely. But what is the point in even asking if you continue to sin. Don't you think thats it kindof like a slep in his face. You had a child with her out of wedlock. How can you expect forgiveness if you don't right your wrong. Repentance is turning away from sin....not the feeling. If you want to continue to have an intimat relationship, you need to make your actions right. If you don't want to get married then stop being intimate. You are not just sinning against god....you are sinning against your child and your signifigant other. You need to lead by example. Also it is not right to allow someone you love to sin.

I personally know two different couples. Both had children. The first couple, lets just call them John and Mary. John and Mary had two children....and a lot of relationship problems....They didn't get married until thier second child was 3. The second they got married 70 percent of their problems just disapeared. and they were living together before. All relationships have problems but living in sin just magnifies them. The second couple...lets call them Bob and Cindy, had a child, lived together but decided that getting married wasn't that important. Lets just say Bob never sees bob jr and Cindy is now a single mom fending for herself and her child...all alone.

If you still don't want to get married after reading this and you still wasnt to remain intimate then you have to think real hard....Do you love this women or do you lust after her?

-- kat (riesoracle@hotmail.com), January 12, 2005.

Response to Should marraige be entered as a way of relieving sin?

Wow. *blinks*. Your story reminds me exactly of Charles and Julia in Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited." Consider this:

"Oh, my darling, why is it that love makes me hate the world? It's supposed to have quite the opposite effect. I feel as though all mankind, and God, too, were in a conspiracy against us."

"They are, they are."

"But we've got our hapiness in spite of them; here and now, we've taken possession of it. They can't hurt us, can they?"

"Not to-night; not now."

"Not for how many nights?"

-----------

Julia, who grew up Catholic, has a spiritual crisis from their affair--

"Living in sin, with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year in , year out. Waking up with sin in the morning, seeing the curtains drawn on sin, bathing it, dressing it, clipping diamonds to it, feeding it, showing it round, giving it a good time, putting it to sleep at night with a tablet of Dial if its fretful.

"Always the same, like an idiot child carefully nursed, guarded from the world. 'Poor Julia,' they say, 'she can't go out. She's got to take care of her little sin. A pity it ever lived,' they say, 'but it's so strong. Children like that always are. Julia's so good to her little, mad sin.'"

She speaks a bit about her Mother dying with only knowledge of her sin, and continues,

"Mumy dying with it; Christ dying with it, nailed hand and foot; hanging over the bed in the night-nursery; hanging year after year in the dark little study at Farm Street with the shining oilcloth; hanging in the dark church where only the old charwoman raises the dust and one candle burns; hanging at noon, high among the crowds and the soldiers; no comfort except a sponge of vinegar and the kind words of a thief; hanging for ever; never the cool sepulchre and the grave clothes spread on the stone slab, never the oil and spices in the dark cave; always the midday sun and the dice clocking for the seamless coat.

"Never the shelter of the cave or of the castle walls. Outcast in the desolate spaces where the hyenas roam at night and the rubbish heaps smoke in the daylight. No way back; the gates barred; all the saints and angels posted along the walls. Nothing but bare stone and dust and the smouldering dumps. Thrown away, scrapped, rotting down; the old man with lupus and the forked stick who limps out at nightfall to turn the rubbish, hoping for something to put in his sack, something marketable, turns away with disgust.

"Nameless and dead, like the baby they wrapped up and took away before I had seen her..." [Julia had had a miscarriage in a previous, unhappy marriage].

To be Catholic, to fall into sin, to lose control--indeed, freedom. Believe me, I think that in a strange sort of way, you couldn't be in a better situation right now.

Suffice to say, I'm not sure why you have to continue living in sin in order to be married. Why can you not separate while you go to marriage preparation and counciling within your parish or Diocese?

If you must remain together, you should be married; but you must both form yourselves and your consciences before that happens.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 12, 2005.

Thank you anon and kat for answering. Your answers have helped me in my own contemplations.

The trouble for us is that we know we have to work out these problems as they are serious. But the thought of marrying someone in the knowledge that you will probably have to live seperated while you work on the problems, just does not seem right. On the other hand both of us want the relationship to work.

Can you marry someone and stay seperated? Is that right? Is it allowed? Sure, marrying someone and *then* seperating is one thing but marrying someone *intending* to stay seperate is another thing surely. Although we are currently in sin, neither of us want to abuse the sacrament of marraige.

Also, our daughter. I feel as though we should be married for her sake. That in some way we would be sinning against her by remaining unmarried, even if my partner and I maintained a non-intimate relationship. Does that make sense? I know our daughter was born out of wedlock, but I feel that marrying my partner would still somehow legitimise our family.

We have thought about two options and the questions they raise for us. Three really, but the third option is ending the relationship, which is not an option that we don't want to entertain, although we know that if that's God's will then we have to be open to it, should it be made clear to us.

Option 1) Marry and live together (Are we sinning by marrying in the knowledge we will likely seperate again if things don't work out? Yes, at least we are no longer living in sin, but isn't that an abuse of the sacrament of marraige?)

Option 2) Don't marry. Abstain from intimacy. Get counselling and try to work things out with a view to marrying. (Are we still sinning by not taking the opportunity that we now have to right the wrong we committed by having a child and living together out of wedlock?).

-- Don (DontThrowAnySpam@Me.Please), January 13, 2005.

what will solve half of your problems is fixing yourself. what will solve the other half is fixing herself. and by fixing, i mean coming to the realization that you don't belong to yourself. jesus is your redeemer. that means he brought you from the pit of hell by paying the ransom for your life. and he paid it with his own life, with his own blood. so you owe it to God to do the right thing, whether or not you think you might separate in the future or not. your problem then is... STOP THINKING THAT YOU WILL SEPARATE IN THE FUTURE IF YOUR PROBLEMS DON'T WORK OUT. that kind of thinking is the ROOT of some of your problems, guaranteed. for example, if you think you have a way out, then there's no reason why you should back down from a fight because you can always pull the "separation card" like by saying, since we can't fix our problems, we'll just leave each other. it's circular reasoning. if you get married and you KNOW that you can't leave each other, then you WILL find a way to solve your problems

then there's the act of consummation. you're married in deed if not on paper. the two have become one AND have a child together. so you belong to each other now. you should put the other's feelings and thoughts ahead of your own. both of you. love requires action, it's not just a feeling. you can't say that you love your kids but not pay child support, you can't say that you love your kids and not send them birthday cards. do you see how love requires action? the same goes with your love for God. you can't say that you love God but hate your brother (don't have the exact quote right in front of me sorry), just like you can't say that you love God and not obey what he says.

and you can't refrain from doing the right thing just in case you MIGHT make a wrong decision later on. picture a non believer saying, "i don't want to believe in Jesus because what if later on i choose to leave the church and that would be a bigger sin than believing in the first place!" such reasoning begs the question HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU WILL EVEN WANT TO LEAVE THE CHURCH LATER ON?

so i ask this of you, how do you know that you will want to leave if you haven't even gotten married yet? being married is not the same as living together. OH MY GOD, it is SO much different even if the circumstances have not changed (i.e. you already live together and have kids) getting married takes the pressure and the guilt and the paranoia about going to hell AWAY and therefore might automatically solve a number of your problems. i should know, my husband and i are one of the married couples referred to in kat's previous post!

hope you find this helpful, with much love, marina

-- marina (hellorina@aol.com), January 13, 2005.

“I know our daughter was born out of wedlock, but I feel that marrying my partner would still somehow legitimise our family. … the wrong we committed by having a child”

Don, the wrong you committed was fornication. The conception of your child is a RESULT of that sin, but having the child is NOT wrong. “Illegitimate” is a secular legal term. In the eyes of God and the Church, ALL children are “legitimate”, otherwise God wouldn’t have created them.

I don’t mean to offend or condemn you by talking straight, but these seem to be your options:

Continuing to fornicate is not an option.

Continuing to live together platonically without marriage is an occasion of (i.e. temptation to) sin, though it may be temporary option to avoid disrupting your daughter, only until you can marry as soon as possible.

The only other option is to separate and not marry. You should do this only if there is a VERY serious and compelling reason why you should leave your girlfriend to bring up your daughter without a father, and leave yourself and your girlfriend scarred for life by being separated from someone they have had regular sexual intercourse with.

If you don’t think you’re mature enough to commit to marriage and all that it entails (fidelity until death, open to further children etc) pray for the strength and maturity and you will receive it when you need it. I will pray for you too. I know that having been cohabiting clouds your thinking and makes you feel as if you’re only getting married because you HAVE to, and that it’s not a free decision. But you already made a decision when you decided to fornicate and cohabit with your girlfriend. Having decided to anticipate marriage, you should now make it a real marriage.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 13, 2005.

Or live apart only UNTIL you get married.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 13, 2005.

Don, the wrong you committed was fornication. The conception of your child is a RESULT of that sin, but having the child is NOT wrong. “Illegitimate” is a secular legal term. In the eyes of God and the Church, ALL children are “legitimate”, otherwise God wouldn’t have created them.

Steve,

You are incorrect in both definition and application regarding legitimate. Children in such a situation as described are not legitimate.

Don,

As the Church teaches, children not legitimate are by default illegitimate. Illegitimate children are legitimated as Canon Law provides -referenced:

Reference: Code of Canon Law - THE EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE

Can. 1137 Children who are conceived or born of a valid or of a putative marriage are legitimate.

Can. 1138 §1 The father is he who is identified by a lawful marriage, unless by clear arguments the contrary is proven.

§2 Children are presumed legitimate who are born at least 180 days after the date the marriage was celebrated, or within 300 days from the date of the dissolution of conjugal life.

Can. 1139 Illegitimate children are legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents, whether valid or putative, or by a rescript of the Holy See.

Can. 1140 As far as canonical effects are concerned, legitimated children are equivalent to legitimate children in all respects, unless it is otherwise expressly provided by the law.

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 14, 2005.

Daniel, once again you have misused a quote from a Church document as if it supports your quite unChristian argument, which it does not. The Church makes no distinction between so-called “illegitimate” and “legitimate” children. As far as the church is concerned, the parents of ALL children have identical duties toward them, regardless of how certain States classify them. And the Church regards all children as having the same rights and duties as regards membership of the Church, reception of the sacraments etc. The Church rejects the idea that children must be punished for the sins of their fathers and mothers.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 16, 2005.

Steve,

Try sticking with the facts. There is what I post -then there is what you falsely attribute in attempt to discredit. Punish children -who other than you even suggested such?

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 17, 2005.

P.S. LOL -get that ego under control or it will be your downfall.

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 17, 2005.