Cohabitation-Nation: Unmarried Couples Who Live Together Put Their Marriage at Risk

July 12, 2010 - PRLog -- When David LaValley of Buffalo, N.Y., started dating Cherie, he was pleased to learn they were both cradle Catholics. LaValley had served for years as an altar boy, and it wasn’t long before the couple was attending Mass together.

They kept attending eight months later, when Cherie moved into LaValley’s apartment. Despite their faith, the two had no moral qualms at the time about cohabiting. Apparently, neither did their Catholic parents, who offered congratulations and a regular Sunday brunch. Among friends, the fact that he and Cherie were “living in sin” was merely fodder for wisecracks, LaValley said. “We were Catholic,” he said, “but we weren’t afraid of sin.”

The witness of a Couple to Couple League (CCL) couple who spoke during the LaValley’s Engaged Encounter weekend prior to their marriage, caused them to rethink their behavior. They got off the pill and remained chaste until their marriage.

That was 1997. Since then, the LaValleys have married and became a CCL Teaching Couple. Cohabitation rates, nonetheless, continue to skyrocket. Catholics sadly are participating in numbers that mirror national trends, a wake-up call for Catholics, according to alarmed Catholic Marriage preparation instructors.

Living Together is “Rampant”

“It’s rampant,” said Father Larry Richards, pastor of St. Joseph Church/Bread of Life Community in Erie, Pa., and founder of The Reason for Our Hope Foundation. Father Richards, who prepares at least 25 couples for marriage each year and speaks at numerous marriage preparation weekends, said most engaged Catholic couples he works with are cohabiting. “At the beginning of Engaged Encounter, I always ask, how many of you are living together?” he said. “Ninety percent raise their hands.”

That number squares with current research: According to a 2009 report in the Journal of Family Psychology, more than 70 percent of couples now live together in a sexual relationship before marriage.

Those statistics indicate a growing threat to the institution of marriage and society at large, Catholic leaders warn. Pope Benedict XVI raised the issue during his visit to the United States in April 2008, observing in his address to bishops that the sheer pervasiveness of cohabitation has rendered it “scarcely distinguishable” from the sacrament of marriage in the eyes of some young Catholics.

A 2009 pastoral letter by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops identified cohabitation as one of four “fundamental challenges to the very meaning and purpose of marriage,” among them contraception, same-sex unions and divorce. “To have sexual intercourse outside of marriage is gravely immoral,” the letter stated, “because it communicates physically the gift of oneself when, at the time, one is not willing or able to make a total or permanent commitment.”

That’s exactly what Teaching Couple Kevin and Lisa McCormick of Kerrville, Texas, tell their students — the vast majority of whom, they say are cohabiting. Some declare it outright, Lisa said. Others write the same address on their registration forms or share revealing anecdotes. And as the sole NFP instructors in a parish of 3,500, the McCormicks say the issue is too urgent to ignore.

Sexual Embrace is Connected to Vows

If couples fail to grasp the gravity of cohabitation, the wedding may not be a transformational time for them, Kevin said. Engaged cohabiting couples “obviously don’t have a sense of the sanctity of the sexual embrace and how it’s connected to their vows,” and that jeopardizes both their understanding of marriage as a covenant, and sex as an expression of its renewal, he said. “It’s not surprising so many marriages fail when they are not being founded on a faithful approach to Christ’s teaching.”

Indeed, research has documented a grim and largely uncontested link between cohabitation and subsequent marital failure. Decades of studies confirm that couples who live together before marriage face a higher risk of divorce – a 46 percent increase over already-bleak national odds, according to one study. Among partners with a previous history of cohabitation with a different partner, the likelihood of divorce soars further still.

Cohabitation needs to be addressed more conscientiously by those involved in marriage preparation, but in a compassionate, prayerful, and Christ-like manner, Father Richards said. Many cohabiting couples, he noted, have “never even heard it was wrong before.” They are often surprised and grateful to be confronted with the truth. “We need to be pastoral, we need to have their salvation in mind,” Father Richards said. “They are getting catechized every day by the world and the flesh and the devil.”

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The above article is an excerpt from an article in the May-June 2010 issue of “Family Foundations,” the publication of the Couple to Couple League International (CCL).


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Sign up for a membership at Couple to Couple League International at http://www.ccli.org, and receive “Family Foundations.”

Natural Family Planning Classes Taught

Classes in Natural Family Planning are taught in 17 locations in the Chicago metro area, including southeast Wisconsin and northeast Indiana. The next series of classes will begin Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010 at 1:30 pm at Holy Trinity Church in Westmont, taught by Chris & Debbie Lillig.

To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to CCL International at http://www.ccli.org, (800) 745-8252. Chicago area NFP information is at http://www.naturalfamilyplanningchicago.com.

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The Couple to Couple League (CCL) is an international, Catholic, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and teaching Natural Family Planning (NFP) to married and engaged couples. It is essentially a volunteer organization because services are provided by professionally-trained volunteers who are supported by a relatively small staff at the international headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. Local Chapters of the organization consist mainly of certified Teaching Couples and Promoters, along with other supportive members.
It provides services in the United States and in 23 other countries.