Expert: Eleanor Edwards - 4/17/2009

Question
Hello,

My girlfriend and I have been together for a year, and are both Christian. One of the biggest questions we have about our relationship is pre-marital cohibition and sex.
We both love eachother very much, have never felt this strongly about another as we do now about one another, and although we are not "officially" engaged yet, we plan to engage soon and be married by next summer.
We have done a lot of research on pre-marital cohibition and sex, but have not yet found exactly what we are looking for. From what we've researched, we've found a lot of "gray area" on the subject and nothing straight forward, in black and white.
The answers we are looking for are:
When is it ok to live together and to have sex?
Are we allowed to live together if we are absolutely NOT having sex?
What defines marriage? Is it a vow that we make to eachother, or the official vows that we take during the wedding ceremony?
Basically, what MUST be done before we are able to live together, and what MUST be done before we are able to have a sexual relationship.

Thank you!
Aaron

Answer
Hi Aaron,
Many thanks for your question and congratulations to you both for meeting each other and being in such a warm, loving, God-centered relationship.

You're totally right of course, this is a 'gray area' and I'm not about to give you a black and white answer. What I will try and do though is offer some advise to help you both decide together what to do next.

From a strictly biblical perspective, they didn't have marriage ceremonies as we know them and in fact, the rule 'no sex before marriage' isn't stated in those terms at all. What God says is that we should each only have one sexual partner to love and to cherish and to have children with.

I must confess that my husband and I started a sexual relationship very early into our courtship and I used this 'just one partner' rule as a fall back when my parents criticized our decision to have sex before we were married!

However, the 'no sex before marriage' rule is sensible because until you reach the point of making that commitment, one or both of you could change your minds and leave the relationship. I appreciate totally that you are already committed to each other and plan to marry next Summer. I also understand totally the desire to start a sexual relationship. But the marriage ceremony is a series of vows declared before both God and your friends and family stating your love and commitment to each other. My husband isn't a Christian yet but despite that, he often refers to the commitment he made on our wedding day.

I'm not sure that I'm really answering your questions that well because this is something that you need to discuss with each other and also with God. Have you spent some time together asking God what He would like to see the two of you do? If you don't already, I would encourage you to make praying together a foundation of your relationship.

I get the impression that you would like me to tell you that it's OK to live together and have sex since you love each other. But I can't do that. If you were my son I would be encouraging you to wait and if you really love each other that much and want to be together that desperately, I'd be asking you what's stopping you getting married sooner?

There was some research done that suggested that couples who lived together before getting married were more likely to separate than those couple who moved in together following marriage. As for living together but absolutely not having sex ... good luck! If you're serious about waiting until after marriage, I wouldn't try living together in this way. I am pretty confident in saying that it would be near on impossible.

Sorry I can't give you a more definitive answer but the best advise I have is to talk to God about it. He'll have an opinion and, if you ask Him to, will make it known.

Keep in touch and let me know what He says OK?

In His love,
Eleanor x
allexperts@eleanoredwards.co.uk

P.S. Sorry this reply is rather late. The site's getting busy right now and I have a bit of a back log of questions to answer.