Premarital Sex & Cohabitation: Wrong Reasons

Perhaps one of the reasons why these relationships often end badly is because their lack of formalization allows for an absence in responsibility and commitment. The emotional injury usually comes to the fore when the involvement of one partner is not reciprocated in the other, as in the incident just narrated. Why these relationships often do not do well even if corrected by marriage is a legitimate puzzle. There may be no single reason. Certainly if the level of involvement in the marriage and in an active faith life is minimal from one or both and they simply get married for the wrong reasons, the chances for a successful marriage appear dismal. Wrong reasons would include the following:

1. The woman becomes pregnant;
2. Parents insist that they get married;
3. They want a fancy ceremony;
4. It would avoid embarrassment;
5. One partner coerces the other;
6. Business prospects would be helped; and
7. It is the thing to do when getting older.

The first one is wrong because a child cannot in himself be made the basis for a lifelong committed relationship of love. Rather, a child is ideally the fruit of such a love already in existence. Two through seven deal with externals which must be secondary to the principle resolution of a couple to irrevocably share their life and to rightfully express their love as husband and wife. In retrospect, there is another bad reason which is prominent, although it refers more appropriately to couples who are not living together and yet who want their sex on the side. Some people might get married because it makes sexual intercourse less problematical, especially in regard to tight schedules. If lust masquerades as love and goes no further than the flesh, what happens when it burns itself out?