Living together to “test drive” the relationship SEEMS to make so much sense. And yet research and divorce statistics are now coming out that instead of helping couples in their decision-making, it actually works against their future relationship in various ways.

In this article, we’d like to provide for you a few thoughts on this subject. And then provide a link to another article which you can read in its entirety on this subject.

In a question/answer column written in a past magazine issue of Today’s Christian Woman (May/June 2006), Dr Leslie Parrot responds to a young woman who was struggling with the concept of “true love waits” because she believes she’s found the man she wants to marry. Here’s the reply Dr Parrot gives:

“I recently counseled a couple—they were sincere churchgoers in their early thirties and had been dating for several months at the time. They both entered the relationship wanting to wait until marriage to have sex. But in the heat of passion, just two months into their relationship, they had intercourse. ‘We felt guilty at first,’ she confided, ‘but over the last three months we were sexually active, we felt more in love with each other than ever.’

“Yet despite feeling ‘more in love,’ this couple eventually fell apart. That’s because their relationship wasn’t strong enough to handle the weight of expectations and needs associated with sex.

“I know you’re thrilled to have found ‘Mr. Right,’ but let me caution you—sex changes everything. Sexual intercourse draws us into the profound mystery of a ‘one-flesh’ reality. It’s meant to bond us in a deep and wonderful way. But there’s a hitch. Sex outside the lifelong covenant of permanence and fidelity sets up expectations and creates needs that almost always dismantle the relationship.

“As missionary and author Walter Trobisch said, ‘Sex is not a test of love, for it is precisely the very thing one wants to test that is destroyed by the testing.’ I know it’s tempting to believe love sanctifies sex, but it’s just not true. The problem with using sex as a means to increased intimacy before marriage is that it soon becomes a substitute for emotional intimacy. Couples who put their sexuality on fast forward short-circuit the normal progression of linking hearts and souls.

“Research shows the emotional bonding required for lasting love is most likely to move slowly and systematically through stages. For a relationship to achieve its full potential, it requires emotional vulnerability and countless private memories. Having sex too soon keeps those things from developing. It creates an illusion of intimacy that fades with the fires of passion.

“‘There is so much use of the body as a substitute for psychological intimacy,’ says psychologist Rollo May. ‘It’s much easier to jump in bed with someone than it is to share your fears and anxieties.’ Don’t delude yourself into thinking that sex brings you closer together in any lasting or meaningful way. It doesn’t. So don’t lose your resolve to hold out for sex until you’re married.”

No matter how much sense something may seem to make to us, if it goes against God’s principles, we will pay a high price for disobedience. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12) The type of death in this situation could be the death of a relationship or the death of a dream and values that are important.

On this same subject we will provide a link to the Australian web site Marriage.com.au, so you can read another related article they have posted, which might further explain this point. Please click onto the link below:

• LIVING TOGETHER: Why Would Something Sensible Be Damaging?

Three other articles that you may benefit from reading from other web sites are:

• COHABITATION Is Bad for Men, Worse for Women and Horrible for Children
• SHOULD WE LIVE TOGETHER?
• LIVING TOGETHER IS A STATISTICAL RISK
  

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