News

Insights about cohabitation

By Patti Christensen

What can a parent say when their adult son or daughter tells them that they are going to "live together" with their boy/girlfriend?

That was the first question posed to Dr. James Healy, director of the Center for Family Ministry of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., March 29 at a session with parents and those who care about young people at St. Mary's Central High School in Neenah. Dr. Healy also spoke at St. Bernard in Appleton on March 30 to priests, deacons, parish directors and others who work with marriage preparation.

Dr. Healy also was asked how the church responds to cohabiting couples; how peers relate to cohabiting friends; what to do if asked to be a bridesmaid for a cohabiting couple; and when should parents start teaching their children about cohabitation?

Statistics show there are five million cohabiting people in the United States, of whom 120,000 will be married in the Catholic Church, Dr. Healy said. "We need to welcome these couples, walk with them and teach them."

Dr. Healy pointed to Pope John Paul II's comments in "Familiaris Consortio" (1981): "The pastors and the ecclesial community should take care to become acquainted with such situations (cohabiting couples) and their actual causes, case by case. They should make tactful and respectful contact with the couples concerned and enlighten them patiently, correct them charitably and show them the witness of Christian family life in such a way as to smooth the path for them to regularize their situation" (Part Four, Section 3, 81).

Research indicates that parents have found two successful strategies to maintain a good relationship with their cohabiting adult children, Dr. Healy said. First, they stayed in good emotional contact with their children. In other words, don't cut them off and don't threaten them with ultimatums. Second, he said, parents were clear about their own beliefs and where they stand. It is important for parents to remember that they are talking in an adult-to-adult relationship and that they can be both different and emotionally close at the same time, he said, and called it a process of redemption that transforms everyone.

Parents and other adults must listen with understanding before they can hope to be persuasive, said Dr. Healy, author of the audiotape series, Rooted in Love: Speaking to Couples About Marriage.

He offered this advice:

• Listen before you share your own feelings.

• Find out what their hopes are for the relationship; where they see it going; and why they think this is the right move.

• Be sure you totally understand where they are coming from and what they think.

• This is a teachable moment if you don't lose your cool and become angry.

• Share your beliefs and concerns but do not cut them off emotionally.

"Those who work with young adults must keep their emotional connection with them or they will lose their leverage," Healy said. People must form their own consciences, he said, so it is important not to play God or judge them because only God knows their internal state.

When asked about dealing with the "scandal" of a cohabiting situation, Healy said the scandal is to act without compassion. He referred to the story of the Prodigal Son in scripture and the welcome the father gave to the son who had left home.

When should parents start teaching children? The pope says start young, know the facts, and share them, he said. From the day we are born, we learn about Christian love, honesty and commitment through what we see and learn in our families and communities, said Dr. Healy, recipient of the 2000 National Marriage and Family Ministry Award by the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers. As disciples of Jesus we are called to witness and to share the faith and to pass it on to the next generation.

(Christensen is diocesan director of spirituality & evangelization.)