“A woman asked me for counsel. Here is her situation: ‘I became saved after already living in sin with the father of my now two children. We are still not married. Since becoming saved, I have seen and learned why God wants us to be married before having children and living together. My partner, however, is not a believer and doesn’t see the need to ‘rush into’ getting married even though I want to honor God and do so. How do I handle this? He is a great father and I don’t see leading him to Christ by breaking apart our family?’”
Apparently the women in the chat room (Lori’s “go-to” experts on everything) were split on the issue. One shared a story about a woman in a similar situation who moved out, hoping this would motivate him to marry her; but instead he simply lived with another woman. Lori states that “We all know that sex outside of marriage is wrong and that we are only to marry believers. But we also know that children desperately need their mother and father.”
This alone caught my attention, because it’s not often we see a weighing of both sides of an issue in her blogs. She then offers her advice (taking care to emphasize that it’s only an opinion!):
“The Bible makes it clear that fornication is sin but a man and woman living together and having children become a family. God also hates divorce. It’s devastating to children so I am going to answer with the children in mind.”
“Children need their mother and father under the same roof. I would counsel this woman to live a godly, holy life in front of this man.”
Pardon me while I retrieve my jaw from the floor. Not only is Lori approaching this issue from a practical perspective (rather than insisting on inflexible principles), she is also actually suggesting that she’s okay with a couple living together outside of marriage! This is, needless to say, completely out of character for her (though you can tell how reluctant she is by the roundabout way she says it).
But she quickly moves into more disturbing territory:
“She needs to win him without a word by her godly behavior even though he isn’t her husband. Some suggest she do this but not have sex with him. I can see the logic in this, but I don’t see it in practical application. I doubt most unbelieving men would agree to continue to live with a woman who wasn’t giving him regular sex.”
She is suggesting, first of all, that women have the same obligation to men who are not their husbands as they would to a husband! She is also suggesting that a woman is responsible for the salvation of a man to whom she is not even married! Let me be clear: I do not believe wives are required to obey their husbands or that they are required to submit to them with no submission in return. Nor do I believe that wives are necessarily responsible for winning their husbands to salvation. However, it is at least possible to see how those who read the Bible very casually and without deeper study could come to these conclusions. But the idea that similar requirements apply even when a couple is not married has even more troubling implications.
I’m not sure why she makes the distinction that “unbelieving” men would not agree to live with a woman who won’t have sex with him, since it seems she seems to think the same is true of Christian men (and that there’s nothing wrong with that). Either way, shockingly, she is suggesting one of her most cherished moral principles (that sex should only take place in marriage) be broken. What could drive her to make such an allowance?
I can only guess, but the likely reason seems to me that Lori literally worships men as if they were God. It’s as if she’s going beyond the idea that wives owe certain things to their husbands, and expands a woman’s obligations to all men simply because they’re men. She would rather push women to live what she considers to be a terribly sinful lifestyle rather than suggest a man should have to go without sex. It’s as if women owe men sex in general. To Lori, it seems the sexual needs of men reign supreme over everything else. And she still denies that she contributes to rape culture?
I’m not entirely sure how I myself would advise the woman who asked the original question. But I can at least say that, if it is her conviction that she should not continue to live with the man, she should not be told that her own convictions should take second place to other considerations simply because she’s a woman.
And I also would say that she has every right to put her foot down and say that if he wants to remain with her, he must marry her. If he would leave her if she were to do so, then the relationship is not healthy and wouldn't last very long or be good for the children anyway. Lori is instead suggesting that she avoid pushing for marriage and continue having sex with him in order to manipulate him into staying in the relationship. And that's pretty messed up.
Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/living-with-him-and-has-children-now-what/
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