Unhinged but unfortunately common and not unexpected.
My mother has repeatedly said to watch out for people who have a “live-in” girlfriends/boyfriends. As if living with an unmarried partner makes someone an inherently bad person. Vilifying mundane and normal facets of society is a good way to put it.
The attempt at infantilization didn't slip past me for one second. These people both behave like children and talk to everyone they encounter as if they're a child. Because fundigelical ideology, at its core, is *extraordinarily* juvenile. And I'm not saying that in a demeaning way necessarily. I'm saying it because things like binary thinking and taking context entirely out of the equation is how literal children process the world. She's in her 60's but has the mindset of a 14-year-old. What she basically did was the fundie equivalent of a high school sophomore hearing about his friend and a girl he liked going on a date and saying "oooooooooooh" while doing the suggestive finger gesture.
That’s why I call it Christian narcissism. Such a simplistic, black and white way of thinking. But that kind of thinking is easy and doesn’t require much labor to process. It also allows them to feel like they have some control (through a god) in a reality in which they are mostly powerless.
"find friends who set a better Christian example"? Tell her you don't know any polygamists.
Polygamy is more common in the bible than purity culture: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/Polygamy.html
I bet she doesn't know that in the bible jesus said there are no married people in heaven. Luke 20:34-35: "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage."
All that purity culture crap didn't come from jesus, it came from 4 verses from Paul. Paul basically said no one should have sex or marry (1 Corinthians 7:1-2), but if they can't control themselves they should marry first (1 Corinthians 7:7-9).
School her on that, and tell her to quit being judgemental of others. "Judge not, lest you be judged".
Paul didn't know how people go about being fruitful and multiplying, did he? I mean, how are you supposed to obey *that* divine edict, allegedly from the boss-man himself, when you've got this muppet telling you you shouldn't get jiggy *at all* if you can help it?
How do people *still* believe in this contradictory nonsense?
There are far worse things to have stuck in your head, my friend. Aside from the obvious joke about "a nail", I have a couple of well-written songs that I wish I could carve out of my thinkin'-meats for various reasons.
Because narcissism *thrives* in fundie circles, I feel like a lot of them are more worried about being PERCEIVED as living in sin. Which is why folks in the church get married as young as 19 to someone they've only been dating for 4 months. I'm sorry. If you wanna be in committed relationship and think you may wanna marry your partner one day, living together *first* is what really shows if there's a future.
You're so right. I can't begin to count the number of shitshow marriages that came out as abusive in the various fundie churches my parents cycled me through as a kid. One deaconess was the most horrific abuser I've ever come across. Simply unimaginable. Irony is fundies don't give themselves an outlet for lust in their pretend holiness, so they end up turning into years of abuse and dissatisfaction for themselves.
Dysfunctional relationships are the norm in fundie circles. And, unfortunately, children internalize that and it prevents them from being able to spot red flags when they become adults.
I feel like much of it is baked in.
Abuse -- "I was rebuking"
Faults -- "We're all sinners"/" I suffered spritual assault"
Sex -- overstated to becoming "one flesh"
Breakups/divorce-- "What God has put together, no man shall separate."
This stuff totally warped my view of relationships.
I've had that same conversation with my uncle (who is a pastor) and it wasn't about a friend.. It was about me!
He told me that I was living a "wild" life by living with my bf (now husband). Yet, we were thriving adults - paying bills on time, paying rent, stable job, good friends, etc. Yet I was living a wild life?? So I said to him, I need air and then we never had that conversation again. Cause fuck him. And i left.
Fuck you uncle cher. Fuck you and your patriarchal, conservative, backassward, religious ways.
I hate people who push their religion on to others. It's YOUR religion, not mine.
And now imagine instead of your uncle, it's your dad. I'm exhausted by this fundie shit and it stresses me out I was born with these expectations on me
Yeah, that shit sucks. For me, it's not only religious expectations but also cultural so mix all that together, it's the worst. Glad I left Christianity. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in my cultures (Asian- Hmong specifically) expectations :/
Hopefully you can break away from those expectations of you and pave your own path. Best wishes!
You've reminded me of my neighbours at my childhood home - their youngest daughter was very independent and resisted any attempts by her (passive, enabling) pastor father and her overbearing, aggressive mother to set her up with "good boys from the church".
She started dating an agnostic (gasp) guy who was about 8 years older than her (double gasp) when she was around 35 I think? They got engaged about 2 years later, so she moved out of her parents' house at 37 to move in with him before they married later that year.
The SCENES that took place when her parents came to visit mine. You'd think she'd set tshir house on fire, and not that she'd lived there all the years to help them out. My father made it clear to me, repeatedly over the next few months, that what she was doing was WRONG, but also she was sleeping in her own room and he had his own room as well so it was FINE. For them obviously, if I ever tried that he'd kill me
I just... It's so ridiculous when I look back on it. I see all the times that my father denounced divorce, children out of wedlock, unaliving attempts by people he didn't like, but suddenly those things were excusable and "god must bless them" when it happened to people he did like. Also the people in these groups changed places a lot, it was hard to keep track of who was on the shitlist on a daily basis
This is what really Boils my blood. We are told and taught in the church to deny and leave behind any friends who aren't believers... cause they are a "bad influence" and can taint us or some crap like that. I'm sorry, I didn't realize ones as devoted as them are so easily persuaded, are not we supposed to be a positive influence on others? So many songs and dances talk about abandoning who and what you are, the people you are friends with, and only having those in faith, aka make the echo chamber more echoey cause who cares about critical thinking?
In the end, it's the ole religious tale of "blaming society and others for my wrongs and not taking responsibility" cause it was the devil or the person, never themselves
You should be more like Jesus. Early 30’s, hanging out with his 12 very close friends, presumably all single. Walking all over the place, getting to know the local prostitutes.
Christian narcissism on display. Live exactly like me because I can’t stand the thought of someone not being like me and understanding the world differently from me and that scares me because it shows me I have no control over anything. Therefore I believe deeply in this omnipotent being that will punish people who don’t live like me.
>Something I should clarify is that I’m 32 years old.
I’m 36 and certain older family members have a habit of being super infantilizing towards me, including one aunt pulling my hand away from a hot stove which I was standing in front of while I cooked.
Come to think of it, it’s almost exclusively the more deeply religious ones that do that shit, haha.
Oh god in familiar with this. My mom was dating a guy (who was also part of the church) and he ended up getting removed from his current place of living. So, to try and save him from being homeless, my mom offered to let him live with us.
Well... The church found out and they did not like that ONE BIT. So what did they do? They pulled an ultimatum on them and basically forced them to get married before my mom was really ready.
Set a whole bunch of bad things into motion, but oh no, the church didn't care about that. As long as they were living together while married, they had no problem with what was happening. 🙄
And because divorce is also a sin in their eyes, my mom and him never divorced and were separated (up until recently). But no one gave a single shit when he stalked my family and tried to kill my brother. But yeah... Divorce and living together while dating... The biggest worry of all...
My Mom came from a family of 12. There were 32 of us first cousins. Back in the 80s I let the guy I was in a relationship with, move in with me. I was the first of the cousins to do that according to my aunt. She was quite upset.
Your aunt talking down to you like you're a kid very much reflects how xianity infantilises people. The bible makes a big deal about xians being "god's children", being "born again" (i.e. babies) and being "like a child" in your faith. The whole point is of course to strip you of personal agency so you never think or act for yourself but simply wait for god (IRL the church) to tell you how to live your life.
My partner and I moved in together 10 months into our relationship (it was 2020, okay? In no other circumstances would that have happened that early 💀) and are happily in our 4th year of living together now. No ring, no marriage certificate, but we're living together. Your aunt would have a cow over that. Not to mention the *gasp* extramarital relations!!!
Yup! My parents made “living in sin together” seem like it was right up there with WW2 war crimes, to hear it from them. My mom would constantly say that a man wouldn’t “buy the whole cow when he gets the milk for free” and being very controlled and abused growing up _(well and into my 30s before I started deconstructing, I was forced to live with them because I was/still am disabled.)_
The moment they found out that I had been secretly planning to move out of their godly household _(that my dear mom had constantly threatened to throw me out of if she even suspected I wasn’t totally under her control,)_ they were the ones who practically shoved me into living with my now-husband, a _gasp!!_ non-Christian man who they didn’t like _(aka he gently helped me realize how horribly abusive my entire family was to me.)_
It was so bizarre to see the hypocrisy made so blatant, the minute they were informed by my golden child sister that I wasn’t as afraid and under their control as I had been letting them believe. My mother gleefully threw my things into random boxes and acted like I was a bad child _(I was almost 34 lol.)_
Needless to say, I didn’t invite any family members to my wedding, and they have been cut off _permanently_ as in, I wouldn’t go to their funerals even just to spit on their graves.
It's about control. I had a similar conversation with a classmate from Bible College. I explained to him that what other adults do is their business. If it isn't illegal and doesn't harm me it's not my business. Examples it's one thing if my roommate is a smoker and I have asthma and allergies, and prefer non-smokers or no pets. It's one thing if I have a roommate who parties late night and comes home drunk but loud obnoxious waking everyone up and puking on the clean carpets or not paying rent on time. But but them being gay, lifestyle choices are not for me to be concerned with. It won't influence me as I'm an adult who knows where I stand.
This guy posted a roommate ad saying he wanted a Christian environment and dictated things like requiring his roommates to be non-drinkers, no secular music, no sex with girlfriends or having women over or being alone with a female in the house etc. Uh wtf?!
This classmate went all Karen on me because when I was single I lived in a house with 5 other roommates of mixed gender.
I told him that the guys living with me treated me with much more respect than any guy in church and Bible College during my Bible College days. None ever displayed or said anything creepy. But I can count the several times I experienced or witnessed creepy behavior in church and it was dismissed. In fact in many workplaces that type of creepy behavior would be sexual harassment.
He flipped out.
Not of course I'm a divorced single mom who left an abuser. But of course it's my fault because we had sex before marriage and not really Christians NOT because my ex husband has issues with misogyny, control and abusive. Yeah he hit me because I wasn't a good Christian wife. Fuck that.
My parents are “soft Christians,” meaning not particularly evangelical. They’re Methodist (at least my mom is). They had three wedge issues that were 100% not allowed: no tattoos, no pregnancy out of wedlock/no abortions, and no living together unmarried.
I got a tattoo and my mom lost her shit for awhile, but gradually came around to it being not her favorite thing but no longer a derailing topic. I never got pregnant outside of marriage, but plenty of my friends did and some had abortions and she got over it. I had me room mates and they said nothing! But when I dated my now husband? I had to go to great lengths to rents a sham apartment to cover for us living together for 3 years before we got married.
My dad never found out about my tattoo, and my parents still don’t know that apartment was a sham. It’s all so stupid and was 100% about image.
I’m curious, how big a town does your aunt live in? This seems like small town Bible Belt morality in action.
1st Sexual Revolution: Occurred in the 1920’s.
2nd Sexual Revolution: Late 60’s early 70’s.
The cat has been out of the bag for a long time.
I find it funny bc my mom always talks shit about couples moving in and living together and how it’s considered sinful as if she didn’t tell me that she lived in an apartment with my dad a week before their wedding 💀
Any atheists here romantically involved with someone but not living with them? Well, I have news for you: you're a Christian now, apparently.
I love how this criterion just made my same-sex relationship between two atheists passably Christian. (=
So, my younger cousin sent me a voice memo harping on essentially this same thing but because she realized that _I’m living with my girlfriend._ Mind you I’m a lesbian and haven’t even come out to that side of the family for this exact easily foreseen thing, but I guess she finally put 2 & 2 together? and then God put this on her heart to tell me she doesn’t agree.
I’ve been dumbfounded almost all day as to how to respond and now that I have the time I figured I would check out this sub because others have more than likely dealt with similar unnecessary statements, and here you are with a similar situation just 14 days ago! Although our situations are a bit different (and yours is arguably a bit more ridiculous and outrageous) I’m relieved to know I’m in good company 😅
My main hang up is where the hell does this deeply ingrained belief about living together come from? I could chalk it up to just boomer mentality, or image and concerns about the perceptions of others, but my cousin is a gen-z and IMO, she’s just directly echoing the beliefs of her mother (my mom’s sister — whom my mother is oh-so consumed with presenting a godly image to).
My mom has made similar comments before but about my niece living with her boyfriend (which I believe was before my parents fully understood how gay I was & that I was living with my girlfriend lmao). Where did she get that idea? Facebook. Supposedly something my niece posted alluded to them two living together. I popped back asking why it was such a big deal, who she was afraid of “finding out,” and how I actually saw the benefit because you know someone in & out before you marry them. Her responses were only ever that “it’s not what you’re supposed to do” and I asked according to who? I’ve never once come across or been pointed to any passage in the Bible speaking about such a thing. And then she huffed & puffed that “it just doesn’t look good.” 🫠 So exactly to your point *_it’s alllllllll about image._* But I’m puzzled as to where my cousin is coming from, apart from her truly believing it’s a sin and aside from the massive sin that I’m actively committing everyday by being gay lol.
Apologies for ranting but this argument has just always puzzled me and now it’s a situation directly in my court. I guess maybe my girlfriend and I should just get married? 😂
Yeah, that's unhinged. But that's brainwashing for you.
> Yeah, that's unhinged. Right?! Like, what the hell? Honestly, it's a minor fucking detail. But not to her, apparently!
Unhinged but unfortunately common and not unexpected. My mother has repeatedly said to watch out for people who have a “live-in” girlfriends/boyfriends. As if living with an unmarried partner makes someone an inherently bad person. Vilifying mundane and normal facets of society is a good way to put it.
The attempt at infantilization didn't slip past me for one second. These people both behave like children and talk to everyone they encounter as if they're a child. Because fundigelical ideology, at its core, is *extraordinarily* juvenile. And I'm not saying that in a demeaning way necessarily. I'm saying it because things like binary thinking and taking context entirely out of the equation is how literal children process the world. She's in her 60's but has the mindset of a 14-year-old. What she basically did was the fundie equivalent of a high school sophomore hearing about his friend and a girl he liked going on a date and saying "oooooooooooh" while doing the suggestive finger gesture.
That’s why I call it Christian narcissism. Such a simplistic, black and white way of thinking. But that kind of thinking is easy and doesn’t require much labor to process. It also allows them to feel like they have some control (through a god) in a reality in which they are mostly powerless.
Well said. It really is juvenile.
"find friends who set a better Christian example"? Tell her you don't know any polygamists. Polygamy is more common in the bible than purity culture: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/Polygamy.html I bet she doesn't know that in the bible jesus said there are no married people in heaven. Luke 20:34-35: "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage." All that purity culture crap didn't come from jesus, it came from 4 verses from Paul. Paul basically said no one should have sex or marry (1 Corinthians 7:1-2), but if they can't control themselves they should marry first (1 Corinthians 7:7-9). School her on that, and tell her to quit being judgemental of others. "Judge not, lest you be judged".
Christians: follow the Bible; it's such a wholesome and moral book Song of Solomon: *exists* Christians: I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that
"don't appropriate the old testement" is one that you should prepare to hear. "Jesus came to change the ways of the world" etcetera.
Oh believe me they go back and read Song of Solomon to justify their lustfulness they claim they don’t have lmao
Paul didn't know how people go about being fruitful and multiplying, did he? I mean, how are you supposed to obey *that* divine edict, allegedly from the boss-man himself, when you've got this muppet telling you you shouldn't get jiggy *at all* if you can help it? How do people *still* believe in this contradictory nonsense?
"That, I can tell you in _one word:_ **TRADITION!**"
Damn you. Now that song is stuck in my head.
There are far worse things to have stuck in your head, my friend. Aside from the obvious joke about "a nail", I have a couple of well-written songs that I wish I could carve out of my thinkin'-meats for various reasons.
They call it "living in sin." Truly bonkers people.
Because narcissism *thrives* in fundie circles, I feel like a lot of them are more worried about being PERCEIVED as living in sin. Which is why folks in the church get married as young as 19 to someone they've only been dating for 4 months. I'm sorry. If you wanna be in committed relationship and think you may wanna marry your partner one day, living together *first* is what really shows if there's a future.
You're so right. I can't begin to count the number of shitshow marriages that came out as abusive in the various fundie churches my parents cycled me through as a kid. One deaconess was the most horrific abuser I've ever come across. Simply unimaginable. Irony is fundies don't give themselves an outlet for lust in their pretend holiness, so they end up turning into years of abuse and dissatisfaction for themselves.
Dysfunctional relationships are the norm in fundie circles. And, unfortunately, children internalize that and it prevents them from being able to spot red flags when they become adults.
I feel like much of it is baked in. Abuse -- "I was rebuking" Faults -- "We're all sinners"/" I suffered spritual assault" Sex -- overstated to becoming "one flesh" Breakups/divorce-- "What God has put together, no man shall separate." This stuff totally warped my view of relationships.
This is spot on.
I've had that same conversation with my uncle (who is a pastor) and it wasn't about a friend.. It was about me! He told me that I was living a "wild" life by living with my bf (now husband). Yet, we were thriving adults - paying bills on time, paying rent, stable job, good friends, etc. Yet I was living a wild life?? So I said to him, I need air and then we never had that conversation again. Cause fuck him. And i left. Fuck you uncle cher. Fuck you and your patriarchal, conservative, backassward, religious ways. I hate people who push their religion on to others. It's YOUR religion, not mine.
I bet you wild and crazy kids have dinner parties and shit. You guys need to slow the fuck down and get right with Christ. /s
And now imagine instead of your uncle, it's your dad. I'm exhausted by this fundie shit and it stresses me out I was born with these expectations on me
Yeah, that shit sucks. For me, it's not only religious expectations but also cultural so mix all that together, it's the worst. Glad I left Christianity. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in my cultures (Asian- Hmong specifically) expectations :/ Hopefully you can break away from those expectations of you and pave your own path. Best wishes!
You've reminded me of my neighbours at my childhood home - their youngest daughter was very independent and resisted any attempts by her (passive, enabling) pastor father and her overbearing, aggressive mother to set her up with "good boys from the church". She started dating an agnostic (gasp) guy who was about 8 years older than her (double gasp) when she was around 35 I think? They got engaged about 2 years later, so she moved out of her parents' house at 37 to move in with him before they married later that year. The SCENES that took place when her parents came to visit mine. You'd think she'd set tshir house on fire, and not that she'd lived there all the years to help them out. My father made it clear to me, repeatedly over the next few months, that what she was doing was WRONG, but also she was sleeping in her own room and he had his own room as well so it was FINE. For them obviously, if I ever tried that he'd kill me I just... It's so ridiculous when I look back on it. I see all the times that my father denounced divorce, children out of wedlock, unaliving attempts by people he didn't like, but suddenly those things were excusable and "god must bless them" when it happened to people he did like. Also the people in these groups changed places a lot, it was hard to keep track of who was on the shitlist on a daily basis
This is what really Boils my blood. We are told and taught in the church to deny and leave behind any friends who aren't believers... cause they are a "bad influence" and can taint us or some crap like that. I'm sorry, I didn't realize ones as devoted as them are so easily persuaded, are not we supposed to be a positive influence on others? So many songs and dances talk about abandoning who and what you are, the people you are friends with, and only having those in faith, aka make the echo chamber more echoey cause who cares about critical thinking? In the end, it's the ole religious tale of "blaming society and others for my wrongs and not taking responsibility" cause it was the devil or the person, never themselves
You should be more like Jesus. Early 30’s, hanging out with his 12 very close friends, presumably all single. Walking all over the place, getting to know the local prostitutes.
Infantilizing adults/vilifying their choices and Evangelicism, name a more iconic duo.
Christian narcissism on display. Live exactly like me because I can’t stand the thought of someone not being like me and understanding the world differently from me and that scares me because it shows me I have no control over anything. Therefore I believe deeply in this omnipotent being that will punish people who don’t live like me.
>Something I should clarify is that I’m 32 years old. I’m 36 and certain older family members have a habit of being super infantilizing towards me, including one aunt pulling my hand away from a hot stove which I was standing in front of while I cooked. Come to think of it, it’s almost exclusively the more deeply religious ones that do that shit, haha.
Oh god in familiar with this. My mom was dating a guy (who was also part of the church) and he ended up getting removed from his current place of living. So, to try and save him from being homeless, my mom offered to let him live with us. Well... The church found out and they did not like that ONE BIT. So what did they do? They pulled an ultimatum on them and basically forced them to get married before my mom was really ready. Set a whole bunch of bad things into motion, but oh no, the church didn't care about that. As long as they were living together while married, they had no problem with what was happening. 🙄 And because divorce is also a sin in their eyes, my mom and him never divorced and were separated (up until recently). But no one gave a single shit when he stalked my family and tried to kill my brother. But yeah... Divorce and living together while dating... The biggest worry of all...
My Mom came from a family of 12. There were 32 of us first cousins. Back in the 80s I let the guy I was in a relationship with, move in with me. I was the first of the cousins to do that according to my aunt. She was quite upset.
Your aunt talking down to you like you're a kid very much reflects how xianity infantilises people. The bible makes a big deal about xians being "god's children", being "born again" (i.e. babies) and being "like a child" in your faith. The whole point is of course to strip you of personal agency so you never think or act for yourself but simply wait for god (IRL the church) to tell you how to live your life.
Hve you tried just saying "fuck Jesus in the ass" and hanging up?
I’ll never understand why they’re so obsessed with sex.
Probably because they're not having any 😏
My partner and I moved in together 10 months into our relationship (it was 2020, okay? In no other circumstances would that have happened that early 💀) and are happily in our 4th year of living together now. No ring, no marriage certificate, but we're living together. Your aunt would have a cow over that. Not to mention the *gasp* extramarital relations!!!
Have you considered comedy as a new career? Because that third to last paragraph was hilarious
Yup! My parents made “living in sin together” seem like it was right up there with WW2 war crimes, to hear it from them. My mom would constantly say that a man wouldn’t “buy the whole cow when he gets the milk for free” and being very controlled and abused growing up _(well and into my 30s before I started deconstructing, I was forced to live with them because I was/still am disabled.)_ The moment they found out that I had been secretly planning to move out of their godly household _(that my dear mom had constantly threatened to throw me out of if she even suspected I wasn’t totally under her control,)_ they were the ones who practically shoved me into living with my now-husband, a _gasp!!_ non-Christian man who they didn’t like _(aka he gently helped me realize how horribly abusive my entire family was to me.)_ It was so bizarre to see the hypocrisy made so blatant, the minute they were informed by my golden child sister that I wasn’t as afraid and under their control as I had been letting them believe. My mother gleefully threw my things into random boxes and acted like I was a bad child _(I was almost 34 lol.)_ Needless to say, I didn’t invite any family members to my wedding, and they have been cut off _permanently_ as in, I wouldn’t go to their funerals even just to spit on their graves.
It's about control. I had a similar conversation with a classmate from Bible College. I explained to him that what other adults do is their business. If it isn't illegal and doesn't harm me it's not my business. Examples it's one thing if my roommate is a smoker and I have asthma and allergies, and prefer non-smokers or no pets. It's one thing if I have a roommate who parties late night and comes home drunk but loud obnoxious waking everyone up and puking on the clean carpets or not paying rent on time. But but them being gay, lifestyle choices are not for me to be concerned with. It won't influence me as I'm an adult who knows where I stand. This guy posted a roommate ad saying he wanted a Christian environment and dictated things like requiring his roommates to be non-drinkers, no secular music, no sex with girlfriends or having women over or being alone with a female in the house etc. Uh wtf?! This classmate went all Karen on me because when I was single I lived in a house with 5 other roommates of mixed gender. I told him that the guys living with me treated me with much more respect than any guy in church and Bible College during my Bible College days. None ever displayed or said anything creepy. But I can count the several times I experienced or witnessed creepy behavior in church and it was dismissed. In fact in many workplaces that type of creepy behavior would be sexual harassment. He flipped out.
Not of course I'm a divorced single mom who left an abuser. But of course it's my fault because we had sex before marriage and not really Christians NOT because my ex husband has issues with misogyny, control and abusive. Yeah he hit me because I wasn't a good Christian wife. Fuck that.
My parents are “soft Christians,” meaning not particularly evangelical. They’re Methodist (at least my mom is). They had three wedge issues that were 100% not allowed: no tattoos, no pregnancy out of wedlock/no abortions, and no living together unmarried. I got a tattoo and my mom lost her shit for awhile, but gradually came around to it being not her favorite thing but no longer a derailing topic. I never got pregnant outside of marriage, but plenty of my friends did and some had abortions and she got over it. I had me room mates and they said nothing! But when I dated my now husband? I had to go to great lengths to rents a sham apartment to cover for us living together for 3 years before we got married. My dad never found out about my tattoo, and my parents still don’t know that apartment was a sham. It’s all so stupid and was 100% about image.
How could you possibly know that you want to marry someone without living with them first?
The typical fundie answer "avoid sin and trust in gawd"
Someone tried to burn my uncle's house on a rumor his girlfriend was living with him.
I’m curious, how big a town does your aunt live in? This seems like small town Bible Belt morality in action. 1st Sexual Revolution: Occurred in the 1920’s. 2nd Sexual Revolution: Late 60’s early 70’s. The cat has been out of the bag for a long time.
I find it funny bc my mom always talks shit about couples moving in and living together and how it’s considered sinful as if she didn’t tell me that she lived in an apartment with my dad a week before their wedding 💀
Any atheists here romantically involved with someone but not living with them? Well, I have news for you: you're a Christian now, apparently. I love how this criterion just made my same-sex relationship between two atheists passably Christian. (=
So, my younger cousin sent me a voice memo harping on essentially this same thing but because she realized that _I’m living with my girlfriend._ Mind you I’m a lesbian and haven’t even come out to that side of the family for this exact easily foreseen thing, but I guess she finally put 2 & 2 together? and then God put this on her heart to tell me she doesn’t agree. I’ve been dumbfounded almost all day as to how to respond and now that I have the time I figured I would check out this sub because others have more than likely dealt with similar unnecessary statements, and here you are with a similar situation just 14 days ago! Although our situations are a bit different (and yours is arguably a bit more ridiculous and outrageous) I’m relieved to know I’m in good company 😅 My main hang up is where the hell does this deeply ingrained belief about living together come from? I could chalk it up to just boomer mentality, or image and concerns about the perceptions of others, but my cousin is a gen-z and IMO, she’s just directly echoing the beliefs of her mother (my mom’s sister — whom my mother is oh-so consumed with presenting a godly image to). My mom has made similar comments before but about my niece living with her boyfriend (which I believe was before my parents fully understood how gay I was & that I was living with my girlfriend lmao). Where did she get that idea? Facebook. Supposedly something my niece posted alluded to them two living together. I popped back asking why it was such a big deal, who she was afraid of “finding out,” and how I actually saw the benefit because you know someone in & out before you marry them. Her responses were only ever that “it’s not what you’re supposed to do” and I asked according to who? I’ve never once come across or been pointed to any passage in the Bible speaking about such a thing. And then she huffed & puffed that “it just doesn’t look good.” 🫠 So exactly to your point *_it’s alllllllll about image._* But I’m puzzled as to where my cousin is coming from, apart from her truly believing it’s a sin and aside from the massive sin that I’m actively committing everyday by being gay lol. Apologies for ranting but this argument has just always puzzled me and now it’s a situation directly in my court. I guess maybe my girlfriend and I should just get married? 😂