Unpacking Cohabitation: A Christian Woman's Perspective
Aug 08, 2023Episode 16
Faye Merilien
Have you ever faced heartbreak after investing years into a relationship that you thought was headed towards marriage? My own journey has taught me that cohabitating with a boyfriend, though it may seem like a logical step towards commitment, can often lead to a decrease in accountability and ultimately, pain. Join me for a raw and candid conversation on cohabitation from a Christian perspective. I share my personal experience and discuss the implications of this decision, urging you not to take shortcuts that may lead to heartache but to align yourself with God's perfect will.
As we continue, we'll unpack the value of understanding your worth in Christ and the consequences of compromising your standards to keep a man. I'll share real-life stories, including my own, of surrendering control of relationships to God and finding freedom from fear and anxiety. Moreover, we'll explore the idea of creating a community space that supports and encourages you to seek God's perfect will and plan for your life. Expect a conversation that challenges you, inspires you, and pushes you to make God-centered decisions in your relationships.
Have you ever faced heartbreak after investing years into a relationship that you thought was headed towards marriage? My own journey has taught me that cohabitating with a boyfriend, though it may seem like a logical step towards commitment, can often lead to a decrease in accountability and ultimately, pain. Join me for a raw and candid conversation on cohabitation from a Christian perspective. I share my personal experience and discuss the implications of this decision, urging you not to take shortcuts that may lead to heartache but to align yourself with God's perfect will.
As we continue, we'll unpack the value of understanding your worth in Christ and the consequences of compromising your standards to keep a man. I'll share real-life stories, including my own, of surrendering control of relationships to God and finding freedom from fear and anxiety. Moreover, we'll explore the idea of creating a community space that supports and encourages you to seek God's perfect will and plan for your life. Expect a conversation that challenges you, inspires you, and pushes you to make God-centered decisions in your relationships.
Hello, hello, hello, hello. How y'all doing. I miss y'all. Hope y'all are doing amazing.
Speaker 1:
Today's episode is going to be dealing with shacking up, aka cohabitating with your boyfriend. Okay, I've gotten a lot of emails and I've even met a lot of people in this recent period of time and just seeing their relationship, seeing how they think and feel, has really inspired me to wanna talk about this again. I know we talked about cohabitating before, but I just wanna bring this up again because I don't really think I think we've kind of because the world is so crazy we've kind of compartmentalized different things. What am I saying? What I'm saying is we almost label stuff like level one, level two, level three, like this can't be, this ain't as bad as that and this not as bad as that, and so I've seen that done before. It's like well, I'm not, you know, I'm in a, we're dating, we're trying to figure it out. It's not that bad, faye. It's not like I'm killing somebody. It's not like I'm out here, you know, sleeping with a married man. I'm just living with my boyfriend. It's not a big deal, faye, and I just find that just the enemy is so deceptive because he'll have us deceiving ourself.
Speaker 1:
I've seen it where I've seen. This is what I've seen. Okay, I just want to be honest, be upfront with y'all. Okay, what I've seen is a lot of times we, as women, when we allow ourselves to live with our boyfriends and I've done it so far, so I'm not talking to you from what I think, I'm talking to you from what I know Okay, when we allow ourselves to live with our boyfriend, right, we go moving with our little boyfriend and we're so excited and we're just like man, like, oh, my God, I'm one step closer to being his wife. This is a committed relationship. I can relax, I can, I can, you know, almost like, do it my way. In a sense, it's just crazy to me how we deceive ourself.
Speaker 1:
The worst deception is self-deception. Okay, when you deceive yourself, that's a big old problem. Okay, when you're arguing with someone and I used to do this too, this was me when you're arguing with someone who's trying to tell you hey, this is not God's highest and best for you, this is not God's perfect will for you, because, as a believer in Jesus Christ, we follow the Bible and it's clear and sometimes it could seem a little gray air. It's like well, it's not like black and white. But it's very clear because when you read the scripture, how we first see the context of the scripture, that's how it continues to follow throughout scripture. You can't just change it kind of how we see God made Adam and Eve and that was the first married couple. He didn't go and change that to Adam and Eve down the way, understand. And so how you read scripture, you have to read it where it first pops up in scripture and that context is held.
Speaker 1:
God never changes right, and therefore that means what he meant at the beginning is what he means now. He said it in his word y'all, I'm the same today, yesterday and forevermore. I do not change. He does not change. And so we can't make rules based off culture, based off society, based off times, based off how we feel. We have to stick with the word and I know this is not popular.
Speaker 1:
I know people are trying to hear this and I'm not for everybody. I'm really clear with my communications like hey, if you're not about this life of walking with Jesus for real, if you're not trying to have a kingdom marriage for real, you might as well get off this podcast episode right now, completely remove, unsubscribe yourself and hit the dope because I am not going to like, I'm not gonna like chill out just to make you comfortable. I'm not gonna not speak the truth just because you wanna remain in a warm, stagnant loop. Warm, just drifting life. You want just a relationship that provides us comfort to you and you don't wanna do what God said to do in order to have what God wants to give you. You can't shortcut like. We gotta stop trying to shortcut everything like it's almost like we live in a microwave society now. It's like a microwave. It's a microwave that I bring. Tiktok has made our brain as big as a goldfish. Our attention span is so short. It's ridiculous and it's like we think God's supposed to do the same thing. No, god does not change. Like I'm cherry to popular opinion.
Speaker 1:
If you are in a cohabitating relationship, what I'm about to say may make you mad, but I hope you're mad enough to get right with the Lord and to fix it. Okay, because this used to be me too. I used to cohabitate. I used to be a caregiver of my boyfriend and you know what happened After. I spent all those years giving, committing, taking care of him, looking out for him. I get pregnant and he leaves me and he gets married to the next girl almost immediately.
Speaker 1:
You got to understand that you set the tone. You are the one that's responsible for this situation because you could easily say no, but because you're acting out of fear and you're feeling like this is the only man you can get in some cases. Or I love him so much, you know I'm gonna give him time. He said he got to get financially stable, which is what would be in a better space. But you understand that when you cohabitate you're more likely to divorce than a couple who never did.
Speaker 1:
Now I'm not saying you got to be out here rushing, running out, trying to get married off fast, but I am saying being with a boyfriend five, six, seven, eight, 10, 13 years and y'all not married, you bugging, you tripping, what are you doing? And I've seen people, I've even seen girls like one girl was like um Faye, what are you talking about? Me and my boyfriend? We bugging, we just like you and your husband. I said you don't understand, honey. Let's not even bring up the spiritual ramifications of cohabitating. Let's just talk about the natural. The natural consequences of cohabitating with a man who is not your spouse is.
Speaker 1:
You have no say, your voice doesn't matter. You're just a friend at the end of the day. Don't you understand how many times I've seen, as a I used to be a paralegal, y'all Okay. Don't you know how many times I've seen like situations where the guy will have an accident or something, he's in a hospital and the long time girlfriend who's literally been there for sometimes 10, 15 years, she's not allowed to make no type of a request, she's not allowed to have a voice, she can't do nothing. Why? Cause she's a little friend. I don't. I don't care what else y'all doing, I don't care. We live together, we pay the same bills, we sleep in the same bed. That don't matter, because legally you're just a friend. You are not no one to him, according to our government governments. Okay, so that's nothing.
Speaker 1:
You are playing yourself, don't you understand? I've seen it too. Where y'all seen this too? Oh, you see, it's all over social media stuff. Long time girlfriends of these celebrities, of these football players or whatever they be, with these people for five, 10, 15 years, honey, and they go and this person get hurt or, unfortunately, pass away and you are stuck, can't get nothing. Now you got to fight with all his relatives who showing up trying to say hey, I'm a party his case. I should be giving him some inheritance. I'm on his heirs too. You got to now fight with 50 people coming out of Woodworks and you've been the one helping him build that empire. You've been the one right there helping him when he's down, feeding him when he's hungry, care for him when he's sick. You've been the one doing it, but you played yourself because you didn't have a standard. You set the standard, you set the tone.
Speaker 1:
Nothing would give you what you want to accept. If you have no boundaries, guess what he gonna do Run through them. I'm sorry, but men choose men. They not gonna really put up a fight. Okay, a lot of men, even some Christian men. I'm just being honest. Even some Christian men they supposed to be golly men. They are not perfect and therefore it's on you for what you allow. Sometimes you have to help him alone.
Speaker 1:
You have to be like hey, I know you willing to compromise in this area, but I'm not. Don't? You know how many girls I know who, because they're like 30 and they're 30, they're like hey, I'm like 33, you still telling me to wait till I'm married and stuff. You telling me to move with my boyfriend. I'm like it don't matter Age, age and age don't matter when it comes to doing what God said to do. The biblical standard doesn't change because you get older. The standard is the standard. It does not change. And you cannot expect God's best and His highest and His perfect will for you when you're willing to compromise and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get this man.
Speaker 1:
I did that y'all. I'm telling you what I did. I did the same foolishness. I was willing to do whatever it took to keep this man. I was willing to live with him, I was willing to take care of him, I was willing to cook and clean, I mean y'all. I was even changing my personality. I know it may seem like that, in fact, but I was willing because I knew that you may be too loud, that you may be too abrasive, that you may be too.
Speaker 1:
This. I was like well, let me tweak this, let me change this. I'm totally becoming an inauthentic version, inauthentic version of myself, in order to get with this man who, at the end of the day, kicked me to the curb and moved on to marry somebody else. I'm trying to keep you from doing it. I'm trying to keep you from finding yourself in these situations a long time, 40 year old girlfriend to a man who refused to commit to you, he who finds a wife finds a good thing. So obviously, if you shacking up or cohabitate with a man, you don't believe you're a good thing, you don't believe your value, you don't know who you are, you're just accepting what you see, you're just doing what history's done in your family. You I've also realized a lot of times when I've seen women, especially Christian women, cohabitate.
Speaker 1:
They refuse to give lordship of their relationships to the Lord. You refuse to surrender that part of your life and that's why you are in the predicament you're in today. Okay, and so I know it may come up harsh and I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I love you so much, but I love you enough to tell you the truth. Truth is sorry, I just kicked the toy.
Speaker 1:
Truth is you are out of order. Truth is you made for more. Truth is God got the perfect will, the perfect husband, and it ain't gonna be perfect, baby. Let me be honest about it. Let me be real. Your marriage will never be perfect, because ain't nobody perfect. We all in human. But when I tell you when I put my full trust in Jesus and I laid down all them fears before him, took them and casted them on him and I went Lord, god, help me, Help your daughter. Lord, I don't know. I'm afraid I'm gonna die long. I'm afraid that nobody want me if I let this man right here go, or if I tell him I'm done having sex with you, I'm done living with you, or let's get this thing right. Or if I start speaking up with a spiritual godly standard. What is gonna cost me? I'm afraid of that cost.
Speaker 1:
When I finally was real with myself, real with the King, y'all gonna say he set me free. Set me free from all that fear, all that anxiety, all that low self-esteem I was carrying. I was not feeling valued anymore. I was finding myself saying stupid stuff like this If this you, I wanna challenge you, go back and pray, okay.
Speaker 1:
If you are in a cohabitative relationship and you find yourself saying stuff like, well, marriage is just a certificate, just a piece of paper, you lie to yourself. That's the work's deception, self-deception. You lie into yourself. Be real, let's be real about it. You ain't telling me you with this man because you wanna be his girlfriend, you wanna be his wife. You're doing everything you can to show him you're worthy. I don't think he sees your work but he don't. But you gotta know you're worth enough to know and to trust and to be willing to do the hard thing so that you don't settle for the bottom. Anything that settles goes straight to the bottom and right now you're going straight to the bottom real fast.
Speaker 1:
You're gonna find yourself as a single mother. If you're shacking up with your boyfriend and you have a child, you're a single mom. You're not married, you're not in covenant, you're not doing what God orchestrated. You're not doing it and I don't cut it. I'm sorry, honey, that's not cut it. It doesn't cut it. You got to trust and I know it's hard. I know you, like Fayoff's mint Years of my life, this person and some of y'all even providing 100% for this person.
Speaker 1:
I'm ready to that too. I've seen girls. They have become the mother figure to this man and so he's not even really with you because he love you so much. He's with you because it's comfortable. It's a nice cushiony, comfortable mother hand pad. You've created a space conducive for him to continue to be a little boy. All he does is play video games, follow his little quote, unquote passions. But he ain't doing nothing to really build you up, to really wash you in the world, to really help you become a man, a woman of God. And he's show like working on his walk with Jesus and you get all excited because, ooh, I saw him reading the scriptures or ooh, I saw him talking to the pastor. Ooh, went to church. You get excited for the little bitty stuff. But that ain't really, that ain't really hidden on nothing, because you don't see no big change. And you wanna know why you don't see no big change. It's because of the space and the culture of that household you have created.
Speaker 1:
You can't skip, you can't shortcut what God put in place. There's no shortcuts, there's no skips in this life. Okay, and dating Cause, when you skip, you're gonna ultimately find yourself in predicaments and situations that you should've never been in and that were not God's will. Okay, and granted, god can use those situations and he can totally transform your life even after that. But I know for a fact it was never God's perfect will for my life to be a homeless, single mom. That was my decision. But because after I made that big fail and not my daughter my daughter's not a fail. I love her so much. But that was not God's original design. But God had to take that messed up thing and convert it and restore it into a masterpiece, okay. So God can totally restore this thing.
Speaker 1:
But I need you to be real with yourself. I need you to start fighting with people. I need you to surrender to the Lord. I need you to trust Him. I need you to seek Him. I need you to turn to Him. I need you to stop listening to people who just tell you what you wanna hear. I need you to stop believing the lies to enemies giving you.
Speaker 1:
Every day, you look at a mirror and you don't see value in yourself. You don't even love yourself a lot of times. You are even afraid to be by yourself a lot of times, and that even goes for women who are not shacking up. A lot of us are terrified of being alone. But what would happen if you get along and you consecrate yourself to the Lord? You will find your identity in him, you will find who you are, you get to know who you are and in him, and you will get to hear God's voice and see him in your life like you've never seen him before. And I just want to challenge you. Okay, I want to challenge you to step out. I'm not saying you need to dump him right away, but I am saying take it to the King, and I don't. I don't. I'm not one who believes that you just cut it off and it's done, because it's not about a behavior modification as much as it is about a heart transformation. So, like I talked to, to talk to one of my, my babies I call my girl for the type of my babies because I love him so much One of my girls. I talked to her because she's in one of those situations too and I told her I think you need to take this to the King, take it to the Lord, and I think you, in your time with him, should ask God what he wants you to do with that. Okay, and so I need you to take this for your pastor, your local pastors, have a conversation with him.
Speaker 1:
Some of y'all in relationship. This man is not a Christian and he is totally, totally a yoyo. Now that, right there, you can go on, kick him to the curb, okay, but I want you to make the decision. I don't want you to do this. Get out of this cohabitating relationship because someone's telling you to, it has to be a heart shift and your choice Okay.
Speaker 1:
And when you do that, trust me. Trust me when I say the Lord will honor you. The Lord will restore to you the years that the enemy have stolen from you. The Lord will heal those broken places. He will make all things new. And right now I even come against the spirit of rejection. I rebuke it in the name of Jesus. I break it off your life. In Jesus name, I come against the spirit of abandonment, you afraid of being abandoned. I rebuke that off of you in the mighty name of Jesus. You, woman of God, it's time to stand up, get free, get right and get yourself together.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I love y'all. Thank you so much for tuning in. Can I wait for us all to get together? I am still working to put a few things together to create a space, a nice, beautiful community, to have us all be together. So y'all can ask me questions. So feel free just to drop a comment, drop your questions, to hit me up in my link tree, the links in the bio, and just let me know how can I be praying for you, how can I help you, what are your questions? I am your girl. Okay, I am here for you. You hear me and I want you to know the Lord has a perfect will, a perfect plan, a perfect design for your life. Okay, I love y'all. Bye-bye.