What should our relationship be with our daughter who has just moved in with her boyfriend?
Question:
Based on the article you wrote regarding cohabitation, what then should our relationship with our daughter be now that she has had her boyfriend move into her home in spite of hours of biblical counsel by her father? She had already made her decision and went ahead with her plans. We do not want to compromise our biblical values before our other child.
Thanks and God Bless!
Heartbroken mom
Answer:
"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person" (I Corinthians 5:9-11).
Like all other punishments, doing what needs to be done in order to show a child that what she is doing is wrong is never pleasant. "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11). Many parents compromise on their principles and as a result, no training is accomplished.
Your daughter needs to be told that she has chosen to live in sin. Until she repents and changes her way, you will not give any encouragement to this life. Financially, she thinks she is an adult so she has taken on all adult responsibilities for her life. She pays her own way through life, including schooling. Let her know that you want to see her married because that is what God approves, but since she has chosen to go against God's laws and your desires, you won't be financing the wedding, so don't even ask. If she wants to play at being an adult, she has to go all the way.
Depending on her actual age, you may still have some obligations to her if she is a minor. Beyond those, you are required to cut off all social ties that in any way give an indication that you accept or approve of what she is doing. If she eventually does get married, go to the wedding because she is then doing what is right. But until she stops committing fornication, she is basically no different than all the other sinners in the world. "Let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17).
I can't sugar coat it. What God requires is hard to do, but it works.
