My boyfriend and I live together. We’ve been living together for two years. He doesn’t want to get married. I do. Also, I am Christian, he is agnostic. I have tried to talk to him about God, but he wants proof. I don’t know what to do. When we first got together, I was unsaved. God called me through a series of events and I answered. My boyfriend is a good man, and he makes me happy besides him being agnostic and not wanting to get married. I know he loves me, but he seems to feel like I’m forcing marriage on him. I am not trying to, but I don’t want to live in sin. What should we (or I) do?<\/p>\n\t
“And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence<\/em>” (Colossians 1:18).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You have a tough choice to make. Does your boyfriend whom you see every day come first in your life, or does Jesus? The plain matter is that currently, you are living in sin. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God<\/em>” (I Corinthians 6:9-10). You can’t honestly call yourself a follower of Christ (Christian) while you continue to do your own thing. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven<\/em>” (Matthew 7:21).<\/p>\n
If you haven’t noticed, you are currently letting your unbelieving boyfriend make the choice. You want to get married, he doesn’t. Meanwhile, you continue to live with him and sleep in his bed. From an unbeliever’s viewpoint, what would he gain by making a permanent commitment to you? He doesn’t believe in God or sin, so he isn’t concerned about such things. Right now he has all the benefits of marriage without any commitment. At any point in time, he can walk out the door and have no regrets. Meanwhile, you continue to sin with him and beg him to make a choice to marry you.<\/p>\n
Start living the Christian life. Each person is responsible for the decisions they make. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling<\/em>” (Philippians 2:12). Move out. Make it very clear to him that you love him, that you want to spend the rest of your life with him, but you want to do so righteously. When he makes a lifelong commitment to you by marrying you, you’ll joyfully move back in, but in the meantime, you can’t continue living a lie.<\/p>\n
In doing this, you remove all the pressure from him. He has to make up his own mind. You won’t be doing it for him. You’ve only made up your own mind and followed your decision.<\/p>\n
I can’t say what choice he will make. I can say that you will soon learn just how much he really loves you. He’ll either marry you to keep from losing you, or he’ll blame you and let you go.<\/p>\n\t
Response:<\/h2>\n
Thank you for your advice and for taking the time to answer my question. It was very helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: My boyfriend and I live together. We’ve been living together for two years. He doesn’t want to get married. I do. Also, I am Christian, he is agnostic. I have tried to talk to him about God, but he wants proof. I don’t know what to do. When we first got together, I was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[149,1572,64],"class_list":["post-19654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-dating","tag-fornication","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49384,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-boyfriend-doesnt-want-to-get-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":19654,"position":0},"title":"My boyfriend doesn’t want to get married","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey My boyfriend and I are in a relationship for almost five years. 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