> > There are a lot of things that can make the situation you're in now a gray area. It gets complicated, because in God's eyes, sex is marriage. God respects legal marriage as well and wants us to be legally married before we become physically married, but going the other way puts you in a sort of weird half-married state, the exact ramifications of which possibly depend on a lot of different things, such as whether the sex was treated as a marriage commitment, whether both persons involved are Christians, and so forth. A child on the way complicates things too.
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> I do believe that you are the first person who has presented it to me in that way before.
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Same here...

> And I can't say that I don't agree. As a matter of fact, when the "mistake", as I'll call it here, first happened I considered it a marriage between the two of us. From that point I considered us to be married. The thing that changed my mind at that time was wondering why fornication could even be applied to the situation. I knew what we were doing was wrong, and if I we were married then it would be very much right. If having sex was a form of marriage, why does God oppose sex before marriage(which I believe firmly that he does)? Wouldn't the sex itself be marriage and thus all sexual partners from that point would be adultery, not just fornication? But considering sex as a "half-marriage" makes more sense. I don't know how biblical it is, and would appreciate it if you could point out some scripture to substantiate your view, unless it is just your way of viewing the situation from a logical standpoint.
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I think I understand what Sam says about being in a "weird half-married state," in the absolute sense that when a man and a woman cleave together, they become "one flesh" in God's eyes. That's the functional end result from getting married. But I wouldn't go so far as to say "sex is marriage."

True, sex *strengthens* a relationship when a couple shows their love for each other in this powerfully intimate way. Since this same sexual intimacy is sufficiently self-consuming and controlling, with powerful consequences (such as pregnancy), then rightfully, shouldn't there be some recommended constraints on how it can be used safely? I think that's one reason why God's Word strongly insists on having a marriage commitment prior to having intimacy. There are references where a man and woman are considered married (betrothed), even though no sexual relations have yet occurred between them. Mary and Joseph are an example of this. That's the first scriptural reference I can think of, offhand.

Another example is from John 4, citing the case where Yeshua was in Samaria sitting by a well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and he began to talk to her. He told her to go and call her husband. She replied, "I have no husband." He said, "You are quite right, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband." This suggests several things. One, that they were probably having sexual relations, so one has to ask: Why didn't Christ see them as married? Two possible answers are that she either could have been committing adultery, or she was prostituting herself. But I'm inclined to think that the point that he was emphasizing is that marriage is defined by more than simply having had a sexual act. In other words, premarital sexual intimacy can be emotionally blinding, because it can make two people think and feel that they're closer than they really are. Sex isn't marriage. Matrimony is the sacrament performed, with God's blessing, to bond two people in a loving relationship with each other as endurable as the one between Christ and His Church. Or at least, that's how I see it.

Uh-oh. I hope this isn't coming across as my accusing you and your ex of not having a "real" marriage commitment now. That's not what I intended. So let me quickly ask a totally different question about marriage that's been provoking me. I know that, technically speaking, consummation means making (a marital union) complete by sexual intercourse. But would one consider that a marriage bond is not truly ever 'completed' unless one has had children with one's spouse?

Wolfspirit