Catholic Online Forum

Hi - I'm not sure if I'm putting this in the right subforum, but I want some advice.

My boyfriend and I have been together about 6 months. We love each other very much. We've had to support each other through some difficult stuff. We are both Catholic. (I am from a big Catholic family, he converted two years ago, despite harsh persecution from a member of his family.) We are both 21, and at the same University. (He is in his final year, but hopes to stay next year for a graduate programme. I am in my first year - I started a degree before at another University, but had to drop out because a serious illness.)

I did some very bad things in my teens, when I rebelled against God, the Church and my parents. I dated an agnostic for two and a half years and we fornicated. I also acted on desires for other girls. I also became addicted to porn and self-abuse. (That addiction seems to have been broken through the intercession of Our Lady.) My boyfriend knows about my past and he forgives me.

We are trying to be chaste, but the flesh is weak. We have not given in to fornication, but quite a few times we have touched each other where we shouldn't.

I'm wondering whether it is safe for us to kiss and hug at all, because we are both very young and very weak.

Advice?

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- Isabella
"If Catholics abstained from sin for but one day, the world would be converted." - Sylvester Joseph Hunter, S.J.

Isabella,
I've written about this, here.

I hope this helps you. I think that, at the very least, you and your boyfriend ought to discuss the points I bring out - particularly about the intoxicating and distracting effects of physical intimacy.

My personal opinion is that kissing should NEVER be treated as one more recreational choice by seriously religious couples. You're just begging for trouble when you do give in to that temptation. A chaste kiss at the end of the date is a wholesome and lovely demonstration of affection that minimalizes the temptations of sexual inebriation.

I hope all goes well for you.

_________________
Laura
Soli Deo Gloria
http://lauralowder.wordpress.com

"Since I cannot altogether live the life I would wish for, I must make my actual life better and more fruitful for God and for the souls who have been entrusted to me." Elisabeth Leseur, October 2, 1905

I would actually recommend not dating until you are ready to be married. If you are not ready to be married within the next 6 months to a year, then I would say, don't date. Be friends if you can, but do not set yourself up for temptation.

You've dated for 6 months, you should know if marriage is in the future. I do not think long dating relationships are healthy.

Also, pray, pray, pray about it. May God show you the way.

_________________
God Bless
Julie D. Byrne

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Laura and Julie,

Good posts, both. This is exactly how we are raising our children, we believe in it so much.

_________________
Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu

I agree with the above advice too.

If you already know you are strongly tempted, then you know there is sexual attraction enough for marriage--no more testing is required! Switch to a chaste, platonic, non-physical friendship based relationship. If you are meant to marry, then later on when you do marry you will be very glad you did. A long platonic non-physical friendship brings with it a deepening of the intellectual and emotional intimacy that is far more difficult to develop if you are playing with the physical side.

Having made my share of mistakes, and also managed my share of platonic non-physical relationships--I will tell you that the later can grow in ways that never ever happened with relationships that allowed the physical.

It is worth doing also because years ahead when both of you are working and you have three kids, a dog and a mortgage it is the deep non-physical intimate connections which carry you through.

_________________
K. Ann Seeton

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle (but the concept is found in John Paul II's books The Acting Person and Love and Responsibility as well.)

Quicksilver to Gold
http://hg2au.com

K. Ann,



Even in the first year, it is the friendship you developed that will get you through the difficult adjustments of living together. When sex is a part of the dating, deep flaws and incompatibilities within the relationship are also masked or papered over or rationalized away, because the sex feels good and makes you feel good about the other person. A person is in love with being "in luv," rather than taking a hard look at the one with whom he/she is planning to commit to a permanent, exclusive, forsaking-all-others, relationship.

When the sex with that person loses its mojo, there is no rock on which the relationship/marriage should have been built on which to stand, and so the marriage breaks apart, especially if there is also no practiced faith that holds the couple's feet to the fire.

Thankfully, marriages can hold together when sex was a big part of the relationship prior to the exchange of vows, but such marriages start off with greater risk of divorce, or often spouses endure marriages with incompatible others for the sake of the marriage (or the children), and neither spouse is happy.

_________________
Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu

Additionally, if intellectual and emotional bonding and happy companionship in a non-physical way are not firmly established through the early years, finding common ground in the years after the hormones ebb and sex is no longer the be all and end all can be very problematical.

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Thank you for your advice. From now on, we will only be intimate emotionally.

_________________
- Isabella
"If Catholics abstained from sin for but one day, the world would be converted." - Sylvester Joseph Hunter, S.J.

Well, don't neglect intellectual and spiritual intimacy! LOL

Wishing you all the best (because it's not easy to change course - but it can be done!) -

_________________
Laura
Soli Deo Gloria
http://lauralowder.wordpress.com

"Since I cannot altogether live the life I would wish for, I must make my actual life better and more fruitful for God and for the souls who have been entrusted to me." Elisabeth Leseur, October 2, 1905

Recently a couple I know got married. The woman was a young widow with a young child, the man, divorced, (anulled) with two children. Their courtship lasted over a year. They both remained chaste until their wedding night. They were married in the RC Church. Their love for each other was not outdone by their love for God. I was impressed when the young wife (whom I counseled) mentioned that. So folks it's not impossible and I am sure that they appreciate and respect each other more. That takes courage and maturity and a willingness to live according to the RC Church. God Bless them and all who seek to be chaste according to their state of life and calling.

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Pax et Bonum


Schultzz

Did anybody mention praying out loud (or silently) together? This is just an idea, not necessarily a recommendation, since I don't feel qualified to actually give genuine advice. Or sing hymns together. That way you could sing holy duets. Recite love poem might be more romantic in a worldly sense, but since I'm not a poet, hymns might be easier to come by AFAIK. You could even play karaoke hymns on a computer. http://vanbasco.com has a search engine for all kinds of free karaoke. But vanbasco player only runs on Windows XP. KaraFun player runs on Vista and higher, I think. Both players are free

Here's another idea http://e5men.org

It's not a Catholic group and I have no direct experience of it, but it might give you a worthwhile idea or two? One does not have to 'sign up' to benefit from the ideas.

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David H.