C
chevalier
Guest
I’d tend to agree. Sometimes the memories get eradicated up to close to null, but there’s always something. Certainly in case of prolonged relationships it can’t really just go away - well, depends which one. I remember a long-distance relationship of nine months that hasn’t left many memories. Mostly because there’s nothing good to look back at, although I’d be doing that person a disservice if I said it was all bad, I guess. At any rate, I’m happy with it being away from my mind. And while it didn’t involve a religious vocation on either part, it involved a good religious reason to discontinue that relationship. At least one.
A while after that, I had a relationship which is much more difficult to forget - if that will ever happen. She had been among my best friends for at least two years before over a year of a relationship. During that time she was both best friend (one of) and a girlfriend - though we were looking at more and “girlfriend” didn’t cover it. She didn’t know whether she would ever change her lack of current wish to have children. She didn’t want an obligation to that effect. She wouldn’t want to raise her children Catholic, “the way you * see it,” she had issues with my not wanting to party in Lent, was scared of the way she was “catholicising”… there must have been much mishandling on my part. Perhaps she didn’t want to continue down the way once she realised it. She said there would always be more and more requirements to meet. I struggled with thoughts and decided I could never have marital relations in the presence of potentially abortifacient birth control, nor could I enter into a potentially invalid marriage on the grounds of exclusion of progeny. She knew this, she said she wouldn’t change (and part, or major part, of the reason she didn’t want children was the fact we would argue about their upbringing -re pills, premarital sex, having to go to Confession and fast on fast days and other things), she brought it up with me and broke up with me a couple of days later (2nd Feb, Friday… tell me it’s an accident). It was all sad, I ended up feeling tons of pain, going to church every day and not always just once, unable to work on my Master’s thesis for months, wishing to focus on religious matters but suffering a huge trial in that regard. I actually still love the girl and I know she loves me, no matter what she says - unless I didn’t actually know her and I love a projection of imagination. At any rate, after the break-up, I had everything I did wrong with regard to her thrown back at me and my feelings for her seemed to mature, even as I had no current need to talk to her despite daily opportunity. At times I think she was egoistic and her views were making it impossible to have a normal Christian marriage, but I know that’s not the truth of her. I don’t know why the relationship happened (when we were starting it, it was her coming to me a couple of days after much praying on my part and leaving it up to God, already after she initially rejected me)… I don’t know why it ended (apart from the fact it couldn’t really continue). In the beginning, I would say a daily rosary for her and I would feel at peace, although suffering much - and it felt as if something really were going on on her end, which I couldn’t understand. And then I stopped saying the rosary for her every day (though I’d still pray for her every day and sometimes a rosary too), lost any need to talk to her, but remained with my feelings. I don’t know where it’s all going. Part of me wants to leave women alone for a long time, part of me wants to hope for a get-back-together, no part of me wants to talk to her (in the sense of initiating a conversation). I felt silly praying the rosary and trusting. I felt as if I were giving up on something when I hung the rosary at an altar where more such rosaries hung. Now I just don’t know. Part of me wants to resume the daily rosary for her, I guess. I just don’t know why part of me thinks it’s not the end of the story. I feel perfectly ready to move on and yet this.
Well, sorry for the long rant, but this my experience with having to give up on someone for reasons relating to vocation - if not the same as what you’re facing, there are at least many similarities.*
Turns out when I was praying for assistance in this matter, a message arrived saying, “MyName, I was just boarding the plane when you phoned. I’m in [City] now. Unfortunately, the time passed so fast for me [OtherCity] that I haven’t managed to finish the paper, therefore I need to resign your kind invitation. I thank you cordially once again and greet you from [Country].” I prayed in my favourite church on my way back from work, I knew it would be tough, then the nerves in most of my face went off (happens sometimes after a jaw surgery when I drink too much coffee or something, prevents expressions, pain etc), and then I checked the time on my phone after leaving church and there was the message, the date suggesting it arrived when I was praying. I wonder what’s the implication.