Being a pagean, and dating a catholic -?

[dhgray]

tiredwings:

That is horrific. I’m sorry - but two people must be their own to love one another. If you are becoming your spouse, who are they to love? What is the purpose of marriage if you both become one person? Two people should learn from one another’s lives, mistakes, and loves. I see what you are saying, though I sincerely think you need to mow this over a bit more. How do we seperate our beliefs?

My wife and I do have our own identies. But to become one means that I put my needs aside for hers. That means that if she wants to go out and I want to stay at home then we go out, or if I want to buy a candy bar and she wants to buy bread, we buy bread. These thoughts are also running through her mind. If you truly want to please your mate, the you need to be selfless…A good relationship is 100% give, from both sides.

Is your emotional need for sex more important than his emotional need to be faithful to his faith?

If the answer is yes, then you are being selfish and self-centered and my recommendation to you would be to end the relationship now, because it will not last.

 

[Mfaustina1]

You’ve gotten alot of good advice here.

First off, I want to reiterate - Catholics DO unfortunately sin. That is why Jesus established the Sacrament of Reconciliation. (get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and check it out for yourself). I advise this since you seem to have a great deal of emotional investment in your boyfriend. But you know that something is wrong because you would not have posted here if you didn’t. You are a very smart person and someone who does seem to care in order to have come to this site and posted.

However, you didn’t really think you’d get an easy answer, did you? If you love your boyfriend as much as you seem to, you would hold off on the sex as an expression of love until you come to understand that sex is the highest (physical ) form of love that a man and woman can communicate with each other.

Given the fact that our bodies ARE designed to create LIFE whether you want it to be so or not, is ONE reason to abstain from sex in your fertile cycle…and given the dignity of that life…another “you” or “him”…after all, YOU live, shouldn’t the next generation( your baby) have that same right) to live, is another reason to abstain, and marriage is a special bond between a man and woman that is built to protect the right of ALL in a given relationship. So, if you arn’t in a relationship for keeps and all that it entail good or bad, you shouldn’t be in the relationship at all. Unlike the world and its lofty messages on just “doing it” commerically or sexually, SEX IS FOR KEEPS! We are not just base animals acting on instinct. We have something animals don’t…It’s called REASON! We are higher than the animals regardless of what groups such as PETA might tell you. You are more than that. Can’t you tell just by reason and observation alone? Stick your dog’s or cat’s face in a mirror. They DON’T recognize that it is themselves that they are looking at! Sorry to digress, but it’s true! We are much higher than the animals. If you cannot control your self, (including your boyfriend), then you are in denial of your own humanity. When we speak of our humanity today, it’s always in terms of excusing our failures…WHAT BUNK!..and believe me, I’m not without sin here either! But I will not excuse or blame it away.

On the lighter side of things here, someone on this forum has a great signature to their name. It goes like this: Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on! If you’re familiar even a little bit with Genesis 1-3 of the Bible, you’ll get it. - With Christian Charity, -Mfaustina1

Ps. You are loved!

 

[INRI]

At the risk of repeating what some others may have alluded to (I didn’t wade through some of the longer posts), I think you, and perhaps your boyfriend, don’t understand the Catholic conception of Love.

Love is NOT, I repeat, NOT a matter of feelings. The strong pull you have for your boyfriend is natural, but it is not Love acording to the Catholic conception. Love, as properly understood, is wanting and doing what is BEST for the other above and beyond our own needs. This may seem like a cold definition, but it is the ADULT definition. The conception of love put forth by Hollywood is the infantile version. There are lots of things which constitute love that don’t have warm fuzzies attached to them. For instance, parents disciplining their children. This is love, but it isn’t pleasant to do. A wife who scolds her alcoholic husband for drinking is showing love (by not letting him destroy himself), but there are no warm and fuzzies. The greatest act of love in the world was Christ dying for us. That’s why every Catholic church should have a crucifix front and center. It’s not because we have a morbid fascination with gore, but because it’s the greatest act of love possible.

To have physical relations before marriage, by this definition, is not love, but its opposite. You are bound emotionally to the other, but you are not married. Sexual relations, paradoxically, have a way of clouding our emotions and preventing us from seeing the other as they are. People will stay together long after it has become apparent that they are not good for each other because the sex is good. That’s why people who have relations and/or live together before marriage have much higher divorce rates. Once the bloom is off the rose, those little flaws you glossed over pre-marriage start to loom a little larger.

Bear in mind that all contraceptive technologies have a failure rate. Even if you were to do everything “perfectly”, you are risking bringing a child into the situation. Then you’ll really be in a pickle.

The Church has its teachings about sex, not because it is repressive and only wants women to become joyless baby factories, but because it sees sex as HOLY. It sees sex as something much more exalted than merely gaining pleasure, but as the union of two souls. If you have a hard time thinking of sex that way, it is because you have been too influenced by our surrounding culture.

I would recommend picking up, or borrowing a copy of The Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West. It is an easy read, quite explicit, and lays out the Church’s teachings beautifully.

Bear in mind, for every NO that the Church puts forward, there is an even more important YES. For every negative commandment that the Church puts forward, it is because the Church wants something even better for you. Once you get what the Church is driving at, it’ll blow your mind.
Peace!