Comparing holiness

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MargaretofCortona said:
I think she foolishly acquiesced to an open relationship she didn’t want just because she got attached. I think she put up with his disrespect, because she felt she couldn’t say anything because they aren’t truly an item. I think the simplest answer was to walk away and listen to actions not words. I think she wanted to believe his very obvious lies perhaps in denial that it was truly just sex for him.
I don’t think why she somehow sees this as a big personal loss or something to dwell on.

Just because he doesn’t have power over her, I don’t think it makes his behavior less manipulative.

Some say him mentioning all the ways he is not her type is a way of having power over her. Why say that yet change tunes then deny such words once she decides to end it?

Stringing someone along and playing on someone’s insecurities and emotions.

I personally do not know what to tell her honestly.
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I think you ought to make some friends that are more healthy for you. So far they simply abuse you, they taunt you, they do all sorts of terrible things.

Not everyone’s going to be perfect, people are going to make mistakes. But I think you generally seem to want to associate with people that are using you as much as they are using others.

You somehow can’t deal with her. Whether it’s because of your own background or your own bias it’s clear…this is not a healthy friendship because you are unable to understand how to convey her actions were wrong.

Perhaps find a Catholic young adult group–or even a christian one.

It seems your “friend-o-meter” is atacting you to people who insist on driving you nuts.
 
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I think this is one of those situations where, while it is objectively correct that what she did is a sin, approaching it from that angle is probably not going to produce any good results.

We feel what we feel, and often the best choice can be to validate what someone is feeling without necessarily getting into whether they’re “right” to feel that way. We can acknowledge that someone does in fact feel hurt, without getting into the absolute rightness of their feelings.

As far as approaching sexuality goes, I’ve found that in general starting from why extramarital sex is wrong usually helps far less than starting from the good of marital commitment.
 
Point blank. Can you tell me how exactly she is equally wrong? I think she was wrong for settling and for lying to herself and for whining instead of leaving him alone and fixing the problem. Or having the wrong expectations.
Other than that, I don’t think she did anything wrong directly to him.
Unless you can see something I truly do not.
After all, I know both people well.
 
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I agree her feeling is not absolutely or perfectly right, but it is natural to feel hurt if you left a situation feeling used.
Now is not that time to rub it in how foolish and stubborn she was for not listening.
I don’t know.
Things are not as black and white as I think.
 
I cannot seem to grasp how she hurt him if he never liked her. I think she screwed herself over honestly. I think she had the wrong expectations. She think she started to care more for her than their relationship entailed
Is there something I’m not getting or that I don’t see objectively?
 
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I think our error is called Original Sin. I believe if you are not a Christian then you are bound for a world of hurt. But probably not unconditionally. In no way, shape, or form am I Dear Abby. I have followed this whole conversation at a rather cursory level and can draw no deep conclusions. Sorry.
 
Why can’t I be a man or think more like one at least? I cannot truly see how she wronged him honestly considering she doesn’t think fornication is a sin. perhaps running around looking for man to fill a void in herself is not fair to him either. I don’t think either loved each other honestly.
Oh Lord, most of the time I am open to other people’s opinions but it has rarely changed my own honestly.
 
I think you are over focusing, Go find a good book to read or movie.

Something. Else.
 
Amen. I guess there are situations I will fully never understand or perhaps it ain’t even my business to worry honestly.
 
It may depend more on the strength and liveliness of some person’s interior life.

If a naturally ebullient, vivacious, enthusiastic person has developed a solid interior life, they will have a perspective and dispositions that will minimize the “runaway emotions”.

They will know they are loved infinitely by a loving Father God.
They will understand their emotions are good - God made them - but that they need to be under a bit of a leash held by the intellect and the will.
These emotions need to “serve the good and the true”.

So I don’t think it’s so much the presence of emotions that makes it harder or easier to pursue holiness…it’s the formation and practice that someone has received/undertaken in order to make sure their emotions (working on their dominant defect…pride, vanity, love of comfort, etc.) don’t get in the way of their pursuit of holiness and their interactions with others.
 
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Emotions are morally neutral, they are not “right” or “wrong”.

Your friend committed a sin, she has been hurt.

The Christian response to a friend in pain is not “well, you sinned, what do you expect?!? You got what you deserved now shake it off and get on with things!”

She is hurting. Love her. Remind her that she is precious and she is valuable and that she can heal. That there is love and joy in this life. Take her to lunch, get a facial, go on a walk in the park, something to cheer her up.

We as Christians are supposed to love other people and do good things for them. Let her see love and joy in you.
 
Young adults today were, for the most part, groomed for “casual sex” from the time they could walk. You see toddlers wearing shirts that say “Sexy” and posing for photos with pouty lips and with their hip cocked out to one side.

First day of Kindergarten granny asks “do you have any boyfriends yet” and everyone thinks it is soooo cute that little Johnny has “two girlfriends who fight over him”.

Jr High school girls give their boyfriend a list of what they want for Valentine’s day - from Victoria’s Secret.

Why is anyone even mildly intrigued that young adults treat sex as a recreation and that people end up all kinds of hurt.

Of course they are victims. They are victims of a society who has sold them a box of empty promises.
 
Having sex without commitment violates God’s moral and natural law. It hurts the soul (moral law) and has physical and emotional consequences (natural law) which include hormonal responses and negative actions where passion overrides reason. Gaining control over our emotions/passions is a worthy goal. Abandoning sin is a first step in the process. Sin weakens our reason. A person with weak reason is more subject to being controlled by passion/emotions.
 
Do you think I should tell her she’s assigning too much blame to the guy or that she shouldn’t have expected more? I already notice she’s pretty depressed honestly.
 
Not all people feel this way. I don’t know if she’s victim of her own poor choices or not.
 
I would say “Cosmo lies. Every rom-com movie we ever saw lied. Hooking up ends up hurting people.”
 
Can a person be reasonable and still sin? Are emotions the cause of our sins? What do you do with them? Ignore them?
 
I think it happens all the time. People choose reason over Faith. People choose reason over the teaching. So it depends on where their reason is directed, what principles their reason follows. I am more of a reason-based person, so I have to check myself on this. I think reason is a double-edged sword.

I have come to appreciate that emotion-based people, like my wife, are capable of great holiness because they feel strongly and care deeply. So emotion is a double-edged sword also.
 
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