Dating/DiscerningMarriage/Stepson

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Wow. The more I read, the more sure I get that you are the one being blind.

You say she is selfless. I don’t see it. If she put you ahead of herself, then she’d accept and love all of your self, including the fact that you were previously sexually active, married, and have a child. In fact, she’d be looking forward to being his stepmother.

She may be a wonderful person otherwise, but she is putting her ideal of marriage ahead of you. One of the most common causes of marital failure is when one or both partners go into it with an ideal instead of a reality. Then they get angry because their spouse is not living up to their ideal.

You can see that happening even before you are married.

Note that you are being selfless. You want to fix the problem - but you don’t seem to see that it is *her *problem, not yours. You did not “cause her pain.” She is causing her own pain. She wanted to marry a virgin. That’s a good ideal, but she can’t change the past.

You did the right thing. It started with a wrong thing - premarital sex - but when the girl got pregnant, you tried to make a family. That shows what a good man you are. If she can’t see this, then she is not being selfless.

If I talked to her, I’d be tempted to say, “Grow up sister. Either you love all of this man, including his son, or you’re not the wife he deserves. Time to take a chill pill.”

I’ll pray for her to figure this out.

God bless you,

Ruthie
 
I have seen a couple issues mentioned in this thread and am not 100% clear which one your GF is having the hardest time with, maybe both. Maybe I just missed it in which case I apologize, I was a little distracted when I was reading the thread because I was on the phone with my GF who was giving me a hard time because someone told her I was out shoveling snow and splitting wood today without a jacket.:o

In any case, I can see both sides of this issue and have recently sort of been on the other side of it and got a lot of encouragement from this community.

The first issue, which I did not have to deal with deal with, is the presence of an ex wife and more importantly a child. Having a blended family like that can bring many complications into play that some people just may not be equipped to deal with. No one should judge her for this if it is the case. I myself, do not think I could handle a step child right now. I do not think it is right or wrong, it just is. You deserve someone that can accept you as you come without reservation. More importantly, you owe it to your son to pick some one that can accept him and not resent him. Trust me, he will pick up on it if she has the slightest resentment towards him and that would not be fair to him. But it sounds like you realize this and that it may not be the key issue based on your second post.

The other issue, that I am thinking may be the bigger concern here, is the fact that you are not a virgin and she may be? Am I correct? This is specifically what I dealt with. This website has some great resources on it that deal specifically with this issue chastity.com/. I can say for one, that it helped me out immensely. For me the biggest issue was insecurity. Also I had this fairy tale dream world picture of how things would be and I found the idea of it being different hard to take at first. Some of my issues were purely irrational emotions, and quite frankly I got flamed for them on here by some. That being said, if someone has those feeling, it is not necessarily their fault or wrong and I don’t think they should be held against them. I for one am very grateful that through prayer and thought, I was able to work through them. Since then things have been fantastic. Do I still think about it from time to time? I will not lie and say no, but it is less and less as time goes on and I just take the opportunity to pray for her and her continued healing. She is a fantastic woman and I would have been throwing away a great God centered relationship. Now we can focus on other things like whether or not I wear a jacket in the snow or she remembers to check the oil in her truck when she fills it up.:rolleyes:

I hope this helps some, I am sorry that I was only able to give you one website that may or may not apply, but I found it useful to me. I will keep you in my prayers.
 
J1001 said:
I sincerely appreciate everyone’s response and in taking the time to read my post and offer the best advice you had to offer someone you don’t even know, however I think I may have done poor job explaining what I was looking for from my post and the nature of our relationship.

It’s nearly impossible to articulate in words to a stranger with no understanding what our relationship is like and the truly amazing, faithful, beautiful, selfless woman my girlfriend is, a woman who is struggling to deal with something that causes her great pain. Or the profound love we share with each other is something I never thought I was even remotely capable of, and in the ways I’ve grown and continue to grow as direct result of our relationship.

From the responses I’ve read, the consensus of her character could be summed up as selfish, petty and immature. If you knew her I promise that assessment would be much different. Like I mentioned before, she is struggling with a painful reality of my past. A past she should never had have to deal with if I had protected my chastity in love for my future wife, whether I know her or not is beside the point. She doesn’t want this to hurt her it just does, and I imagine most people can at the very least understand why. She and I prayerfully make efforts to lessen the pain but ultimately haven’t made little progress.

Hence my initial post. Support groups, websites, books from people who have studied or experienced this firsthand is what I was looking for. Personal opinions of her and our relationship, based on very little understanding of the situation I was not. Some of the concerns brought were valid and absolutely worth considering. But again if you had a better understanding of us your thoughts, I imagine, would change. For instance, my “ex wife” is a miserable woman who I never even consider getting back with. Or that, my girlfriend and I would never get married if she couldn’t fully embrace and accept all of me and give her live to me completely, so the fear of what kind of stepmother she’ll be doesn’t concern me at all. If we were to be married my son would be incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful woman in his life. A woman that would love him completely and be devoted to forming him in love and getting him to heaven.

Thank you all again for the responses.
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Brother I understand you so well. And I understand your gf perfectly too. She does not want to feel like this but its just there… its painful, and who could not understand that?
I once had a connection with a guy on the internet. He did not have children but had been married. He was now a widow man but the thought of him giving himself totally on his wedding day and wedding night was somewhat difficult for me to swallow. And I was not even in love with him. However…

Does your gf understand that you have suffered more than anyone because of your own sins. Often it seems like the world thinks its its job to make sure the unchaste suffer and live on a stone. They will say: “oh the Lord forgives” but they will be sure to kick you while you are already lying down reminding you of your terrible sins ( I allude to Norseman and such people) This is a kind of strange sadism that is contrary to the attitude of Christ as He said to the adulteress: GO IN PEACE and sin no more.
If someone has sinned in a sexual area its too offen followed by their future partner saying: “BUT certainly he/she has repented for 3-10 years”, and this is said with a kind of satisfaction… I find it gross but oh so hidden under the label of righteousness.
Do people know the pain of having sinned in this area? If they did they would not so much feel the need to help with the crushing that is taking place privately in that persons soul already.
Sorry that was venting.

Now to the real advice… I have been in love two times. I have always wanted to have a man who was innocent or at least as innocent as I, but I ended up meeting men who had had severel sexual relationships in the past. Now, the more in love I was the more I could overlook that… but this is also mainly because the particular man made me feel like his one and only princess, the one he had always wanted. Give this feeling to your GF that she is the only one for you in the whole universe and that you cant take your eyes off her and is madly in love with her… and this will help. Thats my experience, I am passing it on to you. I am a very jealous type but I have not been jealous where I expected to be precisely because of this… being lavished with affection. Women need this acceptance and to know they are special and beautiful.

As Jesus said: Love hides many sins.

Grace
 
I was corresponding with someone offline, and this person probably put it best: many people here are insisting on forcing a square peg into a round hole, and it isn’t working.

And when it doesn’t work (these are now my thoughts, not those of the person I corresponded with), we see nasty remarks and vile abuse or mockery (of both people and Church teaching) from the “Midol Mafia” and other unstable or poorly catechized people in an attempt to bully and/or force the situation and blame the square peg for not being able to fit into the round hole (this happens almost every time this type f discussion occurs). Many often forget that when you try to force too hard one risks damaging both the square peg and the round hole, or you still have gaps that air and water that still leak through. Instead of the nasty bullying, why don’t we do the logical thing and try to match the round peg with the round hole and the square hole with the square peg?

J1001,

The only “support groups” I would think of would be groups for single parents and divorced people eligible to marry in the Church. I would in fact advise you that a woman you meet there might be more of the “round peg” for your “round hole”, as she would be more able to relate to the issues you are facing as she would be “in the same shoes” that you are.
 
J1001,

Move ten years into the future. Imagine your son, grown, and on his way out into the world spoiling for a fight, because his father betrayed him by forcing a woman into his life and home who did not fully accept him and love him. Imagine the pain in his heart, that his need for his father’s undivided loyalty and attention was placed lower than his father’s desire for a certain woman. And then imagine the sense of worthlessness he will feel when watching his father make new babies with that woman who does not want to accept him. He will feel replaced, unimportant, unloved, and not valuable.

Young men full of testosterone, filled with that kind of sadness and bitterness, inflict suffering on themselves and others. Please, don’t do that to him or to the rest of us!

I am betting you are still fairly young. Wait until your son is finished with high school and ready to live his own life, even if that only means going away to college, before you re-marry and possibly have more children. That is not too much to ask to serve the needs of the child you already brought into the world and to whom you are obligated. His family is already broken, don’t break his spirit and his heart, too.
 
J1001…

I think she will get over it.
Just shower her with love and attention and let her know she is all you ever wanted.
She needs to react to the disapointment and finish this reaction… she needs to get used to the thought, turn it around in her head, argue some with it and come to peace with it.
Its her dream images that are at play in her mind… they are the ones she is struggling with. We all face this struggle along the way… to fit our childhood dreams with reality… our expectations and hopes with the disappointments that we all run into concerning our selves and others.
You are a father and a good man still fully capable of loving and giving your self. I am optimistic about this womans future with you… but if you, after giving it time, find out she will not be able to accept your past or your boy and embrace him, then you need to move on for both of your sakes…
Then you will find back to his mother, or some other beautiful soul who God places on your path.
Because you have a child does not mean you should not seek the beauty of marriage. It means you need to find someone whose heart is big and also understand them…
Its all been done before 👍

God bless you.
 
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