M
MJDorry
Guest
I’m a 27-year old man and who’s been dating a 23 year-old woman over the past month-and-a-half. We hit it off in the beginning and were going on dates multiple times a week. She really is a great gal and we get along great for the most part. There’s chemistry and unbroken gazes when speaking. But as stated, there are issues, even if the issues are a bit more nuanced than as stated in the thread title.
She seems to be an otherwise strongly-believing Christian woman (I make caveats for the non-Catholics because I have not met any truly devout Catholic women), but her stance on abortion is a weird one. She says she would never have an abortion and that she thinks that all abortions are absolutely terrible, but that even in light of that, she doesn’t feel like it’s anybody’s place to tell a woman what she can do with her body.
She also believes that this is a sticking point for equality and women’s liberation. But I just don’t know how you can hold to completely morally contradicting positions—“abortion is horrible, but women should be allowed to legally and freely choose.”
And then there’s the matter of sexuality. She says that she’s completely fine waiting for marriage if that’s what the other person wants, but that waiting is not something she’d stick to if the “time felt right” and her s/o initiated.
I know the kind of man that I am. I am very sexually-minded. And as much faith as I have in the power of God to lift me, I’m not confident I would wait if I knew my s/o was willing to have sex before marriage. To this extent I’ve more recently sought women who were very much about waiting for marriage because I feel like together, we can accomplish that if that’s both our conviction.
What do I do here? Do these things represent a spiritual incompatibility that can be fraught with danger and pain down the road? Do they represent an opportunity to bridge that spiritual gap? Is it possible God put her in my path to direct her toward him through our relationship (should we enter into one)? Or is it possible that He put her in my path to give me the opportunity to choose the incredibly difficult thing of nipping this in light of spiritual difference? Or is God leaving this to a negative and a positive direction for both instances?
I told her today that these things weighed on me and that while I wanted to see her again, it was something I needed to seriously think about. And she said she was fine with that and understood, but she was very obviously still hurt by this sudden change in direction. To see that hurt started crushing me. Now I feel like **** for bringing it up so soon and leaving her hurt and hanging in the balance. I feel like I could be making a rash and extreme reaction to something that may not be big in the grand scheme, but I feel like these are things that the spirit of the relationship can sometimes hinge on.
If you have thoughts or experience, please share.
She seems to be an otherwise strongly-believing Christian woman (I make caveats for the non-Catholics because I have not met any truly devout Catholic women), but her stance on abortion is a weird one. She says she would never have an abortion and that she thinks that all abortions are absolutely terrible, but that even in light of that, she doesn’t feel like it’s anybody’s place to tell a woman what she can do with her body.
She also believes that this is a sticking point for equality and women’s liberation. But I just don’t know how you can hold to completely morally contradicting positions—“abortion is horrible, but women should be allowed to legally and freely choose.”
And then there’s the matter of sexuality. She says that she’s completely fine waiting for marriage if that’s what the other person wants, but that waiting is not something she’d stick to if the “time felt right” and her s/o initiated.
I know the kind of man that I am. I am very sexually-minded. And as much faith as I have in the power of God to lift me, I’m not confident I would wait if I knew my s/o was willing to have sex before marriage. To this extent I’ve more recently sought women who were very much about waiting for marriage because I feel like together, we can accomplish that if that’s both our conviction.
What do I do here? Do these things represent a spiritual incompatibility that can be fraught with danger and pain down the road? Do they represent an opportunity to bridge that spiritual gap? Is it possible God put her in my path to direct her toward him through our relationship (should we enter into one)? Or is it possible that He put her in my path to give me the opportunity to choose the incredibly difficult thing of nipping this in light of spiritual difference? Or is God leaving this to a negative and a positive direction for both instances?
I told her today that these things weighed on me and that while I wanted to see her again, it was something I needed to seriously think about. And she said she was fine with that and understood, but she was very obviously still hurt by this sudden change in direction. To see that hurt started crushing me. Now I feel like **** for bringing it up so soon and leaving her hurt and hanging in the balance. I feel like I could be making a rash and extreme reaction to something that may not be big in the grand scheme, but I feel like these are things that the spirit of the relationship can sometimes hinge on.
If you have thoughts or experience, please share.