Every time I surrender my romantic relationship to God and Mary, it ends

[LuciaPacifici]

I’m just sad. I noticed how many times this happened. I pray to Mary to take my relationship that is starting with a guy and we break up or he ghosts on me which hurts even more. When did disappearing without goodbye become socially acceptable? I miss decency.

Well it’s nice to say that I’m being preserved for something better or God thinks I’m so special He wants me all for Himself but all I feel is loneliness. Why is trying to get married which I feel strongly called to like rocket science for me? Why did it just happen to everyone else?

People get bored of me and I feel like I’ve tiny thing wrong and people leave. Family too. I want to be different.

Anyone ever feel this way who is happily married now? By the way yes I want to get married, the reason is years of prayer and discernment and because it is not good for man to be alone and it’s a very normal desire as it has been in human history. Nlt finding a boyfriend is not a default to religious life either.

Anyway a guy really liked me this month (that’s s long time for anyone to keep talking to me even as a friend) but he ghosted. I’m so disappointed.

 

[EasterJoy]

It sounds to me like you’ve been given the grace to dodge bullets.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

It sounds to me like you’ve been given the grace to dodge bullets.

I hope so, but then it makes me think why am I only getting bullets? That’s nice to dodge bad things, but all my friends are getting blessings and have not had to dodge as many bad things as me. Yes I am whining but I just get so tired.

 

[Regina7]

I hope so, but then it makes me think why am I only getting bullets? That’s nice to dodge bad things, but all my friends are getting blessings and have not had to dodge as many bad things as me. Yes I am whining but I just get so tired.

Don’t compare yourself to your friends. It may look like they are getting blessings, and maybe they are, but outside appearances can be deceiving. I used to be incredibly jealous of a woman I saw in church. She had 6 beautiful kids, was pregnant, active in the church, etc. Her husband made family a priority. Every time I saw her, I was green with envy. Then I became her friend and saw the truth.

This woman’s husband is controlling and mentally abusive to both her and the kids. Their perfect-on-the-outside life is actually incredibly dysfunctional. I am no longer jealous but rather quite ashamed.

Maybe the men who’ve disappeared would have been like this. Or maybe they’d be addicted to alcohol, drugs or porn. Who knows. Thank the Blessed Mother for sparing you.

I know it’s hard to be patient when all your friends are getting married. But keep trying. Keep repeating “Jesus I trust in you.”

If you are truly confident that marriage is God’s will for you, then also be confident that God has already chosen you the perfect spouse and the perfect time for you to meet.

 

[EasterJoy]

I hope so, but then it makes me think why am I only getting bullets? That’s nice to dodge bad things, but all my friends are getting blessings and have not had to dodge as many bad things as me. Yes I am whining but I just get so tired.

There is only one thing you can do, and that is look at whether you are being the best version of yourself. If the answer is “yes, to the best of my ability right now, I am” then there isn’t much to do but to pray for the grace of perseverance, be thankful that you aren’t one of the friends who has chosen badly or been lured into a bad relationship, and hang in there. Do keep coming back to self-examination, though. If you have a tendency to be paralyzed or give into self-loathing when you do that, then maybe working on positive ways to open yourself to the transforming hand of God is the thing to put on the to-do list. After all, although God is our Protector, the goal of preserving us from difficulties is not as important to God as transforming us into saints, which is the ultimate preservation from harm. First things first.

You may do some honest self-assessment and realize that there are things you could do to be a better version of yourself, things that would make you both more pleasing and useful to God and more pleasurable and useful for other in this vale of tears with us. If so, don’t beat yourself up. Just find something concrete to work on, pray for help, and work on it.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

There is only one thing you can do, and that is look at whether you are being the best version of yourself. If the answer is “yes, to the best of my ability right now, I am” then there isn’t much to do but to pray for the grace of perseverance, be thankful that you aren’t one of the friends who has chosen badly or been lured into a bad relationship, and hang in there. Do keep coming back to self-examination, though. If you have a tendency to be paralyzed or give into self-loathing when you do that, then maybe working on positive ways to open yourself to the transforming hand of God is the thing to put on the to-do list. After all, although God is our Protector, the goal of preserving us from difficulties is not as important to God as transforming us into saints, which is the ultimate preservation from harm. First things first.

You may do some honest self-assessment and realize that there are things you could do to be a better version of yourself, things that would make you both more pleasing and useful to God and more pleasurable and useful for other in this vale of tears with us. If so, don’t beat yourself up. Just find something concrete to work on, pray for help, and work on it.

Thank you. I am a bit embarrassed bc the person I thought left has returned. I guess false alarm. However this abandonment has happened with many friends and family too. I like to improve myself but do get self critical so maybe I will pray for God to help more. I notice ce I don’t feel I deserve love. Your advice is really smart I will try to apply it.

 

[Catholic1954]

Well, they say you have to kiss a lot frogs, before you find the handsome prince! Failed relationships are just part of the process. Good luck with the new guy; God knows what you need and will give it to you at just the right time.

 

[Lookingforjoy]

Your story sounds like mine when I was younger - now I’m married with three kids. I know that, in my case, I may not have appreciated my husband if I met him earlier in life. I had to go through a number of bad relationships to make me realize what I want, and what is non-negotiable. I never would have been able to enter a relationship with my husband with that much honesty, clarity, and courage (we were both very up-front about what we needed, and we were both prepared to walk away if it wasn’t right…fortunately, it was!). We fell in love quickly and were engaged within four months.

Sometimes you have to be shown what you don’t want, so you know what’s right when it comes around.

 

[E_7]

Thank you. I am a bit embarrassed bc the person I thought left has returned. I guess false alarm. However this abandonment has happened with many friends and family too. I like to improve myself but do get self critical so maybe I will pray for God to help more. I notice ce I don’t feel I deserve love. Your advice is really smart I will try to apply it.

Maybe trying online dating would give you different experiences?

latin-mass-dating.com
eharmony.com/r/catholic-dating/
avemariasingles.com/
catholicsingles.com/

 

[LuciaPacifici]

Your story sounds like mine when I was younger - now I’m married with three kids. I know that, in my case, I may not have appreciated my husband if I met him earlier in life. I had to go through a number of bad relationships to make me realize what I want, and what is non-negotiable. I never would have been able to enter a relationship with my husband with that much honesty, clarity, and courage (we were both very up-front about what we needed, and we were both prepared to walk away if it wasn’t right…fortunately, it was!). We fell in love quickly and were engaged within four months.

Sometimes you have to be shown what you don’t want, so you know what’s right when it comes around.

Thanks. This gives me hope. So glad you have a family. I feel like it will take a miracle for me…

 

[LuciaPacifici]

Well, they say you have to kiss a lot frogs, before you find the handsome prince! Failed relationships are just part of the process. Good luck with the new guy; God knows what you need and will give it to you at just the right time.

Thanks. I’ve been burned so much. The guy is Protestant so I don’t know. A Catholic guy message me yesterday but now is gone again. Guys get so bored of me.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

Maybe trying online dating would give you different experiences?

latin-mass-dating.com
eharmony.com/r/catholic-dating/
avemariasingles.com/
catholicsingles.com/

I have done Catholic match and other sites. I gave up on meeting anyone in person and almost giving up on online too

 

[E_7]

I see…Well, this secular website offers some tips for finding the “right one”. helpguide.org/articles/relationships/how-to-find-lasting-love.htm

 

[E_7]

Also, since I’m bad at formulating my thoughts, I found this post on rcspiritualdirection.com and I hope it gives you the hope and courage you need:

It’s so easy to be influenced by the attitudes of the culture. We fight against a utilitarian attitude when we fight assisted suicide and euthanasia. We know that being is more important than doing. Yet, in our own lives, we often feel unworthy when we see all our weaknesses.

Spiritual envy and despair are twin sisters. One says, “It’s not fair! I don’t have the graces that God gave someone else! Why can’t I be a saint too?” The other says, “I can’t get anything right in my spiritual life. I might as well stop trying.”

The truth is, God foresaw your weaknesses and shortcomings from the time He planned to create you. He worked them into the symphony of redemption. You are indispensible for God’s plan for the world and the Church!

Only you can love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul. Only you can give Him the gift of yourself. That is what He asks of you.

Looking at someone else’s gifts will make you restless and unhappy. If God thought you needed those gifts, He would have given them to you. Instead, focus on what He has given you. If it seems that all you have is weakness, give Him that. Surrender your fears, your disappointments, your rejection, your illnesses, your sadness, your psychological problems, your poverty, your short-sightedness, your mistakes. No one else can do that in your place.

Sometimes I hear people say how unfair it is that they were not given the grace to be a saint. My reply? Maybe you were, and you just didn’t use it. The grace God gives you doesn’t have to look like someone else’s. Maybe you failed to recognize the gift. Besides, saints are not born holy. They become holy by responding faithfully to the grace God gives them. Then He gives them more, and they respond faithfully again, the grace growing and growing inside them until the end of their lives.

Maybe the first thing you need to do is to accept that you aren’t someone else. You are your own glorious self, made in God’s image. Can you begin accepting what He has given you, however paltry it might seem? Can you bow before God’s will, saying, “You know best, O Lord?”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux taught us that saints are not made through great deeds. They are made through surrender. And surrender is something everyone can practice. As Teresa of Avila was fond of saying, you can “make a virtue of necessity.” Resisting God’s plan, thinking sanctity would have been so much easier, if only… Such things take you in the wrong direction.

Humility means accepting who you are. It is the foundation of the spiritual life. Holiness is not about doing great things for God, as though you were a super hero. It’s about surrender to Him, so that He can use you the way He desires, whether it be to do great or small things. You can become holy lying in a hospital bed, when the world thinks you are accomplishing nothing.

 

[EasterJoy]

Thank you. I am a bit embarrassed bc the person I thought left has returned. I guess false alarm. However this abandonment has happened with many friends and family too. I like to improve myself but do get self critical so maybe I will pray for God to help more. I notice ce I don’t feel I deserve love. Your advice is really smart I will try to apply it.

It isn’t “abandonment” to be left to your own devices. There is no one out there who is going to think about you all of the time. There is no one out there you ought to be thinking about all of the time. Only God has an infinite amount of attention to give, only God deserves to be thought of always, even in principle, and even God justly, rightly and with infinite love and care for our eternal welfare elects to give us “dry” periods when our sense of His Presence is withdrawn. Expect to be left on your own. It is for your own good to learn how to expect it and not only to cope with solitude but to make good use of it.

Remember that positive thinking isn’t fairytale “everything will turn out OK” thinking. Positive thinking is thinking that concentrates on the present, concentrates on identifying which courses of action of the many available are expected to give the best results, trying to do those things, looking at how that turned out–what you did, what results you got, whether the connection between selected action and hoped-for outcome was realistic, whether the priority you had selected is currently the priority you want to have now, and so on–and repeat, repeat, repeat. It is a waste of time to beat yourself up about plans that didn’t work. The idea is to try to choose thought patterns that lead to the action patterns you want, in the hopes that more often than not you eventually get the outcomes that you’ve made a priority. You don’t waste time on negatively thinking about what you don’t have, but how to make the most of what you do have.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

It isn’t “abandonment” to be left to your own devices. There is no one out there who is going to think about you all of the time. There is no one out there you ought to be thinking about all of the time. Only God has an infinite amount of attention to give, only God deserves to be thought of always, even in principle, and even God justly, rightly and with infinite love and care for our eternal welfare elects to give us “dry” periods when our sense of His Presence is withdrawn. Expect to be left on your own. It is for your own good to learn how to expect it and not only to cope with solitude but to make good use of it.

Remember that positive thinking isn’t fairytale “everything will turn out OK” thinking. Positive thinking is thinking that concentrates on the present, concentrates on identifying which courses of action of the many available are expected to give the best results, trying to do those things, looking at how that turned out–what you did, what results you got, whether the connection between selected action and hoped-for outcome was realistic, whether the priority you had selected is currently the priority you want to have now, and so on–and repeat, repeat, repeat. It is a waste of time to beat yourself up about plans that didn’t work. The idea is to try to choose thought patterns that lead to the action patterns you want, in the hopes that more often than not you eventually get the outcomes that you’ve made a priority. You don’t waste time on negatively thinking about what you don’t have, but how to make the most of what you do have.

Wow this really hit me. I guess my problem is that when I am on my own and also not particularly “feeling” God except knowing intellectually He is there…I think something is going wrong in my life. It always seems to me that the majority of people I see in my family and friends and former boyfriends are getting constantly talked to by friends family loved ones. Lots of attention and invitations.

I’m kind of a loner but also because I am not that popular. I also feel extra alone because I can’t be fully myself usually. My family and life have had many problems tgat aren’t polite conversation. And they usually scare people off. I tend to push people away because I figure once they know all that they will be freaked out and also misunderstand me.

So is it true that others find themselves alone? I have learned to enjoy much about solitude from a young age having had no choice. But I long for the meaning that comes with self giving relationship.

Well, maybe I need to stop thinking being alone makes me a freak. I’m sure looking at social media doesn’t help.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

Also, since I’m bad at formulating my thoughts, I found this post on rcspiritualdirection.com and I hope it gives you the hope and courage you need:

It’s so easy to be influenced by the attitudes of the culture. We fight against a utilitarian attitude when we fight assisted suicide and euthanasia. We know that being is more important than doing. Yet, in our own lives, we often feel unworthy when we see all our weaknesses.

Spiritual envy and despair are twin sisters. One says, “It’s not fair! I don’t have the graces that God gave someone else! Why can’t I be a saint too?” The other says, “I can’t get anything right in my spiritual life. I might as well stop trying.”

The truth is, God foresaw your weaknesses and shortcomings from the time He planned to create you. He worked them into the symphony of redemption. You are indispensible for God’s plan for the world and the Church!

Only you can love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul. Only you can give Him the gift of yourself. That is what He asks of you.

Looking at someone else’s gifts will make you restless and unhappy. If God thought you needed those gifts, He would have given them to you. Instead, focus on what He has given you. If it seems that all you have is weakness, give Him that. Surrender your fears, your disappointments, your rejection, your illnesses, your sadness, your psychological problems, your poverty, your short-sightedness, your mistakes. No one else can do that in your place.

Sometimes I hear people say how unfair it is that they were not given the grace to be a saint. My reply? Maybe you were, and you just didn’t use it. The grace God gives you doesn’t have to look like someone else’s. Maybe you failed to recognize the gift. Besides, saints are not born holy. They become holy by responding faithfully to the grace God gives them. Then He gives them more, and they respond faithfully again, the grace growing and growing inside them until the end of their lives.

Maybe the first thing you need to do is to accept that you aren’t someone else. You are your own glorious self, made in God’s image. Can you begin accepting what He has given you, however paltry it might seem? Can you bow before God’s will, saying, “You know best, O Lord?”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux taught us that saints are not made through great deeds. They are made through surrender. And surrender is something everyone can practice. As Teresa of Avila was fond of saying, you can “make a virtue of necessity.” Resisting God’s plan, thinking sanctity would have been so much easier, if only… Such things take you in the wrong direction.

Humility means accepting who you are. It is the foundation of the spiritual life. Holiness is not about doing great things for God, as though you were a super hero. It’s about surrender to Him, so that He can use you the way He desires, whether it be to do great or small things. You can become holy lying in a hospital bed, when the world thinks you are accomplishing nothing.

Lovely quote. I do compare myself a lot. I was taught to do this by my parents who are extremely insecure and eager to please society. Then, they wonder why I still do it. I just was always taught that other people are normal and acceptable and I must use them to measure if I am ok. I am really dinferential so I feel bad.

Facebook is the worst. I guess only the people with fabulous photos and impressive lives post anyway so it seems like I’m the only one with nothing to show for myself.

The only part I don’t like in that quote is saying that maybe someone was given the graces they need, but didn’t recognize and use them. Sorry but that’s exactly what we mean when we say “why wasn’t I given the grace to be a Saint.” Why didn’t I get the eyes to recognize my graces and the strength to use them? It’s all grace so it becomes semantics.

It’s like I want to will myself a Saint but I don’t know what the Lord wants from me other than to hang on in quiet desperation.

 

[E_7]

Lovely quote. I do compare myself a lot. I was taught to do this by my parents who are extremely insecure and eager to please society. Then, they wonder why I still do it. I just was always taught that other people are normal and acceptable and I must use them to measure if I am ok. I am really dinferential so I feel bad.

Facebook is the worst. I guess only the people with fabulous photos and impressive lives post anyway so it seems like I’m the only one with nothing to show for myself.

The only part I don’t like in that quote is saying that maybe someone was given the graces they need, but didn’t recognize and use them. Sorry but that’s exactly what we mean when we say “why wasn’t I given the grace to be a Saint.” Why didn’t I get the eyes to recognize my graces and the strength to use them? It’s all grace so it becomes semantics.

It’s like I want to will myself a Saint but I don’t know what the Lord wants from me other than to hang on in quiet desperation.

I don’t think he wants you to hang on despair, after all, to despair is to sin. And God doesn’t like sin, but sinners. I guess you just have to go to the basics: know the truth that God won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you can manage. That means, all temptation you are receiving to fall is a chance to grow in virtue (the reason God allows us to be tempted, to grow in virtue when we choose not to fall ). So when you feel you are about to feel despair or resentful towards God, just say “NO! (Can be a form of prayer) and continue, Jesus, I trust in you, take all of me and guide me. You know better.”. Don’t fall to despair, think of all those little smarty demons pushing you to fall, don’t please them. Don’t think “easier said than done” (a hopeless thought), just DO! Fight those spiritual battles, see souls, identity that you are surrounded by good and bad angels. I hope this gives you some strength! Don’t consent a single thought of negativity, see beyond what your eyes can see and fight your grow in virtue.

Btw, there are 3 virtues that can’t be grown by you alone: faith, hope, and charity. To grow in them, you must ask God to help you grow in them.

Edit: You can do it!

 

[esieffe]

It sounds to me like you’ve been given the grace to dodge bullets.

That was my thought. Any time I take control of my life, I screw it up. I want God’s will for me, unless I need some painful lesson, then God might let me have my way.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

I don’t think he wants you to hang on despair, after all, to despair is to sin. And God doesn’t like sin, but sinners. I guess you just have to go to the basics: know the truth that God won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you can manage. That means, all temptation you are receiving to fall is a chance to grow in virtue (the reason God allows us to be tempted, to grow in virtue when we choose not to fall ). So when you feel you are about to feel despair or resentful towards God, just say “NO! (Can be a form of prayer) and continue, Jesus, I trust in you, take all of me and guide me. You know better.”. Don’t fall to despair, think of all those little smarty demons pushing you to fall, don’t please them. Don’t think “easier said than done” (a hopeless thought), just DO! Fight those spiritual battles, see souls, identity that you are surrounded by good and bad angels. I hope this gives you some strength! Don’t consent a single thought of negativity, see beyond what your eyes can see and fight your grow in virtue.

Btw, there are 3 virtues that can’t be grown by you alone: faith, hope, and charity. To grow in them, you must ask God to help you grow in them.

Edit: You can do it!

This is good. Despair is a big problem of mine. I just feel like God has forgotten me quite a lot. I will pray.