N
NewFLgirl
Guest
I’ll apologize first off for this being so long.
Hi everyone! I’m new here, and new to the Catholic faith as well. I started attending Mass at the beginning of this year, and just started RCIA.
Some background on me: I just graduated law school and passed the bar. I was married for 5 years and have been divorced for 2. I started dating a Catholic guy about a year ago (I was baptized Lutheran).
We were together for 10 months and broke up approx. 6 weeks ago. He is a few years younger than me. He knew about my previous marriage from the beginning, and was very loving and supportive of my situation. I can honestly say this guy was my first true love, and I genuinely believe he felt the same way about me. We fell for each other very quickly and unexpectedly. He brought up his beliefs right away, and I completely supported him and respected his morals. That’s not to say we didn’t mess up (we did), but we always picked back up and strove to help each other and do better in the future.
Throughout our time together, he brought up marriage and children and the future very often. I made sure he took the lead with all of those discussions and never brought it up on my own. He had his parents fly down to meet me a few months into the relationship because of how serious we were. I spent 3 family vacations with him, he came to my parents home quite often, and things were going well. We had no major fights, and we worked out little disagreements/communication issues.
He still had a year of law school left after I graduated in the spring, and got an internship about 7 hours away for the summer. I was studying for the Bar, but we saw each other every other weekend throughout the summer.
I noticed towards the end of July he was acting a little off, but I had the Bar and didn’t want to focus on it too much. When he was done with his internship he came back and was flying home a few days prior to me joining him.
The night before he left, I got this feeling that his last night before coming back he had gone to dinner with someone and hadn’t told me. I asked him, and he eventually admitted that he had met up with a girl from his work and her family for dinner and purposely didn’t tell me. I told him that was unacceptable (the lying, not that he couldn’t have friends that were girls), and couldn’t happen again. We both asked each other if we wanted to remain in the relationship and we both said yes. He cried.
The next day he left. I joined him 3 days later, very unsure of where the relationship was going with the trust issue and everything. As soon as I arrived and he picked me up, it was like how it was in the beginning. I thought that maybe just the stress of being apart for the summer and everything. He went on and on about how much he missed me, needed me in his life, wanted to spend Christmas with me, etc. We spent a week camping with his family, and everything was great.
Things again got a little weird when we got back. He moved into his new apartment. While he was gone for the summer, I had stored his stuff for him at my place. I also scouted out his new place while studying for the Bar, since he was so far away. Once school started, I could tell he was acting off again.
We had one fight about being chaste essentially, and I got my feelings very hurt. I was getting very mixed signals from him, one day it was ok and one day it wasn’t. He wasn’t nice, called me a name, and had me leave his place at 2:30 in the morning. The next day we went to Mass, and then afterwards talked. I explained my feelings, he saw my point of view, and apologized. I told him that we couldn’t do anything anymore going forward, and he said that was fine. I asked him if we were still on the same page about marriage and where our relationship was headed and he said yes, that’s why he was dating me.
Two weeks later I could tell he was down and out of sorts so we talked and he opened up and said he didn’t feel like he had a home anymore (living away from his family and having spent the past 2 summers in different places for internships), he didn’t have any friends at school because he really didn’t like anyone, etc. He cried. Then I cried because I thought it was me, and he assured me it wasn’t. We had a great weekend following that, and I thought things were back on track.
The following week everything was great. He had a test which I gave him material for, we had a dinner/game night one of the nights, and made plans for the weekend to go to a bbq and then a concert afterwards.
Friday night he broke up with me. His reasons: he didn’t feel like we were on the same page about marriage, he felt less certain than I did, and he needed time to figure things out. He cried more than I did, and we hugged when he left.
We texted once after (he asked if I passed the Bar; by the grace of God and praying the Rosary before each test day, I did) and then he came back two weeks after the breakup to get the rest of his stuff. I wrote him a long text about how I was feeling and wanted us to work on our relationship, pray for each other, be there through each season of life, etc. He basically just said he respected my thoughts, but he broke up with me because he was getting into a bad place, was getting self destructive, was stressed, and just knew he had to make to changes. We hugged afterwards, and he left.
(cont. to next post)
Hi everyone! I’m new here, and new to the Catholic faith as well. I started attending Mass at the beginning of this year, and just started RCIA.
Some background on me: I just graduated law school and passed the bar. I was married for 5 years and have been divorced for 2. I started dating a Catholic guy about a year ago (I was baptized Lutheran).
We were together for 10 months and broke up approx. 6 weeks ago. He is a few years younger than me. He knew about my previous marriage from the beginning, and was very loving and supportive of my situation. I can honestly say this guy was my first true love, and I genuinely believe he felt the same way about me. We fell for each other very quickly and unexpectedly. He brought up his beliefs right away, and I completely supported him and respected his morals. That’s not to say we didn’t mess up (we did), but we always picked back up and strove to help each other and do better in the future.
Throughout our time together, he brought up marriage and children and the future very often. I made sure he took the lead with all of those discussions and never brought it up on my own. He had his parents fly down to meet me a few months into the relationship because of how serious we were. I spent 3 family vacations with him, he came to my parents home quite often, and things were going well. We had no major fights, and we worked out little disagreements/communication issues.
He still had a year of law school left after I graduated in the spring, and got an internship about 7 hours away for the summer. I was studying for the Bar, but we saw each other every other weekend throughout the summer.
I noticed towards the end of July he was acting a little off, but I had the Bar and didn’t want to focus on it too much. When he was done with his internship he came back and was flying home a few days prior to me joining him.
The night before he left, I got this feeling that his last night before coming back he had gone to dinner with someone and hadn’t told me. I asked him, and he eventually admitted that he had met up with a girl from his work and her family for dinner and purposely didn’t tell me. I told him that was unacceptable (the lying, not that he couldn’t have friends that were girls), and couldn’t happen again. We both asked each other if we wanted to remain in the relationship and we both said yes. He cried.
The next day he left. I joined him 3 days later, very unsure of where the relationship was going with the trust issue and everything. As soon as I arrived and he picked me up, it was like how it was in the beginning. I thought that maybe just the stress of being apart for the summer and everything. He went on and on about how much he missed me, needed me in his life, wanted to spend Christmas with me, etc. We spent a week camping with his family, and everything was great.
Things again got a little weird when we got back. He moved into his new apartment. While he was gone for the summer, I had stored his stuff for him at my place. I also scouted out his new place while studying for the Bar, since he was so far away. Once school started, I could tell he was acting off again.
We had one fight about being chaste essentially, and I got my feelings very hurt. I was getting very mixed signals from him, one day it was ok and one day it wasn’t. He wasn’t nice, called me a name, and had me leave his place at 2:30 in the morning. The next day we went to Mass, and then afterwards talked. I explained my feelings, he saw my point of view, and apologized. I told him that we couldn’t do anything anymore going forward, and he said that was fine. I asked him if we were still on the same page about marriage and where our relationship was headed and he said yes, that’s why he was dating me.
Two weeks later I could tell he was down and out of sorts so we talked and he opened up and said he didn’t feel like he had a home anymore (living away from his family and having spent the past 2 summers in different places for internships), he didn’t have any friends at school because he really didn’t like anyone, etc. He cried. Then I cried because I thought it was me, and he assured me it wasn’t. We had a great weekend following that, and I thought things were back on track.
The following week everything was great. He had a test which I gave him material for, we had a dinner/game night one of the nights, and made plans for the weekend to go to a bbq and then a concert afterwards.
Friday night he broke up with me. His reasons: he didn’t feel like we were on the same page about marriage, he felt less certain than I did, and he needed time to figure things out. He cried more than I did, and we hugged when he left.
We texted once after (he asked if I passed the Bar; by the grace of God and praying the Rosary before each test day, I did) and then he came back two weeks after the breakup to get the rest of his stuff. I wrote him a long text about how I was feeling and wanted us to work on our relationship, pray for each other, be there through each season of life, etc. He basically just said he respected my thoughts, but he broke up with me because he was getting into a bad place, was getting self destructive, was stressed, and just knew he had to make to changes. We hugged afterwards, and he left.
(cont. to next post)
I would encourage you to spend this year in RCIA really focused on the Lord and what He wants to do in your life. Put thoughts of future relationships on hold. You can get the annulment business taken care of, learn about the Catholic faith, and ultimately be welcomed into this wonderful Church. Then you will be in a better position to form the type of relationship that God has planned for you.
