You stated that our consensual lack of physical monogamy in our relationship meant we were not committed to each other. This is not only not true, it offended me. What I meant was you have no experience with relationships that include consensual non-monogamy (which, in fairness, is an assumption on my part, but one I believe is accurate) therefore you cannot possibly know and understand that it is perfectly compatible with a real commitment.
It is true that you are not
fully committed to each other. I’m sorry but that is my opinion and I’m not changing it at this point. I’m also sorry it offended you but if I had a dime for every time I’ve been offended on this forum I’d be a millionaire. You are correct in that I have no experience with relationships that include consensual non-monogamy. I also have no experience in delivering a baby, jumping off the Empire State Building, designing a bridge, being the Queen of England, getting a Ph.D in botany, or scuba diving. You have no experience in consensual non-monogamy except for your own experience. Others have different experiences just by virtue of being different people. Neither you nor I are experts on gay marriage and/or monogamy. But I have been tempted to engage in sexual relations with a few people who were married and I can understand how overwhelming that temptation is, how much I wanted to engage in it, and how I couldn’t do that to another woman, even if she gave her consent. I just couldn’t. I have also been tempted to engage in sexual relations with another woman which really threw me. In fact, that has happened a number of times.
A lack of experience is not the same as a lack of knowledge. I don’t have to experience consensual non-monogamy in order to know that it is wrong because I rely on the teachings of the Church. What would you expect? I’m Catholic. I can question and discuss Church teaching but when all is said and done I really need to rely on Church teaching. The Magisterium is full of people much smarter than me and I trust them.
I am sorry for your loss. I hope you’ll be able to move on and find happiness.
Thank you. I have tried to move on for many years and cannot, so I am trying to find happiness where I can and accept my loss as something I just can’t change.
Again, you stated as though it were undebatable fact that non-monogamous relationships are, seemingly by definition, incapable of commitment. My remark was meant to show that your assertion was simply untrue, and I used my (amazing) marriage as an example. You, of course, don’t know me and don’t know my marriage, but unless you are prepared to call me a liar, you’ll have to trust when I say it is one of the best I’ve ever witnessed. Despite our non-conventional sex lives.
If you read some of my other posts you might see that my thinking has evolved a bit during the course of this thread. I’ve gone from full acceptance of Church teaching involving homosexual behavior to a point where I need to think a lot more. I don’t think it’s undebatable. I’m debating it in my mind pretty much all the time now.
Not directly, but your implication (at least as interpreted by me) was that any ‘proscribed’ sexual activity violated a covenant.
The marriage covenant can only be formed between a man and a woman, and adultery knocks a hole in that covenant. Other things do, too. My marriage covenant was blasted to bits and then run over by a steam roller.
No anger, though I find the church to be extremely arrogant. WE have THE answers and anything that we say is wrong, is wrong. I say they spend WAY to much time worrying about what the rest of us are doing with our genitals whilst simultaneously sweeping their own ‘genital behavior problem’ under the rug. I find it amazing hypocritical.
IMO nobody is more self-righteous and hypocritical than Catholics as a group (of course there are exceptions). And it doesn’t matter that I’m Catholic, too. I’ve been called a heretic for following Church teaching. And some of the posts here are incredible! I read that Pope John Paul II was lying to the scientists when he explained that the Church allows the faithful to accept a theistic theory of evolution that meets Church criteria because he was a nice man and he didn’t want the scientists to feel bad about themselves. I’ve read about miracles in Medujorge, which has not been approved as a site with a valid apparition of Mary by the Church. I’ve read that Catholics can’t date and can’t dance and those of us who eat meat on Friday are going straight to hell, that only members of the Church can go to heaven (I guess good people who aren’t Catholic are out of luck even though Jesus died for everyone), I’ve seen a member attempt to start a prayer thread for another Catholic member by name…I could go on and on.
But it’s not the Church that is doing this. It’s members of the Church who don’t know what they are talking about or have been poorly taught or who believe everything they read. As the Church is so large an awful lot has been written about it and it can be confusing. I obviously don’t know everything about Catholicism and although I try to learn I’ve made some major mistakes.
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