Girlfriend broke up with me, don't know what to do

[lumendelumine]

I think dulcissima is right. Maybe the girl has a better understanding of the situation than you do.

My feeling was that you are mostly afraid that you won’t find another Catholic girl, that you will be lonely. Though you like the girl, you also have major doubts about her being the “real thing” for you.

All that gives me the impression that
a) you don’t really want to be with her (as a unique, special person), but with any “good, nice Catholic girl” (so you’re basically making her an object, a “machine” for wish fulfillment) and
b) that you two don’t really make a good match.
It’s true, marital love is sacrificial, but the wedding has to be preceded by the willingness to be attached to this person body and soul, till death doth you part. If you cannot “yes” to her, there’s a major red flag there!

So I would say:

1. Trust your gut insticts.
2. Be not afraid! I’ve also experienced loss of love in my life several times, and I’ve often quarrelled with God about it. But finally I always understood that He was only leading me to “better pastures” and that I could always trust Him. (I’ve been single for quite some time now, BTW.) “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
3. As many here have said: Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament. Lay down all your doubts, your fears (including your fear of loneliness and of not finding a partner), all what you feel and think, at His feet. Tell Him. Talk to Him. You may get more and better answers than you have bargained for.
4. Find yourself Catholic friends (through a prayer group, a youth group, a “movimento”, a retreat, a parish etc.). Get involved in ministries. You’ll never know who you will meet there or through people you meet there. But don’t “use” these activities solely for finding a girl. That only takes away their real focus, which should be God. But the more you focus on God, the more open you will be to people as well. And the joy of being near God is also very attractive…

Finally: God bless you and lead you! May you receive great graces!

 

[chevalier]

Erm. From a life-based point of view, not a (strictly) theological one, they say it comes when you don’t look for it. It just works like that. It’s also true that things happen when you least expect them.

I’ve read that if you don’t focus on finding a partner but learn to live fully on your own, you have a good relationship with yourself. I don’t think it’s possible to have a good relationship with someone else without having one with yourself. Just let’s not derive any egotic content from this. Also, won’t such a situation provide room for a better relationship with God?

I think such suffering as yours teaches lessons and allows God to shape us into how He sees us. The suffering itself teaches a lesson, as well as makes you more attentive to what God will add to it, I think. Additionally, the energy left unfocused by a relationship will seek some focus for itself, some use, some channelling. In my case, it has for example helped me get better grades at university through more dedicated studying. At this very time that I’m studying philosophy of law (what you’d likely call jurisprudence, though I don’t think it’s the same), for my last exam at university, the last relationship and subsequent break-up has opened my eyes to many things. Between the absolute and the relative, the need to cooperate and coexist, the fact that differences give us no justification for hurting people, that we do need to pay utmost attention to not hurting people, to still loving them even if they differ from us greatly in the essentials - especially if they are our loved people.

I think it would be unpedagogical for our prayers to be granted right away. No matter what we think of it right now, in the long run, it could teach us a cash machine approach. I think it’s better for us to have and learn some life instead of having all our difficulties immediately fixed by God on request. This leads to a subsequent question whether it would be pedagogical to have our prayers always listened out with delay, especially comparable and consistent delay. Well… It’s not like I know, but I think not really. So, let’s just say God’s will be done. It will be for the better in the long run.

In your case, I see a lesson for myself, comparable to the lesson I’ve recently received - that God may well be acting through a young girl who doesn’t seem to be overly mature or getting the Catholic/moral ideas right. Let’s not underestimate her lest it turn out she’s way ahead of ourselves anyway. Remove the log from our eye before dealing with the neighbour’s splint. Sometimes people love you so much that they will leave you so you can be happier (I’m talking about agape rather than eros at the moment, but…). Of course, it’s always possible they’re standing up for themselves and we’ve mistreated them badly. I have the faith that in my own case, if I hurt the girl into leaving me and God still sees it proper for us to be together at some point again, it will happen. For example. If not, then I trust He has better ideas for us and will not be punishing us until we die for our transgressions or mistakes. I don’t even think He would leave us an everlasting memory and a caveat about how we hurt a person in a relationship so we can avoid it later on. I think He will fix even that at some point. For example, I don’t think God wants my future wife ever to feel like a second best or like a replacement or a second chance to me or a not so great “will still do” kind of woman I got because I wasn’t able to keep the good one. I just don’t think that and have the faith it won’t be like that. Don’t you have the same thoughts? I thought you might.

Finally, the most frequent advice you get from people in such cases is, “give her time.” So many people can’t normally be wrong, but at the same time, perhaps it’s right to offer some words of consolation or apology or whatever else before too much time passes away. I don’t know. I did that, for example, though I’m giving her time now.

At any rate, good luck and don’t despair. If you think she might have been the right one, maybe think how much stronger it can feel when you’ve actually found that one? That would be great, I’d say. Not like I know the future, so I guess it would be better just to move on and go on with one’s life. Don’t you think?

 

[Jay2]

Get over it and realize that there are 1.5 women to men on the planet. There WILL be another.