Husband's Past

[Xantippe]

“Give her a break, please, and admit that there is nothing wrong with her because it is harder than she thought! I do not know why that is so hard for people to understand or accept.”

I know it’s hard, but it’s her duty.

I gave the example earlier in the thread of my own personal experience with having obsessive negative thoughts after a late miscarriage (baby died at 13 weeks, I found out that there was no hearbeat at 14 weeks, I had an induction to deliver a small dead baby at 15 weeks). I was very bitter about the lack of support I got from my nearest blood relatives and I would just wallow in the pain of it, saying to myself, “My baby died, and nobody cares but me” (which wasn’t true, actually). To this day, nearly two years later, I can’t type those words with dry eyes and I have to be very careful not to let myself think those words unnecessarily. The pain of losing my baby was real, the pain of having it glossed over by people who should have been holding my hand was real (true story–I told one older female relative about the miscarriage, and within 5 minutes, she was telling me about the boat show she’d just been to). I really had suffered terrible pain, but wallowing in it was not going to get me out. I still had my husband and older children who needed me, and I needed to get out and stay out, for their sake as well as my own. And for a lot of people, that might require serious professional intervention. Fortunately, for the most part, all I had to do was to go off my hormonal medication, not think those words and go to a support group.

That’s why I am personally so insistent that the OP act quickly, both to exercise self-control and perhaps to put herself in the hands of professionals if she can’t stop these obsessive thoughts. This is a very emotionally dangerous situation, and the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to get out.

 

[EasterJoy]

“Give her a break, please, and admit that there is nothing wrong with her because it is harder than she thought! I do not know why that is so hard for people to understand or accept.”

I know it’s hard, but it’s her duty.

I gave the example earlier in the thread of my own personal experience with having obsessive negative thoughts after a late miscarriage (baby died at 13 weeks, I found out that there was no hearbeat at 14 weeks, I had an induction to deliver a small dead baby at 15 weeks). I was very bitter about the lack of support I got from my nearest blood relatives and I would just wallow in the pain of it, saying to myself, “My baby died, and nobody cares but me” (which wasn’t true, actually). To this day, nearly two years later, I can’t type those words with dry eyes and I have to be very careful not to let myself think those words unnecessarily. The pain of losing my baby was real, the pain of having it glossed over by people who should have been holding my hand was real (true story–I told one older female relative about the miscarriage, and within 5 minutes, she was telling me about the boat show she’d just been to). I really had suffered terrible pain, but wallowing in it was not going to get me out. I still had my husband and older children who needed me, and I needed to get out and stay out, for their sake as well as my own. And for a lot of people, that might require serious professional intervention. Fortunately, for the most part, all I had to do was to go off my hormonal medication, not think those words and go to a support group.

That’s why I am personally so insistent that the OP act quickly, both to exercise self-control and perhaps to put herself in the hands of professionals if she can’t stop these obsessive thoughts. This is a very emotionally dangerous situation, and the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to get out.

Oh, you’re right, and I’ve been there. You can’t start getting past the offense of others against you too soon. As the old saying goes, indulging in bitterness is like taking poison yourself and expecting it to kill someone or something besides you. She can’t change this by being upset about it. You are also right that there is a point at which a person has to admit that they’re not getting out of their grief period alone and that they need some help, and that in any event a professional can often help a person move more quickly to a more peaceful and pleasant frame of heart and mind.

Having said that, I would not go so far as to say she’s showing signs of a dangerous frame of mind. Grief has normal stages. As long as she realizes that reaching the goal of getting past it is going to make everyone happier, she and her husband also will do well to realize that the process is not made to go faster by trying to rush it. The word of the day is generosity and patience for all involved, not just for her or just for him, and although everyone had better see that it is necessary to get beyond this, no one has to pretend that it is easy or that it is realistic that it will be quick. She may always feel some tinges from this, just as one always feels a past grief. The main thing is to get the grief into its* proportionate *place as soon as reasonably possible, and as much as possible without resentment about the process from either the husband or the wife. That is their best ticket to getting beyond this and on to a better place as soon as possible.

Marriages will have their ups and downs, and virtue does help minimize the downs. Those 50 or 60 years go by fast, though, and it’s a shame to waste any of them, even on this!

 

[on_the_hill]

the church says it’s a sin, but most women find unrepentant sinners, i.e. “jerks and bad boys” much more attractive than men who actually practice the catholic religion, whom they typically consider “boring”.

All the rest aside–women like confidence. Jerks and bad boys tend to present a facade of confidence, which perpetuates the myth.

 

[Xantippe]

Here’s another true story on the subject of forgiveness. After my miscarriage, I had an unexpectedly long medical recovery. At one point, I had so much bleeding that I was literally greenish from anemia and collapsed coming back from the bathroom early one morning, I was so weak. I started a program of iron pills and BC pills to control the anemia, but for initial phase, I had a hard time walking more than 5 minutes without shortness of breath (I’m normally a healthy 30-something woman). I had been scheduled to fly to see my family with my oldest child. The plan had been for me to wait at the airport with my child and suitcases for four hours, until an aunt flew in. Once I started having the anemia, I called my dad and told him about the anemia and told him, I couldn’t possibly be at the airport by myself with my daughter and the suitcases for four hours. He just didn’t understand and flat out refused to change the plan. (In justice to him, it was a very long drive for him, and I think he simply didn’t understand how ill I was, even though he had all of the information I gave higher in the paragraph.) Not knowing whether I would be strong enough to make the trip on those terms, I cancelled the trip, missed Thanksgiving with my family, and didn’t see my parents for another year.

It took a long time (about a year) before I got over that and before my relationship with my dad recovered any of its former warmth, because I saw the airport episode as an example of how little I meant to my family. What helped me finally get out was having a healthy new baby and my parents finally coming to visit the new baby and me seeing that they actually did care about us, but that they didn’t have the imagination to understand or empathize with a situation that they couldn’t see. But I had about a year without the comfort of a real relationship with my parents. And whose fault was that? Mine. And who did it hurt–me. As they say, resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

That’s why I am so very strongly on the side of the OP getting out of this as quickly as possible. This is a temptation and it can only harm you.

 

[EasterJoy]

Here’s another true story on the subject of forgiveness…

That’s why I am so very strongly on the side of the OP getting out of this as quickly as possible. This is a temptation and it can only harm you.

Yes. We sometimes feel we have only two options: either forgive by excusing the person who hurt us (or at least acting as if there was no damage done) or else hold on to the offense and give it global importance. The truth is that these are both impossible to maintain without going nuts.

Forgiveness does not require the person forgiving to excuse the offense or pretend that it wasn’t an offense. Forgiveness does not mean retroactively declaring that because the person was sorry afterward that they were not culpable or that no damage was done. That’s a lie, lies don’t work, and it is unfair to expect ourselves to heal by pretending a falsehood.

Conversely, maintaining that an offense was harmful does not mean we have to hold on to the harm felt in order to prove that it was in fact harmful. Sometimes we resist letting go because we don’t want to give the impression (even to ourselves) that no harm was done. It can feel like sweeping the problem under the rug. No, getting past the loss or the lack is just part of cleaning up the mess. Contrition does not put the vase back together again, but staring at the broken shards does not put the vase back together again, either. We need to do what we can do to put things into as much order and serenity as we can. In a case like this one, it can also make it feel as if the effort of person who maintained their virginity coming into the marriage had gone to a lot of trouble for something that really wasn’t that much of a big deal. Saying that it doesn’t matter that your spouse didn’t bring some gift of marriage to the marriage can feel like saying that the gift you brought only by great effort really wasn’t necessary. That’s not true, but it can feel like that is the alternative. Instead, one needs to see that it was the self-mastery and self-sacrifice of maintaining their virginity that is the very thing that will see them through the laudatory self-denial being asked of them in this case. The lack of one’s spouses ability to give actually makes the other spouse’s ability to give even more valuable. Self-denial for the sake of self-gift, after all, is what virginity is all about!

The answer is in the middle ground: to acknowledge that there was an offense, to allow ourselves the inevitable feeling of hurt we feel because of the offense, but to let go of ill feeling against the offender while reserving the right to adjust what we expect from them in the future in light of this when that is in order. In the OP’s case, she surely expected to know that her fiancé had maintained chastity and the boundaries that preserve chastity as a condition of accepting that his contrition and self-mastery were both real. Now she is in the position of Christmas coming around and that beautiful vase that always came out at Christmas not being there. If it was broken while moving boxes back in August, it was easier to ignore the loss. Now the loss is making itself felt. She is not wrong for feeling the loss. That is OK. She will do well for herself and her husband, though, to do as much as she can to get past it and to focus on the positive things that have been done to compensate for her loss.

My goal here has been to reassure the OP that the loss she is feeling is real and does not mean she is an unforgiving person or a bad Christian. Her loss was real, even though the genesis of it was a long time ago. As you maintain, though, Xantippe, she also needs to have the goal of letting go of her hurt and learning to focus on the many good things her husband has brought to their marriage. It would be like losing a child and neglecting the living because of your grief over the one who died. No, while you have to grieve, you also have to move on.

IOW, I don’t think we’re that far apart on this, but rather are just advocating for complementing pieces of how she will reach her goal. That is why I love these conversations; I always come away with a more nuanced picture of how these things work.

 

[YADA]

Would you people please quit acting as if feeling the temporal repercussions of a sin is the same thing as failing to forgive the sin? That is simply not true. I also don’t know where this “he’s condemned as a person forever” thing comes from. No, it is that it is only now that these particular chickens are coming home to roost.

The OP got married 4 months ago! Her disappointment on finally coming to her marital bed and finding that yes, it does matter when in her husband’s embrace to know that she has not been the only one is hardly a “fixation”. It is, rather, an* adjustment*, and it is allowed for it to take time for her to make that adjustment. It is an adjustment that she promised to make when she married her husband, but that does not imply it is an adjustment that she is duty-bound to make easily and instantly. She is not duty-bound to pretend that there is, in fact, no adjustment needed, either, but that seems to be what all the “don’t you believe in forgiveness?” crowd seems to expect from her. To those who say “lighten up” to the OP, I suggest that maybe you are the ones who need to lighten up!

Why we are all supposed to fall all over ourselves standing up for her husband and expect no compassion from ourselves for her is beyond me. If it was her husband who was suffering regret from his inability to give himself to her as a virgin (which he may be, putting her in the position of having to come to us for help in going through this instead of laying her disappointment on top of what he’s already feeling!), I hope we wouldn’t be jumping all over him about this, but rather encourage him gently to give himself time to get past what is only now, after his marriage to the woman who has committed herself to him in her entirety and for life, being experienced as the true loss that it is.

Her husband is also making adjustments, too, for things that the OP did and failed to do prior to their marriage. We wouldn’t jump all over him and say that he has no adjustment to make just because his bride has been to confession or because she’s making adjustments for him. No, they are both making adjustments that are necessary because the other one sinned. They both deserve encouragement and permission for some grief over their loss, not a condemnation of their “inability to forgive” or a rough demand that they “get over it”. That is not what this is about.

Come on … please - I acknowledged that there are consequences and she had reason to offer forgiveness…

Really - the OP says that she *imagines *what it was like for him with them and then compares herself with them … all of which is destructive … for her and her marriage

… We are a people of second chances … forgiveness … that is what she undertook when she married him … and forgiveness is not an off and on again proposition

Now I don’t know about her parish - but in our parish there is 6 months minimum from request for marriage and the ceremony … during which the couple does marriage prep, marriage encounter and NFP … I imagine that they had to meet - get to know each other for a time - perhaps even discuss becoming intimate [or not - which they rightly did] probably months before becoming engaged … one would think that this couple spent most of a year interacting together and choosing to be chaste - together … and probably longer from first date to “I do”

Now coupled with the marriage formation they were undergoing - it is not hard to imagine that she should have made some progress along the line of dealing with the reality of his sexual past. Granted, the reality of this was brought home upon the marriage - very true …

However, move ahead 4 months later - she is still dwelling on it - In addition to that - she creating in her mind a ‘reality’ of his sexual encounters … this dwelling and fantasizing is not healthy … After all she is comparing herself [and in her mind negatively] to women no longer in his life … that cannot be good for her or her marriage …

Thus to remind this person to think more of forgiveness - and upon her own failings seems more beneficial then telling her how wronged she is … and reinforce hurt -

 

[57thDimension]

Had it not been his past, it could have been something else she couldn’t cope with.

This is a rather blatant red herring.

It seems that even if a person receives the sacrament of Reconciliation, he can never be fully reconciled because he’s violated the marriage bed, betrayed his wife’s trust, led her to wash the toilet bowl with her toothbrush…never mind that God has forgiven him. What really matters is whether or not he’ll pass muster with the good people on the Internet.

Strawman fallacy - two examples - then followed up with a red herring.

End of hope for a happy, fulfilling marriage.

This is a strawman.

Exactly–if one embraces that way of thinking, there’s little point in attempts at chastity for non-virgins.

False dichotomy (and a strawman).

And it’s odd that after four months of marriage OP is still hung up on something that happened before they met. Four months + however long she knew about = a long time.

A good example of the mind projection fallacy/cognitive bias.

People seem intent on writing the marriage off as doomed.

A strawman (again).

and would much prefer having an experienced husband who has been approved by other women in that most intimate and value-affirming way

This is a reflection of the (human) female tendency towards social proof/non-independent mate choice. The 2012 Match.com survey of singles (secular as it usually leans) found that: “42% would not date a virgin (33% of men & 51% of women).”

+Sebastian

 

[EasterJoy]

Come on … please - I acknowledged that there are consequences and she had reason to offer forgiveness…

Really - the OP says that she *imagines *what it was like for him with them and then compares herself with them … all of which is destructive … for her and her marriage

… We are a people of second chances … forgiveness … that is what she undertook when she married him … and forgiveness is not an off and on again proposition

Now I don’t know about her parish - but in our parish there is 6 months minimum from request for marriage and the ceremony … during which the couple does marriage prep, marriage encounter and NFP … I imagine that they had to meet - get to know each other for a time - perhaps even discuss becoming intimate [or not - which they rightly did] probably months before becoming engaged … one would think that this couple spent most of a year interacting together and choosing to be chaste - together … and probably longer from first date to “I do”

Now coupled with the marriage formation they were undergoing - it is not hard to imagine that she should have made some progress along the line of dealing with the reality of his sexual past. Granted, the reality of this was brought home upon the marriage - very true …

However, move ahead 4 months later - she is still dwelling on it - In addition to that - she creating in her mind a ‘reality’ of his sexual encounters … this dwelling and fantasizing is not healthy … After all she is comparing herself [and in her mind negatively] to women no longer in his life … that cannot be good for her or her marriage …

Thus to remind this person to think more of forgiveness - and upon her own failings seems more beneficial then telling her how wronged she is … and reinforce hurt -

Imagining him with other women hurts, but it is inevitable. His previous experiences aren’t a “reality”. They are a reality. She shouldn’t be chided for a totally natural reaction. She also shouldn’t be chided for finding this issue came up again when she herself had her first sexual experiences. The first phase of acceptance was theoretical. This is the real thing. So yes, while she does need to get past this, it is totally understandable that she is going through it. Of course she is, and it does not mean that she is an unforgiving person because she is. It means that the needed adjustment is a real act of self-denial and self-gift on her part, not something automatic that any decent person can easily do by being told “to think more of forgiveness” and dwelling on her own failings. This is not about “I’m no better than him”. This is about “he’s mine, and for him I will make the sacrifice to put this behind us.” Let her have that; it’s the least she deserves.

 

[Xantippe]

Another thing–I think there is too much of a dichotomy made here between virginity and sexual experience, when in such a situation, both parties might be more or less equally unchaste. As I think The Bucket mentioned upthread, there’s always the issue of solo unchastity–one can be technically a virgin while still being an enthusiastic onanist. There are many possible permutations, so that a repentant and chaste non-virgin might even be marrying an unchaste technical virgin, in which case all this talk of broken statues is very unfair and unkind to the repentant party. (Sorry for the confusing terminology, but I hope you know what I mean.)

This probably has no application at all for the OP, but I think it is important for the general discussion.

 

[Estevao]

Another thing–I think there is too much of a dichotomy made here between virginity and sexual experience, when in such a situation, both parties might be more or less equally unchaste. As I think The Bucket mentioned upthread, there’s always the issue of solo unchastity–one can be technically a virgin while still being an enthusiastic onanist. There are many possible permutations, so that a repentant and chaste non-virgin might even be marrying an unchaste technical virgin, in which case all this talk of broken statues is very unfair and unkind to the repentant party. (Sorry for the confusing terminology, but I hope you know what I mean.)

This probably has no application at all for the OP, but I think it is important for the general discussion.

One thing to consider is all the young catholics and other Christians who never heard anything about pornography or masturbation from any of their coward priests and sunday school teachers who were too afraid to mention to the kids about this sexual sin, but were sure ready to tell them not to have any sex. A lot of young men I know who grew up in a Christian setting have mentioned that they got involved in a bad masturbation habit when they didn’t know any better because they figured it was a fine substitution for sex that all the other guys were having (with willing girls, of course, as it takes two to tango), but that their parents told them not to have.

 

[LongingSoul]

Would you people please quit acting as if feeling the temporal repercussions of a sin is the same thing as failing to forgive the sin? That is simply not true. I also don’t know where this “he’s condemned as a person forever” thing comes from. No, it is that it is only now that these particular chickens are coming home to roost.

The OP got married 4 months ago! Her disappointment on finally coming to her marital bed and finding that yes, it does matter when in her husband’s embrace to know that she has not been the only one is hardly a “fixation”. It is, rather, an* adjustment*, and it is allowed for it to take time for her to make that adjustment. It is an adjustment that she promised to make when she married her husband, but that does not imply it is an adjustment that she is duty-bound to make easily and instantly. She is not duty-bound to pretend that there is, in fact, no adjustment needed, either, but that seems to be what all the “don’t you believe in forgiveness?” crowd seems to expect from her. To those who say “lighten up” to the OP, I suggest that maybe you are the ones who need to lighten up!

Why we are all supposed to fall all over ourselves standing up for her husband and expect no compassion from ourselves for her is beyond me. If it was her husband who was suffering regret from his inability to give himself to her as a virgin (which he may be, putting her in the position of having to come to us for help in going through this instead of laying her disappointment on top of what he’s already feeling!), I hope we wouldn’t be jumping all over him about this, but rather encourage him gently to give himself time to get past what is only now, after his marriage to the woman who has committed herself to him in her entirety and for life, being experienced as the true loss that it is.

Her husband is also making adjustments, too, for things that the OP did and failed to do prior to their marriage. We wouldn’t jump all over him and say that he has no adjustment to make just because his bride has been to confession or because she’s making adjustments for him. No, they are both making adjustments that are necessary because the other one sinned. They both deserve encouragement and permission for some grief over their loss, not a condemnation of their “inability to forgive” or a rough demand that they “get over it”. That is not what this is about.

Well said! The original posters story is a valuable insight for a generation that depends on painting the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding sexual behaviour, as irrelevant and offensive. Young people deserve to know the truth of the body, so that they can confidently resist the attitudes about sex that erode the institution of marriage and so that they can defend the great ‘gift’ we have been given, with real theology. That is why Pope John Pauls intensive guidance on the bodies theology needs to be articulated at every possible opportunity in these sorts of real life situations.

 

[YADA]

I got married 4 months ago. I was a virgin and my husband slept with a few people before meeting me, two being ex-girlfriends. Before we married it wasn’t a big deal but since we engage in marital intimacy now** I find myself thinking about it often**. I wonder, has he used this position before, does he think of his exes when we have sex, did it feel the same to him with his exes, etc. Before we married my husband went into detail about his past and I think about it way too much. I often find myself depressed knowing I wasn’t his first and he shared such intimate moments with other women.

Imagining him with other women hurts, but it is inevitable. His previous experiences aren’t a “reality”. They are a reality. She shouldn’t be chided for a totally natural reaction. She also shouldn’t be chided for finding this issue came up again when she herself had her first sexual experiences. The first phase of acceptance was theoretical. This is the real thing. So yes, while she does need to get past this, it is totally understandable that she is going through it. Of course she is, and it does not mean that she is an unforgiving person because she is. It means that the needed adjustment is a real act of self-denial and self-gift on her part, not something automatic that any decent person can easily do by being told “to think more of forgiveness” and dwelling on her own failings. This is not about “I’m no better than him”. This is about “he’s mine, and for him I will make the sacrifice to put this behind us.” Let her have that; it’s the least she deserves.

See bolded red above - This is creating depression … and yes - he really had sex … but what is occurring in her mind is not reality … its what she is building the reality to be - her mind is running away creating ‘speciifics’ … and yes - it is normal to have a reaction - but we are talking months into the marriage and months after they developed a chaste relationship …

Please if you are single, whether or not you are a virgin, please save yourself for your future spouse **from this moment onwards **(whether that be God or marriage). I think the worst feeling in the world is knowing your spouse has been with other people. Please pray for me!

Her husband did exactly what she advises above … he was not a virgin but from the moment he dedicated himself to her [in reality even before] he was chaste for the sake of their marriage - from that moment onwards …

In many ways - she should be thanking God for this person who made such a turn around in his life out of for love of her.

She should be imagining how lucky she is that she was able to teach him the meaning of true love - true self giving love - not the superficial “if it feels good do it” that society calls “love” … one faucet of love and marriage is to assist in the Christian life of your spouse - thus - turning from sexually active life to a chaste one - followed by Holy Matrimony is a Good Thing …

 

[Estevao]

This is a reflection of the (human) female tendency towards social proof/non-independent mate choice. The 2012 Match.com survey of singles (secular as it usually leans) found that: “42% would not date a virgin (33% of men & 51% of women).”

+Sebastian

Wow, so a man by remaining a virgin is pretty much cutting his dating pool in half. And from all the stories I read on this forum, most catholic women here seem to have married a man who wasn’t a virgin (even if the woman remained a virgin).

So from what I can tell, by doing the supposedly family-orientated thing and practicing chastity, men are actually doing a disservice to their hopes of ever finding a wife to have a family with

I thought that sin was supposed to be bad for you and have negative consequences?

 

[EasterJoy]

Wow, so a man by remaining a virgin is pretty much cutting his dating pool in half. And from all the stories I read on this forum, most catholic women here seem to have married a man who wasn’t a virgin (even if the woman remained a virgin).

So from what I can tell, by doing the supposedly family-orientated thing and practicing chastity, men are actually doing a disservice to their hopes of ever finding a wife to have a family with

I thought that sin was supposed to be bad for you and have negative consequences?

Let’s have a show of hands: Does anyone here consider an opportunity to live, let alone die, in mortal sin to be a negative consequence? Nobody here has been advocating in favor of fornication. The question is how to best minimize and divide the work of getting beyond mortal sin; no one here is saying mortal sin is a good idea.

The goal is not to have the largest dating pool, after all. If you are willing to go to bed with anybody without ever seeing the person again, after all, you could have a huge and eager * paying *dating pool! Who wants that? Nobody. Who wants an arrangement where your “partner” could just decide to walk out tomorrow? Nobody.

The goal is to honor God and have a holy and lasting marriage. “When a man is married as a virgin, his divorce rate is 63 percent lower than a non-virgin. For women, it’s 76 percent lower. Edward O. Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 503.” chastity.com/seminars/statistics/statistics

 

[EasterJoy]

See bolded red above - This is creating depression … and yes - he really had sex … but what is occurring in her mind is not reality … its what she is building the reality to be - her mind is running away creating ‘speciifics’ … and yes - it is normal to have a reaction - but we are talking months into the marriage and months after they developed a chaste relationship …

Her husband did exactly what she advises above … he was not a virgin but from the moment he dedicated himself to her [in reality even before] he was chaste for the sake of their marriage - from that moment onwards …

In many ways - she should be thanking God for this person who made such a turn around in his life out of for love of her.

She should be imagining how lucky she is that she was able to teach him the meaning of true love - true self giving love - not the superficial “if it feels good do it” that society calls “love” … one faucet of love and marriage is to assist in the Christian life of your spouse - thus - turning from sexually active life to a chaste one - followed by Holy Matrimony is a Good Thing …

Are you married? Four months is not a long time. A couple that has made a good start on the adjustments demanded by marriage within a year are doing just fine. The water looks fine, but actually jumping into it can be a bit of a shock, let me tell you. If it was not that way for you, you are among the lucky ones. That is not the way to bet. When two virgins marry they can still be making adjustments for longer than four months.

She saved herself for marriage for her entire life, she saved herself for her husband before she ever met him, and she’s supposed to feel “lucky” because he finally made that same sacrifice for her sake? That doesn’t make sense. Would she feel lucky that her parents taught her table manners and his didn’t, so she could be “able” to teach that to him? Lucky isn’t quite the word I’d use.

But you make a good point: My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth and someone bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20 No one who does something worthwhile out of the love of God will go without his or her reward, far beyond their effort (because they gain merit with the help of grace), and the OP has exactly that going on for her. That is something to praise God for, yes…but it is not luck. It is a blessing of the sort that God always has waiting for the generous of heart.

 

[LongingSoul]

“Give her a break, please, and admit that there is nothing wrong with her because it is harder than she thought! I do not know why that is so hard for people to understand or accept.”

I know it’s hard, but it’s her duty.

I gave the example earlier in the thread of my own personal experience with having obsessive negative thoughts after a late miscarriage (baby died at 13 weeks, I found out that there was no hearbeat at 14 weeks, I had an induction to deliver a small dead baby at 15 weeks). I was very bitter about the lack of support I got from my nearest blood relatives and I would just wallow in the pain of it, saying to myself, “My baby died, and nobody cares but me” (which wasn’t true, actually). To this day, nearly two years later, I can’t type those words with dry eyes and I have to be very careful not to let myself think those words unnecessarily. The pain of losing my baby was real, the pain of having it glossed over by people who should have been holding my hand was real (true story–I told one older female relative about the miscarriage, and within 5 minutes, she was telling me about the boat show she’d just been to). I really had suffered terrible pain, but wallowing in it was not going to get me out. I still had my husband and older children who needed me, and I needed to get out and stay out, for their sake as well as my own. And for a lot of people, that might require serious professional intervention. Fortunately, for the most part, all I had to do was to go off my hormonal medication, not think those words and go to a support group.

That’s why I am personally so insistent that the OP act quickly, both to exercise self-control and perhaps to put herself in the hands of professionals if she can’t stop these obsessive thoughts. This is a very emotionally dangerous situation, and the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to get out.

The problem I saw when the responses to the thread began, were a complete lack of recognition that the pain the OP was feeling, did have both a relational and theological validity. Marriage is affected when the gift intended for marriage, has already been unwrapped and pre used before. It’s not just the surface feelings… its the deeper implication for marriage. I took pains to stress that this doesn’t spell doom. It requires healing as the consequences of all sin require and that that was a wonderful and positive thing for the marriage over time.

If you had posted your hurt regarding your miscarriage and been told that there is so much worse that could happen and it was all in your imagination and you should hurry up and get over it… you would have felt really hurt. The truth is that loss of a child, no matter how tiny, is a mothers loss. Only the crew trying to tell us that fetuses aren’t really babies would want you to get over it and stop making everyone uncomfortable and there are those invested in minimising the effects of pre marital sex for their own agendas also.

That’s all I was trying to inject into the thread. Catholics believe that the body made in Gods image, is an expression of the Creators love for His creations and through striving to live purely in every way, we partake in the great creative mystery. Nurturing that sensitivity through prayer, worship, fast and abstinence inevitably causes us deeper suffering when its violated.

I actually understand completely what she feels. But after 25 years of marriage, you get the idea of the way all the falls and redemptions make up life and marriage in general. What is bad form and unhealthy is to try and justify or deny the effects of sin on relationships. Never ends well in the long term.

 

[Xantippe]

“If you had posted your hurt regarding your miscarriage and been told that there is so much worse that could happen and it was all in your imagination and you should hurry up and get over it… you would have felt really hurt.”

That’s right. I agree with what Easter Joy said about stages of grief. But I definitely found that there was a difference between 1) productive natural grief (which progresses in an orderly fashion, at its own speed, with each day being just a little bit better than the day before) and 2) unproductive depressive obsession (which spirals down and down). I had the natural grief initially after my miscarriage, and then I had the depressive obsessive spiraling negativity once my doctor put me on hormonal medication, so I had a very good opportunity to study the difference between the two. That’s the reason for my concern for the OP. If she is slowly moving forward at her own speed, that is very good and I would not wish to hurry her. But my concern is that she is stuck in obsessive spiraling depression, which is quite distinct from grief. There isn’t much of a feeling of forward movement in her original post.

 

[EasterJoy]

“If you had posted your hurt regarding your miscarriage and been told that there is so much worse that could happen and it was all in your imagination and you should hurry up and get over it… you would have felt really hurt.”

That’s right. I agree with what Easter Joy said about stages of grief. But I definitely found that there was a difference between 1) productive natural grief (which progresses in an orderly fashion, at its own speed, with each day being just a little bit better than the day before) and 2) unproductive depressive obsession (which spirals down and down). I had the natural grief initially after my miscarriage, and then I had the depressive obsessive spiraling negativity once my doctor put me on hormonal medication, so I had a very good opportunity to study the difference between the two. That’s the reason for my concern for the OP. If she is slowly moving forward at her own speed, that is very good and I would not wish to hurry her. But my concern is that she is stuck in obsessive spiraling depression, which is quite distinct from grief. There isn’t much of a feeling of forward movement in her original post.

You make some good points, although I would quibble about whether or not the “natural” progression of grief is orderly and without its zigzags between productive and unproductive methods of coping with the hurt.

Consider her original post:

• I was a virgin and my husband slept with a few people before meeting me, two being ex-girlfriends. Before we married it wasn’t a big deal but since we engage in marital intimacy now I find myself thinking about it often. I wonder, has he used this position before, does he think of his exes when we have sex, did it feel the same to him with his exes, etc. Before we married my husband went into detail about his past and I think about it way too much. I often find myself depressed knowing I wasn’t his first and he shared such intimate moments with other women.*

Before they were married, it didn’t seem like a big deal to her, but when their relationship was deepened by adding the OP’s first and only sexual experiences, its importance (and probably the inadvisability of going into his past in that much detail) began to be felt in a big way. This was in a virgin who before her marriage was altogether ready to see this issue as not “a big deal”.

She hasn’t been back after that first post, BTW. It could be that she only wanted to vent to people who were considering sex before marriage that doing so is hurtful, in a way that even she, a virgin, did not appreciate before she married herself. Maybe that day she was just feeling some anger about having to go through what she is having to go through…anger is a typical part of grief, too, after all.

That was her only post, though. I would not read too much into it. It may even have been just one really bad day or really bad week. All of us who have gone through something like this have had those, no matter how healthy we are.

 

[on_the_hill]

This is a rather blatant red herring.

Strawman fallacy - two examples - then followed up with a red herring.

This is a strawman.

False dichotomy (and a strawman).

A good example of the mind projection fallacy/cognitive bias.

A strawman (again).

+Sebastian

 

[Lasting_faith]

A very interesting debate, once again. And once again you did, somewhere somehow forget the OP. You remember her, the new wife who did ask for advice? Did all this help her? Why is it so hard to give a advice without a debate? I am not saying all of your posts are “useless” to her, but what did she ask? Does anyone remember that? I am not saying my advice was/is the right, I might be wrong all the way, usually I am, but maybe some could give her what she need, a answer, a bit of comfort and the feeling she ain’t alone. Not easy on a web-site but it can be done. Look, I know the rules, I try not to offend anyone and I do my very best with my knowledge to maybe help. You all have much more to give. Why can’t it be that when someone ask for help/advice simply answer? (And then start a new thread about the issue and debate it there.) The OP does not need counseling nor spiritual help. She need a answer. My answer is most likely wrong, still, but I did write that her husband did marry her, and if that is not a proof of love what is? It is maybe not correct, but you know much more and can give a better answer. So please do so. Help her first, then start a debate. And yes, I am sorry if I offended someone.