C
Catholicismtrue
Guest
Hello everyone, for about the past month or so I have been greatly struggling. I haven’t been attending mass regularly since last summer, and I have not been to confession since before last Easter. I have no excuse. Please, read and consider everything I say if you have it in your heart to do so, because I do not know where else to turn to. It is quite a complex situation.
My girlfriend and I are both sophomores in college. We have been dating since our junior year of high school. A little background on us, would be that neither of us had any sort of relationship before our current one. We were good friends for several months before dating. We decided during our senior year that we were considering ourselves to be together in the long term, always discussing the possibilities of marriage and such, therefore we decided to go to the same University together.
My background is pretty normal. I was an emotionless dude with no problems whatsoever who ended up really discovering and growing into his Catholic faith about the same time that me and my girlfriend became friends. My girlfriend however, comes from a very troubled background. Her parents, while “strong” Catholics who always attend mass regularly and brought her up in the faith and always had her go above and beyond in youth ministry and such throughout her childhood, have a completely broken marriage "for reasons still somewhat unclear), are not married in the Catholic Church (her father had a previous marriage which ended with his wife cheating on him and he and my girlfriend’s mother were married in the chapel of the hospital where they worked), and more importantly, her father has been extremely emotionally abusive and neglectful towards her for her entire life, leading her to develop severe problems such as anxiety, depression, and especially IBS which prevented her for the longest time from being able to travel and do many things (although anti depression medicine for anxiety and other things have since helped heal a fair amount of this anxiety and enabled her to do much more with her life), with it being the leading reason why she was obligated to go to the state university close to her house (with me choosing to do the same with not wanting to abandon her in he time of need).
I knew about these problems before we started dating, and especially the first several months when we were dating when her behavior could be extremely erratic and “up and down,” such as inexplicably acting out in order to see if I will “continue to love her” in some ways. As a patient man with a well brought up childhood and loving parents, I was always able to continue to love and care for her, which she always greatly appreciated.
Our first year of college came, and I lived on campus while she commuted from her house, and it was tough, especially for her. With help from her medicine, she finally had enough gone of her anxiety and decided that she would be able to move out of her house and onto the college campus where I would be also. However, at the beginning of this year, both of our families became in dire financial straights and we would be unable to afford to live in dorms, nor did either of us really have anyone who we knew that we could try and pay for an apartment with. I decided to live at my house, and, because I wanted her to finally be able to escape the abuse and pain of her home as well as living conveniently closer to our university, my parents decided to invite her to live with us as well. I decided to sacrifice my room for her, while I made myself a room in our basement, and we’ve lived, as, in “Catholic terms;” “brothers and sisters” ever since. We are both virgins, there is no temptation, discussion, or anything sexual between us, and is not part of the problem at all, so please continue before making any assumptions.
In the past month or so though, I’ve been bombarded by thoughts of unhappiness, and I believe it is because of my relationship. For the first time in almost 3 years, I decided to finally open up to friends, and tell them how I feel about my relationship. Essentially, how I feel, is that despite all I’ve been through with her, all the struggles we’ve overcome, all that I’ve helped her through, all the progress she’s made, I don’t think I want to be with her forever anymore, that is- I don’t want to get married. She is not a bad person, and in fact has probably had quite a good impact on me and taught me a lot about life. But I feel as though I’ve lost my passionate love for her, I don’t always want to be around her, I don’t want her hugging me, I just feel like I want space (one friend described it as being as though I have become sort of a “father figure” to her that she never had). I feel as though more I am burdened by all that we have been through, and somewhat damaged. Before our relationship, I never suffered from depression, struggled with my weight, overeating, possibly developed IBS as well, all things that have appeared within the past year or so. I just feel as though I need a change.
My girlfriend and I are both sophomores in college. We have been dating since our junior year of high school. A little background on us, would be that neither of us had any sort of relationship before our current one. We were good friends for several months before dating. We decided during our senior year that we were considering ourselves to be together in the long term, always discussing the possibilities of marriage and such, therefore we decided to go to the same University together.
My background is pretty normal. I was an emotionless dude with no problems whatsoever who ended up really discovering and growing into his Catholic faith about the same time that me and my girlfriend became friends. My girlfriend however, comes from a very troubled background. Her parents, while “strong” Catholics who always attend mass regularly and brought her up in the faith and always had her go above and beyond in youth ministry and such throughout her childhood, have a completely broken marriage "for reasons still somewhat unclear), are not married in the Catholic Church (her father had a previous marriage which ended with his wife cheating on him and he and my girlfriend’s mother were married in the chapel of the hospital where they worked), and more importantly, her father has been extremely emotionally abusive and neglectful towards her for her entire life, leading her to develop severe problems such as anxiety, depression, and especially IBS which prevented her for the longest time from being able to travel and do many things (although anti depression medicine for anxiety and other things have since helped heal a fair amount of this anxiety and enabled her to do much more with her life), with it being the leading reason why she was obligated to go to the state university close to her house (with me choosing to do the same with not wanting to abandon her in he time of need).
I knew about these problems before we started dating, and especially the first several months when we were dating when her behavior could be extremely erratic and “up and down,” such as inexplicably acting out in order to see if I will “continue to love her” in some ways. As a patient man with a well brought up childhood and loving parents, I was always able to continue to love and care for her, which she always greatly appreciated.
Our first year of college came, and I lived on campus while she commuted from her house, and it was tough, especially for her. With help from her medicine, she finally had enough gone of her anxiety and decided that she would be able to move out of her house and onto the college campus where I would be also. However, at the beginning of this year, both of our families became in dire financial straights and we would be unable to afford to live in dorms, nor did either of us really have anyone who we knew that we could try and pay for an apartment with. I decided to live at my house, and, because I wanted her to finally be able to escape the abuse and pain of her home as well as living conveniently closer to our university, my parents decided to invite her to live with us as well. I decided to sacrifice my room for her, while I made myself a room in our basement, and we’ve lived, as, in “Catholic terms;” “brothers and sisters” ever since. We are both virgins, there is no temptation, discussion, or anything sexual between us, and is not part of the problem at all, so please continue before making any assumptions.
In the past month or so though, I’ve been bombarded by thoughts of unhappiness, and I believe it is because of my relationship. For the first time in almost 3 years, I decided to finally open up to friends, and tell them how I feel about my relationship. Essentially, how I feel, is that despite all I’ve been through with her, all the struggles we’ve overcome, all that I’ve helped her through, all the progress she’s made, I don’t think I want to be with her forever anymore, that is- I don’t want to get married. She is not a bad person, and in fact has probably had quite a good impact on me and taught me a lot about life. But I feel as though I’ve lost my passionate love for her, I don’t always want to be around her, I don’t want her hugging me, I just feel like I want space (one friend described it as being as though I have become sort of a “father figure” to her that she never had). I feel as though more I am burdened by all that we have been through, and somewhat damaged. Before our relationship, I never suffered from depression, struggled with my weight, overeating, possibly developed IBS as well, all things that have appeared within the past year or so. I just feel as though I need a change.
And other stuff…You can talk to your priest about ANYTHING, good or bad or in between.
