I have a disordered view of love, need help making a decision about boyfriend

[whatevergirl]

I normally give a bit more elaborate advice, but as I see it…I would break things off with your bf, and heal yourself. Only when you completely heal your old wounds, and develop a healthier view of love, yourself, and relationships, will you have a healthy and successful relationship. Just my two cents. In a nutshell, break it off with him, and get well within your own heart and mind. (Plus, he isn’t helping your walk with Christ…he wants to make you feel guilty for NOT having sex, and it sounds like you’re wanting to rid that type of thinking from your life)

I will keep you in my prayers…

 

[Trishie]

An amazing post, Liberanosamalo.

You are so blessed, Jen. Reading the above posts, I feel a bit awed by all the wisdom and love there. You must surely feel very blessed and very loved…by people who have circled protectively around you and whom you’ll probably only meet in heaven.

People are amazing. I was just reading about a group of eight people who burned to death in the Victorian wildfires. They were all found huddled over a little baby trying to protect it.

That is the wonderful thing about people. We do actually care, and everyone who has responded to your predicament has a strong yearning to see you healed and safe, whole and happy, spiritually and in all other respects. I hope that whatever this boyfriend does to try to stop you from leaving him, you will remember that you have sisters and brothers who love you without knowing you, and who with God’s grace will be there to welcome you joyfully in heaven.

 

[jenlovesyu]

First off I want to say that you are all a very wonderful, loving bunch of people and I am grateful you have all posted to my thread. As you can see I am hurting and need advice.
However, I just wanted to add a little bit of an update to see what you guys might have to say about it…

Last night I told the boyfriend I couldn’t be with him anymore. He didn’t try to manipulate me to stay with him or anything he was just really upset. This morning at school we sat down at the library and talked. He told me he couldn’t stop crying yesterday and barely slept because he feels so bad for never listening and respecting me in the past. He says that he realized that it is time for him to stop acting like a little boy and learn what it means to be a man. Also, he said that as soon as he can collect his thoughts he will be going to confession. Later, he took me to a bookstore and purchased Christopher West’s “Good News About Sex and Marriage” and we read the first three chapters of it together. I told him we should just be friends though still because we both have problems we need to get sorted out with a priest or at least a counselor. But I was just curious about what some of you have to say. Should I cease all contact with him or be friends with him and try and be a good example for him?
Thank you all again for your support.
Love, Jennifer

 

[Trishie]

Last night I told the boyfriend I couldn’t be with him anymore. He didn’t try to manipulate me to stay with him or anything he was just really upset. This morning at school we sat down at the library and talked. He told me he couldn’t stop crying yesterday and barely slept because he feels so bad for never listening and respecting me in the past. He says that he realized that it is time for him to stop acting like a little boy and learn what it means to be a man. Also, he said that as soon as he can collect his thoughts he will be going to confession. Later, he took me to a bookstore and purchased Christopher West’s “Good News About Sex and Marriage” and we read the first three chapters of it together. I told him we should just be friends though still because we both have problems we need to get sorted out with a priest or at least a counselor. But I was just curious about what some of you have to say. Should I cease all contact with him or be friends with him and try and be a good example for him?
Thank you all again for your support.
Love, Jennifer

Dear Jennifer, I don’t know what anyone else will say, and I’d feel very wary… I’d probably give him a second chance, but if he slips up again, I wouldn’t give him a third chance. …but I wouldn’t so much as kiss him or allow anything the least sexual. If there is any doubt about sincerity in solving the issue without slipping into sin again, I’d walk away from the relationship, because I couldn’t trust that he could genuinely change… He would need to go to Confession and live his faith conscientiously but sincerely, not just to get me back.

You say you’ll be just friends for now, that’s good, as too much too soon could undermine his resolve or yours. People can convert, God can do this with His grace and your steadfastness, and with the help of the Sacraments. I think I’d give it a try, because this could be his turning point.

I think I’ll remain somewhat anxious about you…but I’ll keep you in my prayers.

 

[TurboStock]

First off I want to say that you are all a very wonderful, loving bunch of people and I am grateful you have all posted to my thread. As you can see I am hurting and need advice.
However, I just wanted to add a little bit of an update to see what you guys might have to say about it…

Last night I told the boyfriend I couldn’t be with him anymore. He didn’t try to manipulate me to stay with him or anything he was just really upset. This morning at school we sat down at the library and talked. He told me he couldn’t stop crying yesterday and barely slept because he feels so bad for never listening and respecting me in the past. He says that he realized that it is time for him to stop acting like a little boy and learn what it means to be a man. Also, he said that as soon as he can collect his thoughts he will be going to confession. Later, he took me to a bookstore and purchased Christopher West’s “Good News About Sex and Marriage” and we read the first three chapters of it together. I told him we should just be friends though still because we both have problems we need to get sorted out with a priest or at least a counselor. But I was just curious about what some of you have to say. Should I cease all contact with him or be friends with him and try and be a good example for him?
Thank you all again for your support.
Love, Jennifer

Ide be weary my ex did very similar and I gave her a second chance and it went real bad.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

Here’s a third vote for flashing red and yellow lights.

If he is a narcissist or a potential wife-beater, you will find out because he will be very manipulative and once he has you back where he wants you he will revert to the same old act.

Can your self image really take that?

If he wants to be your friend, then be a friend, from a distance.

Encourage him to love God for the sake of loving God. If it’s genuine, he will grow in the love of God. If it isn’t, a few weeks or months of putting on the act and not getting “results” from you will make him angry and he will start denigrating you.

Stay in prayer. Stay close to the sacraments yourself. It is hard to discern the will of God if you are not living in His grace yourself. The light of Christ has a way of clarifying situations and making dark scary things revert back to the shadows where they belong.

Good luck!!!

(Says she who also fell for an act and let a “repentant” husband back who was twice as bad given a second chance.)

 

[blue_skies_1]

First off I want to say that you are all a very wonderful, loving bunch of people and I am grateful you have all posted to my thread. As you can see I am hurting and need advice.
However, I just wanted to add a little bit of an update to see what you guys might have to say about it…

Last night I told the boyfriend I couldn’t be with him anymore. He didn’t try to manipulate me to stay with him or anything he was just really upset. This morning at school we sat down at the library and talked. He told me he couldn’t stop crying yesterday and barely slept because he feels so bad for never listening and respecting me in the past. He says that he realized that it is time for him to stop acting like a little boy and learn what it means to be a man. Also, he said that as soon as he can collect his thoughts he will be going to confession. Later, he took me to a bookstore and purchased Christopher West’s “Good News About Sex and Marriage” and we read the first three chapters of it together. I told him we should just be friends though still because we both have problems we need to get sorted out with a priest or at least a counselor. But I was just curious about what some of you have to say. Should I cease all contact with him or be friends with him and try and be a good example for him?
Thank you all again for your support.
Love, Jennifer

Hi Jennifer,

It’s absolutely your decision, but I’d still be pretty wary of this boy… the fact is that he only started taking you seriously when you broke up with him. Before this, he was fine about messing you around. He’s been acting, basically, like a spoilt little boy - but people don’t just grow up overnight. This is his character.

Also, I’m not so sure that telling you he spent last night crying isn’t in fact a form of manipulation. Men know that we women can be pretty soft-hearted and to me, it just sounds like he’s playing on that. Of course he’s going to be upset, but in my experience once people have been broken up with their job is to get on with getting over it, not hang around trying to get a sympathy vote and saying that ‘everything will be different this time’.

Sometimes the only way people like that are able to ‘get the message’ that their behaviour is wrong is if they’re rejected - but if you just take him back, I’m not so sure he will learn that lesson in any deep way. It might be better to just walk away, especially given some of the issues you have from your past. If you’re with this boy, inevitably so much attention will be focused on him and what he wants, rather than you, and what you need. On the other hand, you could give him one more chance and see what happens . Perhaps it could work, but he really has to toe the line this time!
Being just friends, totally platonic sounds like a good idea. You’ll see pretty quickly whether he’s serious about treating you and your feelings with respect (although I’ve got a bad feeling that you’ve already seen as much as you need to on that score).
Good luck :hug3:

 

[blue_skies_1]

Just one more thought… I think that what he’s saying and doing now, while it’s good in itself, is done with the ultimate aim of getting you back to where he had you before - because you’ve disturbed the status quo and that doesn’t feel nice for him. My advice would be to take it with a big pinch of salt.

 

[chevalier]

Jen, I have to agree with the posters before me. I don’t want to doubt his motives, but the odds are heavily against him. It is possible that he is genuine, but I wouldn’t take merely his words on it. Similarly, it’s possible he’s acting in good faith but lacking the ability to carry it out in the long term. If we do something wrong, we regret it later - and we go back to the moments when we were making decisions. I don’t know where he is with his regret now, but I would give it a while. First, now he needs to come to terms with the fact that you are no longer in a relationship. When he accepts that, you can try to be friends. However, *don’t *give him any opportunities and don’t stay alone with him where nobody can see you. Not saying anything concrete, but you need to be careful. I would give it a couple of months. During that period, he will have plenty of time to find a new girl - or to “prove” his resolve. But don’t give him hopes or hints because that could induce him to put on the act, as Liberanos says, instead of focusing on his spiritual journey, which he needs to do. And pray for him.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

Jennifer, I think whether you want to totally walk away or stay friends with him is your call.

If you want to stay friends, this is how to do it: meet him in public place such as the Library, have lunch with him in a public facility etc. There should always be other people around when you meet him. NO meeting him in the privacy of your home or his home. Read again Belinda’s post #3. That will help keep any interactions at “civilized” level. None of you is tempted sexually (or it’s impossible to act on it), nobody can really raise his voice or throw a fit if being upset, if there are other people around within 20 or 30 feet of you. You can perfectly read West’s book together in a public space, even on a bench on the campus park where people are walking by, etc. It’s OK to give him a peck on the cheek, but that’s it. If he cannot handle this, if he wants to kiss you in a physical, sexually arousing way in public space, or insists that you go back to his/your home, just walk away. Remember, you are in a place with other people around, within 20-30 feet of you. You can easily walk away. Just say goodbye and walk. You don’t want to be mistreated, and you don’t want to get physical because you know where that leads you - right back to sin.

You should go and attend Holy Mass, possibly Bible study or other uplifting activities that build you spiritually, if such activities are available at your parish. Your boyfriend is also welcome to attend and you can hang out there together. Maybe he is really motivated and will stick around, and attend church activities with you. If not, he will grow bored pretty soon, and fall away. Should the latter happen, understand: you are not responsible for his choices.

You just walk with the Lord, and stay away from the occasion of sin. The rest is in God’s hands, and He will take care of you.

 

[Norseman82]

Takes a deep breath I am going to try and keep this as short as possible, I know that I need to save the in-depth stuff for a priest. But basically I have never had a healthy relationship with anyone. This includes my family, friends, and ex-boyfriends. As I was growing up I never learned how to have a normal relationship. I have dealt with social anxiety for as long as I can remember so being close to people certainly is not something I am readily willing to do. Sadly enough, I have been exposed to the hypersexualized Hollywood culture (that teaches sex=love) at a very young age (we are talking about 5 years old). Everything I ever knew about love was always connected to sex. To disordered pleasure. I committed so many sexual sins even before I lost my virginity at age 16, to man a barely knew (who continues to haunt my thoughts to this day). Fortunately the Holy Spirit had been pulling at my soul and led me to the Father, who in turn led me to Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

God has been working on me and I am so grateful to say that I have come a long way. But of course I still have a long way to go.

Now here’s the part I am seeking help for: I have been in a relationship for the past 9 months. It got off on the wrong foot and even though we have grown somewhat, I know that what we have is still unhealthy.
The main thing I need help with right now is to figure whether or not I am staying with my boyfriend for the right reasons. And on a more general scale, I need help determining whether or not I am meant for marriage. I have tried several times to start being more chaste with my boyfriend. I feel like I am getting zero respect on this aspect. We fall into this same pattern everytime:

1. We fornicate. Afterwards I feel absolutely horrible.
2. I tell him that I do not want to do it anymore as it is inappropriate and sinful.
3. He gets mad and tells me that i just want everything in the relationship to “go my way.” He says I just want to control everything.
4. He finally calms down, apologizes, and says he will try.
5. I try to lay down the ground rules (No making out, no touching in inappropriate places, etc)
6. For a day he behaves somewhat appropriately but little by little he starts breaking the rules.
7. He gets me in a position where he knows it is hard for me to resist and even if I say no he doesn’t stop.
8. Because of my weak personality I give in and even though it increases my guilt and depression, my boyfriend always seems to show zero remorse.

This cycle has occurred at least five times. I don’t want you to think that I am blaming this completely on my boyfriend. I am just as much as responsible for the sin as he is. He just doesn’t understand how important my faith is to me nor does he understand how dangerous it is for us to be indulging in that kind of behavior. He is a Catholic but it seems like he couldn’t care less about some of the teachings Catholics are supposed to adhere to.

Don’t get me wrong, my boyfriend has the potential to be a wonderful man. He does a lot of nice things for me and helps me with some of the mental problems that I have. However he doesn’t seem to try that hard in improving anything in his life. We are college students and he has taken the same classes at least 3 times. He fails them every time. He also says he wants to try to be a better Catholic but honestly I think he only says that because I tell him that I can not marry someone who isn’t serious about the faith. I feel bad for him though because his father left him and his family when he was a baby so he never really had a father figure to help guide and direct him. He loves breaking rules in all aspects of his life. His mother is not exactly a great role model for him either. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for her because she has lived a very hard life but I think she at some point just gave in and let it get to her.

A part of me does not want to break up with my boyfriend because I feel that I may be giving up when I should be trying harder. I have prayed to God about this but He has not yet given me an answer. However the other part of me feels restless and I do not feel like I am myself when I am with him. I sometimes feel like I need to lie to myself to keep this relationship going. I know real love isn’t based on feelings but perhaps I should add that I do not think I am even in love with him. Maybe I never was. Then again, apathy has been a long time friend (or enemy?) of mine so I do not know what to feel. In the beginning it seemed like God put us in each others’ paths so that we could grow together. I even thought I saw signs. But now things just aren’t clear at all. If you could help me I would greatly appreciate it. Even just a simple smiley would comfort me right now as I am so confused.

God bless you all

My gut feeling tells me this is an abusive situation - if not physically, then emotionally. And emotional abuse often is just a stepping stone to physical abuse. So I agree with the other posters who say to break it off with him.

Also, please recall what we pray in the Act of Contrition: “I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin” (bolded emphasis mine). A “near occasion of sin” is any situation that will tempt you, and a subset of that that was illustrated by the old Baltimore Catechism is the “bad companion”, i.e., people who will get you into trouble. Your boyfriend clearly is a “bad companion”. Perhaps this will help put things into perspective from a Catholic lens and help you prevent future mistakes.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

1. For a day he behaves somewhat appropriately but little by little he starts breaking the rules.
2. He gets me in a position where he knows it is hard for me to resist and even if I say no he doesn’t stop.
3. Because of my weak personality I give in and even though it increases my guilt and depression, my boyfriend always seems to show zero remorse.

This pattern is what I suspect will re-emerge very quickly.

She has seen it before. He put on a big crying act and has made outlandish promises of good behavior that he has no history of ever being able to carry out for any appreciable length of time.

He’s a manipulator. His “remorse” and claims of tears are suspect in my opinion. And if she weakens and it goes back to the way it was before, she will see her guilt increase and she will find his remorse was just a big act.

When someone who has never shown remorse for his actions all of a sudden puts on a big show of it, my alarm bells ring. You either have a conscience or you don’t. It’s not a suit you put on when you want to get your way or impress people.

Great advice on only meeting him in public places. If he isn’t just satisfied with the presence of her company, he will get bored and dump her for someone who rewards his manipulations in the manner HE wants. And hopefully, she will learn quickly how to recognize his kind and never fall for it again.

He’s using her faith and good will toward helping “save” him to keep her on the hook. That’s his “hook.” Only she can help him be holy. Then he uses it to get her to sin. Pretty cynical.

He LIKES to disobey rules, because rules are meant for everyone else. He gets psychic satisfaction from risk taking. Only wants what he can’t have. (Now that she is making herself sexually unattainable, he wants her more than ever. It’s a challenge to him!)
She isn’t a person to him… she’s a challenge. A game. Any girl will do. I’ll bet he has a nickname he calls her instead of her real name.

And here she is blaming herself for what they do. Making excuses for him. That’s what they do. They get us to make excuses for their bad behavior. He understands EXACTLY how important her faith is to her. He is disregarding that. She has seen this cycle repeated 5 times. Wait for number 6. Five, four, three, two…

He has taken classes 3 times and still can’t pass? She thinks he will ever keep a job? (Let me guess… it’s always the professor’s fault. They can’t teach, right?)

Jen, please listen and consider the horrifying possibility that all those “mental problems” he is listening to and “helping” you with are really his way of finding your vulnerabilities to exploit against you and manipulate you. You are giving him the key to your heart, mind and soul, and he’s using that to plunder you of all self respect.

When you really are with someone who is truly good, their treatment of you and their respect and love for you transforms you and makes you believe in yourself. You feel joyful and happy. They don’t need to sit and play therapist with you. With real love, for the first time in your life you may feel you aren’t screwed up. And you don’t have to lie to yourself to keep it going. The worst lies we tell are the ones we tell ourselves.

Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

If he really did cry, those tears may have been just his sadness that his self image was hurt. Not that you were hurt. I don’t think he has any tears for the pain he causes you.

Please only meet him in public places.

 

[jenlovesyu]

I just want you all to know that I am doing fine. The boy and I are going to remain friends. I basically told him that I am tired of being taken advantage of and if I ever come to trust him again it will take a very long time. I also made sure to tell him that I can’t promise him anything. I don’t know if we will ever work out but I do hope that he turns his life over to God. That is the most important thing.
I am taking everything one day at a time. I actually feel a lot better because I have started to pray the rosary every day this week along with my other prayers. Also, my RCIA director talked to me about something (it wasn’t about this situation but it was just as important) and has really helped lift my spirit even more.

I am so thankful for all of your advice. I know it probably seems like I already know what to do but I really needed all of your help, I needed a big nudge because there are other forces besides the Holy Spirit trying to give me advice.

I love you all and pray that God will bless you and your families.
Peace & Love,
Jennifer

 

[GraceDK]

Halleluja, is all!!!

Halleluja.
Jen, you are amazing. You are strong and gifted and talented. It doesn’t take long to realise that out of your posts. You have in the past identified yourself with your weaknesses.
Now you indentify yourself with the strength of God Praised b Yeshua!

We are all proud of you.
Stay at peace

Btw. I also got a lot out of reading through this thread. I was in a relationship that was also rather manipulative and bad for me. I defend him still in my mind everyday because I love him, but I know that I have been lying to my self all the time I spent with him… I also left and have been at peace since then.

Gracie