In discernment, but fell in love

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bardegaulois

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Greetings, friends. I’ll start by letting you know that I will be working through this with my spiritual director this weekend, as that would be the very first thing I’d say to one who came to me with this problem and I anticipate that may well be the first thought on your minds as I relate my tale here.

I’m 40, and this past semester has been my first living in a house of discernment for the diocesan priesthood. Aside from taking a few courses, I also work at a school in my hometown 30 miles from the house, where my office is undergoing a major transition this semester. I’m also an Extraordinary Form MC, which takes up a lot of my time as well. Back in October, I found myself busier than I thought I’d be with everything and started making a conscious effort to take some time off and take better care of myself, lest I get to that point that I start feeling somewhat put upon by all my duties. It hadn’t worked out very well. My plan for next semester is to relinquish my dorm there and instead to stay with family closer to my workplace. So when an old friend invited me to an early Thanksgiving during a scheduled recess at her place a few hours away, I jumped at the opportunity.

I have known this friend since high school, and she and I have been very close for over 20 years. She is civilly and unhappily married, but both she and her husband are ambivalent about ending it due to their child and financial reasons. Both will admit – she especially – that their partnership was ill-formed and impetuous. For reasons of our own personal maturity, a romance never really developed between us in our youth, but we were for a year inseparable and became very emotionally intimate. Then she moved away. We stayed in touch, and I’ve visited her almost annually. I was at their wedding. I held their child when she was an infant. We’ve spent birthdays and even one Christmas together. She’s always wanted me to be a part of her life, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of hers. Her husband has always welcomed me and respected our relationship to one another. Lately, though, I’ve received a lot of late-night calls coming from her melancholy place about her unhappiness with her marriage and her despair about things getting better. I’ve prayed with her over the phone a lot, and I’ve prayed for her perhaps more than I have for anyone else.

While I was there, her husband and child went off to watch television for the evening, and we lingered on at the dinner table to talk over a glass of wine. I took her hand while saying something reassuring, and neither of us let go until we went to sleep that night. Everything remained quite chaste, don’t get me wrong, but our demeanour toward one another was markedly affectionate.

to be continued…
 
I left to go visit family for Thanksgiving, staying in my childhood room. After a few days, I realized again that I really am in love with her. I found myself unable to stop thinking about her, to the point that the writing in my final papers probably suffered. A serious snowstorm and the death of a relation (for whom please pray) kept me at my family’s house a week longer than I had anticipated, during which I’ve not been doing much of anything, save classes, Mass, and work. Frankly, I’m realizing now how emotionally drained I am.

Tomorrow morning, I must return at least for a week until the Christmas break begins. Somehow, that prospect doesn’t really fill me with joy, but I have a duty to fulfill. And thereafter, I have a very difficult choice to make. This is my second time testing a call to the priesthood; the last was in my late 20s, and the diocese told me they weren’t interested. I have a lot of folks praying for me and hoping for me here, and I don’t want to let them down. I’m frankly loving the coursework; going to class (on the diocese’s dime, moreover) seems like such a happy respite from everything else. But there’s my dear friend. She is still married, so nothing can happen there now. I’ve promised her, though, that I’d help carry her burdens for her, and she often relies on me for emotional support. I’m inclined just to stick with the program until it is clear that I shouldn’t be there any more, and to trust in God, as difficult as that is. Even still, despite the pieties with which I attempt to console myself, it seems I’m losing either way, and I can’t help but feel just a touch as though I’m being played with here. It’s dredging up some bad memories of some old crises as well whose conclusions seemed tolerable, but never quite satisfactory.

I ask first your prayers for me, but also any sort of light you can shine on this situation. Thank you for your kindness.
 
Firstly, I’m very sorry for the death of your relative.

You and her are having an emotional affair. That needs to stop, now. So you need to pull back from her, stop contacting her, stop spending significant amounts of time with her. Don’t carry her burdens, don’t let her lean on you for emotional support. The reason you feel you’re being played is because she’s married to another man, whom you are both taking advantage of and utterly disrespecting. She’s not yours to have and to hold. What did you expect?

Sorry for being harsh. It’s very easy for me to be critical as an outsider. I don’t believe you’re in love with her, I think you’re infatuated. I also think you need to separate her out from your discernment. Is what you’re working for truly what you want? Or are you feeling pressured by family and seeing her as an acceptable way ‘out’? This is something to talk about with your supervisor. But in the meantime, cut contact with your ‘friend’. You are not good for each other.
 
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You are in the midst of an emotional affair. Just because it is not physical doesn’t make it acceptable.

Back away. Don’t carry her baggage. Give her space to work out her movements with her current marriage without clouded judgement.

As for discernment, isn’t the whole point a time to work out what you want? Don’t allow guilt or pressure of others to force you into something that may not be right for you.

I suggest serious distance for both your sake.
 
I realize you two are old friends, but a woman who keeps calling a man in discernment late at night to express unhappiness about her marriage, and then inviting you over for an early holiday dinner (and to stay overnight at her house?) and then sitting up with you drinking wine and holding hands while hubby and child are in the next room watching TV…this is not a good situation. Especially with a child involved.

Stop taking her calls, don’t go over to her house, don’t drink with her.
She’s giving every sign of looking for a trolley car out of the marriage and you seem to be “easy pickings”.
This is wrong what you’re doing, even if you weren’t discerning a call to the priesthood and were just a single bachelor guy.

And yes, you’re having an emotional affair, and those late-night calls are the emotional equivalent of “booty calls”, and I will lay you odds that if you don’t stop it’s going to turn into real booty calls.
 
Lou2U said:
You and her are having an emotional affair. That needs to stop, now. So you need to pull back from her, stop contacting her, stop spending significant amounts of time with her. Don’t carry her burdens, don’t let her lean on you for emotional support. The reason you feel you’re being played is because she’s married to another man, whom you are both taking advantage of and utterly disrespecting. She’s not yours to have and to hold. What did you expect?
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This.

You say
bardegaulois said:
She is civilly and unhappily married
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Is she Catholic? If not, that civil marriage is assumed just as valid as if they were married at the Vatican. Remember, you attended that wedding.

Emotional affairs are very difficult to end when there is years of history, but, it has to end. Tell her you will pray for her, suggest she get into counseling and then return to your discernment. Stop taking calls, change your number.
 
As others have commented, you are having an emotional affair. To me, it sounds as if this emotional affair is well on its way to becoming physical. None of this is compatible with your faith, whether you’re in discernment or not. You are not being quite honest with yourself.

You have to decide whether you’re going to put God first in your life, or someone else. Right now, you’re clearly on the fence.
 
It is not at all uncommon for women to find guy in high school or college, be best emotional friends with them, but never allow anything but romantic crumbs. They keep this as their “emergency guy”. Those guys can stay in that mode for many years. When they want, they can “break the glass in case of emergency”. You deserve more than to be someone’s “just in case” man.
 
bardegaulois said:
Her husband has always welcomed me and respected our relationship to one another.
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That man trusts you to be a friend not just to his wife but to his marriage and his family.
Do not dare to even think about betraying that trust.

Do not spend any time with her alone and if she asks you for support admit to her that she needs professional help to work on her marriage. Do not give each other any nonsense about you “carrying her burdens for her.” That is nonsense. You can’t be a good priest (or even a good friend) unless you know where your boundaries need to be and who God is in her life. It is not you.

PS Her marriage may have been ill-formed and impetuous, but she and her husband owe it to each other to work out what happened between “I do” and now. If they don’t, the chances are high that they will end this marriage only to impetuously jump into another very much like it. If they put the work in that their decision to marry demands, they will either mend this marriage or else leave it with the least amount of betrayal of themselves, each other and their child. If they owe it to no one else, they owe it to their child to make a very serious effort to keep her family together. They should spare no effort, for her sake.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
It is not at all uncommon for women to find guy in high school or college, be best emotional friends with them, but never allow anything but romantic crumbs. They keep this as their “emergency guy”. Those guys can stay in that mode for many years. When they want, they can “break the glass in case of emergency”. You deserve more than to be someone’s “just in case” man.
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It is also true that a lot of us don’t have only one person we could have been happily married to. We don’t necessarily have just one “true love.” Integrity requires us to choose. When we have a spouse, all of our friendships need to be ordered to support our marriage and our relationship with our spouse.

Even when someone is very obviously in an invalid marriage, it is incredibly important that the couple does the work of transitioning from the state of attempting marriage to the state of being free to marry. They should not start any new relationships until their attempt at marriage has been settled: that is, legally, canonically and emotionally.
 
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That’s exactly what I had been starting to think: that this is an emotional affair. I had earlier thought that I was just doing for her what I had always done throughout our lives, but over the past few years, things had been a little different.

She’s been one of the few people in the world whom I ever really trusted. We only realized recently that we bonded so quickly because we were both emerging from loveless childhoods.

At least my prayer that any hurdles to my discernment be revealed sooner rather than later has been answered. Even still, this is really going to hurt. A lot.
 
bardegaulois said:
That’s exactly what I had been starting to think: that this is an emotional affair. I had earlier thought that I was just doing for her what I had always done throughout our lives, but over the past few years, things had been a little different.

She’s been one of the few people in the world whom I ever really trusted. We only realized recently that we bonded so quickly because we were both emerging from loveless childhoods.

At least my prayer that any hurdles to my discernment be revealed sooner rather than later has been answered. Even still, this is really going to hurt. A lot.
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Let’s look at this from the big picture. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that she is in an invalid attempt at marriage. Let’s say she and her husband get a divorce and she obtains a decree of nullity. It is X number of years from now, and she is free to marry.

What, from that standpoint, would be the line of action that has the greatest integrity? As I tell my nieces and nephews, you can divorce your husband or wife, but an ex is forever. What is the course of action that treats her husband with integrity? How are the two of you going to reward his trust?

That is the way I would present this to her: that is, her husband trusts you, and you don’t want to even appear to alienate her affection towards him, not in her husband’s eyes and not in her child’s eyes.

I have had to take this course with two friends. One, I felt there was just too much affection from our school days that wasn’t settled with him. The other, his wife wasn’t comfortable with our friendship. In both cases, I had to choose what I thought made me the best friend of their marriages. You can’t be a friend to your friend unless you are a friend to her marriage, her family life, her integrity and her virtue.

I think if you remember how important it is to treat her other relationships with respect and integrity, you’ll be able to do this. In the meantime, work on your ability to trust a few more other people. Examine this idea that you think you can “carry the burden” of another person. Get professional help, if you can. You will need that, regardless of where your vocational path leads.

PS I knew a priest who said that during his discernment, he asked the Lord what about his girlfriend. His girlfriend joined the convent. He took that as his sign. She didn’t stay, but that was his sign. I’d say an awful lot of the diocesan priests I knew had at least one person in their past that had them considering the vocation of marriage. That isn’t automatically a disqualifying thing.
 
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I’m sorry for your situation. I’m upset for you. I would agree with many others here that nothing good can come out of this. A few things that perhaps others haven’t added.

If you are a single man in his 30’s who is unmarried and a professional, this stuff does happen. Woman who are married see you as there for emotional support in the short-term. It’s not fair. She may also see you as safe…i.e… She can dump on him since he’ll just become a priest. It sounds like you have a calling to the priesthood, and being there emotionally for woman is this way is not part of your calling at all. Finally, if you did pursue her, she’d likely pull back very fast. I can’t imagine the relationship she has with you is sincere.

Also, everybody might tell you to talk to your spiritual director, but I might say be careful with what you tell your spiritual director. They are evaluating you on some level. It is one thing to say…I spent some time with an old friend, I realized I have some feelings for her, she is married, and I realize this is not the path to go down and I’ve stopped seeing her. It is another thing to tell your spiritual advisor…”I’m in love with a married woman” Don’t do this! You’re not in love with her!
 
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bardegaulois said:
I’ve promised her, though, that I’d help carry her burdens for her, and she often relies on me for emotional support
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This is a promise you have no right to make to her. She is a married woman, and while not intending to perhaps, you have put yourself between her and her husband. It is one thing to have friends, but this is moving beyond that and is becoming inappropriate.

Whether you become a priest or not your relationship with her is inappropriate. She is married and unavailable. She should be leaning on her husband, or she and he should be in marriage counseling. You are too close and cannot counsel her.
 
bardegaulois said:
Even still, this is really going to hurt. A lot.
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It’ll hurt so much more every second you let it continue. Things like this are never easy.
PetraG said:
You can’t be a friend to your friend unless you are a friend to her marriage, her family life, her integrity and her virtue.
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Bingo. Friends don’t tempt friends.
jack63 said:
but I might say be careful with what you tell your spiritual director. They are evaluating you on some level. It is one thing to say…I spent some time with an old friend, I realized I have some feelings for her, she is married, and I realize this is not the path to go down and I’ve stopped seeing her. It is another thing to tell your spiritual advisor…”I’m in love with a married woman” Don’t do this! You’re not in love with her!
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I disagree. He needs to be frank with his spiritual director about things, because if he isn’t ready for priesthood, whatever flaws he has will come back to bite him later. He owes it to himself and the Church to be honest.
 
Part of me doesn’t see what she has to do with your discernment at all.
Either you want to be a priest or you don’t. It has nothing to do with her. If you think it does, you are putting the priesthood in a second place option, like a back up plan.
 
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Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman said:
I disagree. He needs to be frank with his spiritual director about things, because if he isn’t ready for priesthood, whatever flaws he has will come back to bite him later.
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I mean if he is truly in love with a married woman, perhaps he should tell his spiritual advisor this so the spiritual advisor can politely tell him the priesthood isn’t the right place for him. I just have trouble believing he really is in love with a married woman. He needs to learn to read his emotions.
 
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My director has advised me to be very open with him, as whatever I say is considered internal forum. There’s no evaluation; nothing goes to the Vocations Board.
 
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