Insecure or Guilty?

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My fiance and I have been dating for over 2 years now and getting married in about 8 months. Through these years I have realized the things I do that set her off and try with God’s grace and prayer to keep from offending her. She is sensitive and grew up with a mother that abused her a father that was never there and boyfriends that have cheated on her. We both love the Lord, giving our lives to Him in the past and I know we both have come a long way. She is deeply hurt at the thought that I could ever even lust for one second at another women, yet I am confident in the Lord and trust in Him. He has made my heart pure. I do not lust for other women. My intentions are pure for them.

We were at a skate rink the other day and there was an inappropriate music video playing. Just when she “thought” (as she said) she could trust me and know that I don’t like looking at other women or enticed with lustful motives, she assumed by looking at the video for more than 10 seconds that it meant I was in the wrong. She judges my motives and heart many times and usually thinks negative things and sometimes the worst.
I admit I was wrong for not paying attention that looking at the video would offend her, but I had no evil motives and was not convicted, only disgusted at the way they were dancing in the video. I should have also been leading an example not to even pay attention for 1 second because there were kids around mostly (teenagers).

My general question is what should I do with being accused falsely many times?
-Usually I get frustrated and go and pray to the Lord and give it to Him.

And are these negative accusations around my intentions most likely a result from her past experiences with her family and relationships?
 
From the title of your message, it sounds like you’re assuming you’re to blame–but you said that your heart is pure, so… the problem behavior is coming from your fiancee, not you.

This is an interesting article that might offer you some insight. It’s titled “Love doesn’t react in anger,” but it the concepts could probably be applied to “Love doesn’t react in jealousy.”

6stonejars.com/2012/04/24/love-doesnt-react-in-anger/

The paragraph that stands out to me with respect to your situation is:

You must never be a doormat to this type of person. But you should learn how to manage the situation. No, (s)he can never be allowed to believe (s)he can get away with talking to you in such a disrespectful way. But you could try to learn how to help (her) calm down. Again, I’m not saying you should allow (her) to be verbally abusive. That is completely against your dignity and fosters an unhealthy relationship.
 
Joyce Meyer has some excellent books on marriage counseling and trust
 
I believe that these matters need to be discussed extensively and openly with a priestly adviser as part of your pre-cana.

I can only base my response here on what you have written above - dangerous when both sides are not represented - and perhaps my personal history influences me here,
BUT
If you have to tread THAT carefully in all that you say and do to keep from, “setting her off”, then she is not ready for marriage. Her history certainly may be the cause, but marriage at this time will not resolve it.
If you feel it is reasonable to have to be this careful around the person you intend to marry…Then I don’t think that you are ready for marriage either.

SO - I cannot be firm enough in my recommendation to you…Get this all out in the open and preferably in front of the priest who is guiding you.

I apologize for being so blunt…But I’ve been through that grinder…and it is a grinder that will not get easier with time.

Peace
James
 
People who want to control our actions or the outcome of our actions seem to hinder our growth and cause unhappiness. There are many misunderstandings, mostly unwarranted. It would be very hard for me to have a relationship with someone who was always in judgment of my words and/or actions, excepting immoral or illegal. Whatever has happened in the past (in my case my upbringing) has to be dealt with and some closure there. You cannot live with past hurts. At some point you have to realize that you are living for today, the past is gone, and you don’t have to hurt any longer. Then you are free to love another–building him/her up instead of constantly tearing down. I can imagine this might happen in a marriage for a year, but I do not think it should still be happening at 30 years of marriage, so it is time to nip it in the bud. If you can sit down and discuss it calmly and respectfully, try that. If she/he doesn’t realize how much this effects you, a third party may need to be involved. Sometimes we tell our spouses something and not much attention is paid to it, but hearing another voice, another side of the story helps, from a Priest or Social Worker. Pray about it. Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” When you have a difference, go to that person and discuss it; do unto others as you would have them do unto you; when we were young we behaved like the young, but once you are an adult, you must behave like an adult. I will be praying for you to have peace with this issue. God bless you.
 
Your fiancee appears to exhibit signs of insecurity and it is no surprise considering the fact that her father abused her mother. The thing about this abnormal kind of relationship however is that it sets a pattern of behavior in place that, unless challenged by, for instance, your fiancee, becomes a way of life. Studies show that doctors children become doctors, lawyers children become lawyers, but also that abusers children become abusers–not because they are not good enough but because no one challenged or rejected the issue of abuse.

Any problem that you are having now with your fiancee will only be magnified when you get married. While love conquers all, your fiancee is bringing some serious emotional baggage to the relationship. I would definitely work on coming to terms with this issue of insecurity through counseling, because if not dealt with, it will become a major stress point in your marriage.

Also, pray to God through the Holy Spirit for help and guidance to lead you to the right counselor or therapist or support group that will get you both through this. A good marriage must begin from a place of trust and openness and that is where you need to be before you make that final decision to marry.

God bless you on your journey
 
I would take this as a red flag :(. There are men and women everywhere, and If you can’t go out in public because you might look at a women or hear music about a women without offending your wife, that is a bad sign. It is certainly her issue to address, and not your fault.

I can hope there are plenty of “green flags” pointing towards this being a happy marriage :), but without the full context, I can only advice you to be cautious about indulging your fiancee on this particular point.
 
Run! Don’t turn back. Your life will ultimately be plagued with overly emotional moments that will tear you apart.
 
I admit there have been times in the past that have damaged her distrusting me in this area of impurity or lust around other women. Like a time when I seemed to be struggling at a resturant when a waitress came by and I seemed to be tempted and she was very hurt an upset.
What is the hardest is the way she responds. First she becomes distant, wont look at me and won’t talk for a while, and I know something is wrong. Then when we start talking she will get very mad and upset and hard to talk to. She becomes stubborn and won’t seem to listen or believe when I say I had no evil motives. Its like she is convinced by her own understanding and sometimes assumes negative things.
She does truly love Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is why we starting dating in the first place.
My will is to do the will of Our Father and if it be His will that we be not together in a marriage bond sacramentaly so be it. I love her deeply and know that love always hopes, is not proud, and never gives up.
I am only trying to help her with guidence, patience, prayer, and love. It may be frustrating and hurtful to me, but I’m sure the way she is hurt (whether my actions were sinful or not) is greater.
 
It is obvious that your love is profound. Hers though is misguided. You mention a couple of points that come from Paul’s wonderful exposition on Love…let’s look at it more fully.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor 13)
We can see that you are trying to love her in this way…but is she, indeed, can she love you in the same way. Your description shows jealousy, rudeness, anger, insisting on it’s (her) own way, irritability and resentfulness. She is not bearing all things, believing all things or enduring all things…This all may stem from an underlying hurt and trauma, but this needs to be recognized and addressed before you wed…
I don’t say this to be harsh toward her. I cannot even say that what I just wrote above is entirely true since I have never met the woman. I can only go by what you relay…
Also, I’m sure that the two of you have a lot of fun together and laugh a lot and that she probably has many good qualities to recommend her…

BUT - -

At present it is your intent to become married to this woman and you need to look critically at what Paul describes love as being and what you see in her actions. In truth I wish someone had had just this kind of talk with me many years ago…
In my earlier post, I recommended that you take bring this up to the priest who is going to officiate at your wedding. Bring all of this out and do so with her being present…If she “goes off” then and there, your priest will have a lot to go on. If she sulks and won’t open up in front of him, that too will likely tell him a lot…
And if she goes off on you for bringing these things out in your counseling sessions…Well…Just more red flags that she is not ready for marriage. And if you let her get away with treating you in this way…you are not ready for marriage either…

God be with you…

Peace
James
 
It turns out after my fiance and I had a talk yesterday about why she thought negative about my intentions toward other women was because she thought I was struggling with lust and seeing other women in an impure light. I told her I was not and all this time she was tempted to think that I possibly was. About 2 years ago I had worked in customer service and was tempted to see women dressed very imodestly in a lustful or impure way. I told her this then and ever since see thought that I had still been struggling against temptations to see other women in this light. I thought she was just assuming i was sinning with lust or impurity at times but she was tempted and believed from the misguided thought from when I was working in customer service that I still struggled and gave in sometimes.
We are both more at peace except she is still hurt from thinking I was calling off the wedding and perhaps breaking up when I said to her that if she couldn’t trust me she was not ready for marraige.
Thanks for the reply’s
 
Good to hear that you talked. That is a good start.
Do keep a watch out though. Again - I don’t want to be judgmental here but her actions seem a bit over the top by what you described previously. Given her childhood background…These things don’t just go away. Her manner of responding - of shutting down - of sulking - of flying off the handle…These are all things can be highly problematic in a relationship…Especially a “until death us do part” relationship.

God be with you.

Peace
James
 
I have been going through this with my husband, and I know how you feel. My husband has been extremely sensitive about this sort of thing, and we have been fighting for the past 6-8 months off-and-on.

He had/has an issue with me ‘liking/being attracted’ to a friend of his… although there was no inappropriate behavior or even any flirting. We have essentially moved on from this argument, but it still creeps up as he has more recently been making small comments about men on TV. He has started to make comments like “you think he’s so hot, don’t you”, “you have a crush on that guy”, etc. It makes me extremely uncomfortable because I know that his feelings are being hurt…even though I didn’t do anything wrong. If I do not answer, he takes it as I agree with his statement (which hurts his feelings). If I shoot it down, he assumes that I’m lying because he can read me and my ‘body language says otherwise’ (or so he thinks). I’m not quite sure what to do… part of my feels guilty for hurting the one that I love. On the other hand, there is nothing that I can do differently, or apologize for… aka. I cannot promise to never notice another man ever again. The more he ‘reads into’ and comments on my body language/the look in my eye, the more awkward I get when I see a good looking guy. Furthermore, he has now drawn so much attention to the issue that it makes it 10x worse… I always thought I kept my eyes to myself, never really paying attention to whose ‘hot or not’… now I notice when I notice (again not that I am lusting)… but I feel like I always have to walk on eggshells so that I do not upset my husband.

My husband now senses my awkwardness and assumes that I must be feeling guilty about doing something wrong… when really, I just don’t want to hurt his feelings and/or start another argument. I am a jealous person myself, so I understand where he is coming from in a sense (I get upset to a degree when I hear that he think another woman is attractive)… but I am starting to get more angry about the way I’m being treated (almost as if I had an affair).

Be very careful… jealousy can poison your relationship. I feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster… one day we’re great, the next day I’m on the computer looking for a marriage counselor. It has been the biggest (and pretty much only) rift we have had in our marriage (married 6 years… wasn’t like this when dating). I am hoping that we can drop it for good and move on… I love my husband very much and my heart has always been with him.

Best of luck!
 
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