Is it hard to be in a romantic relationship and still practice abstinence?

  • Thread starter Thread starter childofmary1143
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
It’s not hard for me, primarily because I’m in a long distance relationship so I don’t even get to see my guy (It’s hard because I miss him a lot:( ) Also, we are both strong Christians and we really want to take things slow. Plus, my parents make sure that there is no opportunity for “funny business” (door has to be open, etc.) We both intend to wait till marriage and we will fight to keep it that way.
 
Verita said:
Well, we can’t all be as pure as IlovemyChurch here. :rolleyes:

Even the Saints were tempted. St Jerome found it extremely difficult to deal with his desires.

Myself, I found it so difficult that I failed. And it’s one of my greatest regrets. 😦
Click to expand...
Me too. It was hard because we did not understand the true meaning of sex and marriage. We thought we did and we fooled ourselves. We let each other down and we let God down. We were married in the courts when I was 8 months pregnant. When we finally decided to go back to our priest he asked us to live as brother and sister until he deemed we were able to be married. We lived as brother and sister for one year. This was one of the hardest things we have ever done as a couple. But, it was so worth it. God has truly blessed us. We will be celebrating our one year anniversary June 26th and are expecting our second baby in two months! Waiting is difficult if you struggle with this topic of sex…but…it is so worth it.
 
IlovemyChurch said:
I can’t believe that the leading answer to this poll is ‘Yes’ !!!

It’s not “really hard” to be in a romantic relationship and not have sex!!

I was dating my husband for 3.5 years before we got married last summer, and we didn’t have sex at all.

If you love God, and don’t want to offend Him, then it’s not hard at all!

It’s an absolute joy to know that you are doing the right thing and that your marriage will be better for it!
Click to expand...
It’s hard if you love the person you are with, and see sex as sign of love because it is mutual giving of self. I struggle with it because I know that my fiance is the person I’m going to be with for the rest of my life. We’ve already made that commitment to each other, and I want to be able to give myself to him.
 
sing said:
It’s hard if you love the person you are with, and see sex as sign of love because it is mutual giving of self. I struggle with it because I know that my fiance is the person I’m going to be with for the rest of my life. We’ve already made that commitment to each other, and I want to be able to give myself to him.
Click to expand...
Except that is not how God see’s it. The gift of sexual expression is to be reserved for marriage. I don’t see how it is loving to do something that is against the will of God. I’m not saying it’s easy and I didn’t always understand the teaching on the matter. But if you love someone you don’t endanger their soul.
 
rayne89 said:
Except that is not how God see’s it. The gift of sexual expression is to be reserved for marriage. I don’t see how it is loving to do something that is against the will of God. I’m not saying it’s easy and I didn’t always understand the teaching on the matter. But if you love someone you don’t endanger their soul.
Click to expand...
I’m not challenging Church teaching, and I’m certainly don’t want to even touch what’s God’s will. I’m waiting, so I’m trying to follow the Church teachings. I’m just saying why it’s hard for me to wait. If it’s easier for other people, good for them. But to imply that people who struggle with following Church rules don’t truly love God or their significant other is unfair.
 
sing said:
I’m not challenging Church teaching, and I’m certainly don’t want to even touch what’s God’s will. I’m waiting, so I’m trying to follow the Church teachings. I’m just saying why it’s hard for me to wait. If it’s easier for other people, good for them. But to imply that people who struggle with following Church rules don’t truly love God or their significant other is unfair.
Click to expand...
I’m not saying you don’t love God or your fiance. What I am saying is most people don’t really understand what true sacrificial love is -myself included. It took me a long time to separate my will from God’s will. What feels like a loving action sexual intimacy for example is actually harmful when it’s not within the bounds of marriage. A lot of things feel like a loving thing to do when they actually are not -that’s why it’s so important to continue to work on forming are conscience properly.

A friend of mine was engaged to married, had the dress, the rings, the hall and was sleeping with her fiance. A few months before the wedding fiance says “he doesn’t want to get married, he likes his life the way it is.” She thought they had made a commitment to each other, she thought it was forever but that’s not the way things turned out. I’m certainly not saying that would happen to you. God created us and he knows what is best for our happiness. It’s when we think we know better that we get burned.

I’m glad you are waiting. I did not. Like I said I did not understand the church teaching and also I wasn’t practicing my faith at the time. While we are very happily married today -16 years and counting, we had many struggles. Including leaning the proper understanding of the gift of sexual intimacy. What we did before marriage felt loving at the time but what we were doing was using each other. It took a while to undo that damage. I loved my husband (then boyfriend) to the best of my abilty at the time but neither us really understood true sacrificial love and what that really means. We had our trials by fire in order to figure that out.

God Bless.🙂
 
sing said:
It’s hard if you love the person you are with, and see sex as sign of love because it is mutual giving of self. I struggle with it because I know that my fiance is the person I’m going to be with for the rest of my life. We’ve already made that commitment to each other, and I want to be able to give myself to him.
Click to expand...
Well, that is because you simply don’t understand sex.

It’s not some mere ‘sign of love’.

When you have sex you are saying with your body “I am yours fully, totally, faithfully, forever”

And so unless the relationship with the person you are having sex with is fully self-giving, total, faithful and forever, then what you are saying with your body is a lie.
It doesn’t reflect the truth of the situation.

ONLY marriage is a relationship in which the 2 people involved have given themselves fully, faithfully, forever to each other, and so ONLY in marriage can sex be authentic.

Outside of marriage it is lie and a sin.

If you want to ‘give yourself’ to your fiance, then marry him.

During the marriage ceremony in Church the Priest asks the couple whether they…
  • have come of their own free will to give themselves to the other in marriage.
  • will honor and love one another as husband and wife for the rest of their lives,
  • they will accept children from God lovingly and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church.
So in marriage you give yourselves FREELY, FULLY, FAITHFULLY and FRUITFULLY to each other.

Sex is then the PHYSICAL EXPRESSION of those marriage vows.

Sex is the marriage vows made flesh.

Sex is not separate from marriage, and if it is separated from marriage it is deficient and damaging.

When we understand the beautiful purpose and meaning of sex, then how can you possibly want to have deficient and damaged sex by engaging in it outside of marriage?!

mod: edit
 
mod: edit

Whenever ANYONE wants to do something which they know is sinful, it is because they don’t have enough faith and love.

(it doesn’t matter whether we actually do it or not. The fact that the desire for something sinful has flickered through our heart is enough to show our lack of love for good.)

This applies to every human and is a by-product of our fallen sinful human nature.

However, the more we grow in love and faith, the less we find ourselves actually wanting to do things we know are sinful and wrong.

Because we more we grow in grace and faith…
  • the more we desire God’s will
  • the more horror we feel in our hearts for sinful things
  • the less self-centred and self-seeking we are.
  • the more we want to protect others from sinning, and the more care we have for other’s souls (i.e. having sex before marriage would lead someone else to sin, as well as you).
So yeh, whenever we desire sinful things it is because we don’t love God enough.

mod: edit
 
IlovemyChurch, I find your posts incredibly insulting.

You accuse other people of lacking in love? I find your self righteous attitude as being lacking in love.

What would you say to the example I gave earlier? St Jerome struggled with lustful thoughts and desires his whole life. Yet according to your standards, just the fact of having those desires means you don’t love God enough. This man is revered as a Saint by the Church. Will you still say his love of God was insufficient?

The Church teaches that having sinful desires is not of itsself sinful. It is only acting on those desires that is sinful. EVERYONE has sinful desires. It’s a result of the Fall, of the broken relationship between God and Man. Even the Saints are subject to the temptation of sinful desires. And resisting those desires displays a very healthy love of God.

Your opinions are simply contrary to Catholic teaching and are insulting to those who do struggle with temptation and yet manage to resist.
 
Ok, this is why I was apologizing for my honesty. I’m now going to contact a moderator and have my account banned, or deleted, or whatever. I don’t deserve to be treated like I am just because I am a human being.
 
Sing, don’t be sorry for being honest. I too am disturbed that you would be accused of not loving God or your fiancé enough because you struggle with waiting. I struggle too. My boyfriend lives far away and we do fight for purity, but it is very difficult to prevent my mind from wandering, especially when I miss him (which is a lot:( ) I’ll admit, I wanted to kiss him on our first date but I made myself refrain because I knew it wasn’t right. It’s because I love God and I care about my boyfriend that I keep up the fight to stay chaste and it’s hard. Of course it is! God gives us our crosses to keep us strong and to encourage us to fight. The devil may tempt me but I know that God is strong, though I am weak, and because of Him, I can fight. So can you. Temptation itself does not make you a sinner.
 
This is a general reminder that Charity is essential in our discussions here at CAF. Please remember to self-edit for tone and content before submitting a post.

Thank you for your cooperation.
 
Speaking from experience, hard at times, but not impossible.

Kathy
 
It’s not difficult at all for my boyfriend and I. Two simple rules, the knowledge that, especially with our Catholic upbringings, premarital sex would be a mortal sin, a true evil showing only lust and not self-giving love, and frequent prayers keeps us squarely on the right track so far, and we’ve been together a year and 8 months so far, with plans to be married after I graduate from university. According to what I’ve been told by a wise man who is studying JPII’s Theology of the Body in depth, this is the way it is supposed to be! We are NOT supposed to struggle unduly with sexual temptation. It is totally, throughly possible! I thank God all the time that He has given us the graces to be so free from this form of temptation! I don’t mean to say we are perfect, but we haven’t had any struggles in this area of our relationship. ^^
 
I think part of what makes waiting difficult is what you have been exposed to during your lifetime. A man can love God and struggle with pornography. (A woman to for that case) Let’s say this man gives up pornography but those images are always in his mind and he will always struggle with some type of sexual addiction. This means that when he meets a woman he just might struggle with purity. Does this mean that he loves her or God any less then the person that has no struggle with sexuality? Of course not. Each person struggles with some type of sin in their life. Let me know if you don’t and we will make you the next saint! We as fallen humans many times know what we should do and we have to fight against our sinful nature in order to accomplish the glory of God. It is not easy…and many times we fail. Thank God that he is a patient God and continues to love us and guide us into all truth.
 
The Bible says Jesus was tempted in all things yet was
without sin. So I would say that yes you can be tempted,
and that is not a sin. On the other hand, once a priest told me in confession that I had to love God more and more. So what he was really saying is that when we love God more and
more, it is easier not to sin.
 
Coming from an older generation, I think it was easier in the past, because the culture generally supported abstinence.

On the other hand, in my day, there was not much danger in pre-marital sex. Nowadays, with the explosion of STD’s, sex can kill you. So now there is actually more of a motive to abstain, other than simply the avoidance of sin.
 
(a) I’m fairly young,

(b) No, it’s not that hard. Sex doesn’t “just happen”. It takes conscious, deliberate effort of the will. Especially if you’ve never done it before (which if you’re not married, you shouldn’t have). People don’t just sit on the sofa next to each other, and boom, they’re having sex. Especially with the awkwardness of inexperience, you have plenty of room to realize what you’re contemplating, and turn back before you cross any lines.

(c) caveat to (b) - don’t be intoxicated together. It’s probably still pretty hard to cross the line without intention even if you’re drunk, but inhibitions are diminished which can be dangerous.

(d) even if you do manage to do it before you’re married, you’re not locked in to doing it again until after marriage. Go to confession, and resolve not to do it again. Period. You are the master of your actions.
 
Bobby_Jim said:
(b) No, it’s not that hard. Sex doesn’t “just happen”. It takes conscious, deliberate effort of the will. Especially if you’ve never done it before (which if you’re not married, you shouldn’t have). People don’t just sit on the sofa next to each other, and boom, they’re having sex. Especially with the awkwardness of inexperience, you have plenty of room to realize what you’re contemplating, and turn back before you cross any lines.
Click to expand...
Truth!!! One of the problems with many messages people get today is that they can’t control those sexual desires, that they’re animal-like in that sense, which is totally false! It’s a lie that, if you buy into it, makes it difficult to resist, because you’ve been told that you can’t, which is ridiculous. As you said, you, and you alone, control your actions, NOT your bodily desires.
 
It’s true. I’m almost eighteen and people tend to think that others my age can’t control themselves. Just because we have hormones doesn’t make us animals!

Yes, it’s hard to stay chaste, but if you are determined and prayerful, you can rise above anything!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top