Loving a married man

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lovethetruth:
Meanwhile we as humans are free to have feelings of love, in fact you can love him in a way which is called “love of self-restraint” which basically means you acknowledge you love him in ways of feeling love and desiring physical love such as sexual love but you know that and respect that, but you do not act out on it. We are judged on our actions not our feelings.
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This is not true for the Catholic faith. You cannot have desires of physical love for another, particularly a married person. This is called LUST and it is, for the married person, adultery of the heart/mind. While it is a much more serious offense to act on the desires, even allowing the desires to well up inside you while restraining is succumbing to sin and warrants confession. Make no mistake about that.

We certainly will be judged on our thoughts as well as our actions. All thoughts and actions are called to praise God. When they don’t, then we have some work to do. It’s really hard, that’s for certain, with all the distractions of this society in which we live, but that doesn’t remove our obligation to fulfill God’s design for man.
 
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skyflower:
Any advice? What can I do?
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First, change your mailing address, your email, and your phone number. Don’t give him the new contact information, don’t forward anything, and don’t contact him yourself. Remove every gift he has given you from your home. Throw away every memento of time together. Delete every email he has sent you and erase him from your address books and buddy lists. After you’ve changed your address send him one last email just before deleting that account telling him you are calling it off, that he is not to try to find you or contact you again, and strongly suggest he and his wife get marital counseling or go on retreat together so he can put his attention back where it needs to be - his family. Also avoid giving your new contact info to mutual acquaintances for a while, and when/if you do feel a need to contact those mutual friends again (say, after at least a year is up, preferably never), instruct them not to give that info to him or to pass any messages from him to you.

Second, go on a retreat yourself. Getting re-grounded spiritually during the transition is vital for your own outlook on turning a new page. I’d find a Cursillio if there is one in your area for single women, attending a similar retreat certainly helped me at a time I was turning a new page after abandoning a dysfunctional non-marital relationship in my own past.

Third, I’d agree withthe advise to let those around you know what you are doing to have both accountability and support (plus an explanation for why you are suddenly hard to reach). You need to make a “hard break” - and its called than because it is hard. I can just about promise you that once you’ve stuck with it for a few months, you will feel better than you do now in your current situation.

Praying peace may find you soon.
 
My husband left our 35-year marriage for a divorced old girlfriend - they are both alcoholic. Now he hasn’t seen our grown sons in the four years he has been gone with the exception of rare occasions, nor does he see our little grandchildren. This man previously seemed to love all of us. The woman worked very hard to get this man and has been cruel to all of us since. The pain for our family has been beyond description. Your situation may be different, but this is one more example of adultery. My husband likes to use the excuse that “everyone is doing it” - do you want to be one of them?

I pray constantly for my husband’s soul and would take him back home because when we married our vows talked about better and worse and we promised to help each other get to heaven. Does the man you claim to love have such a devoted wife, one who will pray for him through your period of adultery? Could you stand to pursue your supposed love for a married man while his true soulmate prays for his soul?
 
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Romick:
My husband left our 35-year marriage for a divorced old girlfriend - they are both alcoholic. Now he hasn’t seen our grown sons in the four years he has been gone with the exception of rare occasions, nor does he see our little grandchildren. This man previously seemed to love all of us. The woman worked very hard to get this man and has been cruel to all of us since. The pain for our family has been beyond description. Your situation may be different, but this is one more example of adultery. My husband likes to use the excuse that “everyone is doing it” - do you want to be one of them?

I pray constantly for my husband’s soul and would take him back home because when we married our vows talked about better and worse and we promised to help each other get to heaven. Does the man you claim to love have such a devoted wife, one who will pray for him through your period of adultery? Could you stand to pursue your supposed love for a married man while his true soulmate prays for his soul?
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Romick,
I am so sorry that you are in such pain because of your husband. God will bless YOU for your faithfulness in continuing to pray for your husband. You are setting a good example for your grown sons - they will learn that despite another’s shortcomings and failures, they should always remain steadfast and faithful to both God & the vows they take. I admire you. I will pray for your husband when I say my prayers tonight.

Peace be with you,
CM
 
hi, i’m gonna speak to this in a little different way than most of the
posts i’ve read so far…

i have no idea how well you truly ‘know’ this man, but i do know
some things about this type of situation… most times, people
imagine the object of these feelings is much … better… than they
really are…

makes it so that no one can compete… basically, in his case,
his wife is having to compete with a fantasy he has of you…
she will never be able to …

people you meet are having to compete with the idea you have
of what life with him would be like, and they will never be able to
overcome that…

as long as you allow this ‘fantasy’ to continue, you will never
advance in your life, and his relationship with his family will
continue to suffer…

no one can compete with a dream…

you already know what you need to do, that’s why you wrote
to this forum… it’s not like you figured you’d get someone tell
you to ‘go for it’…

now do what you know you need to do…

🙂 and yes, i’ve said a prayer for you.
 
Has anyone else noticed Skyflower has not followed up on this thread??? 😦
 
YinYang, I think she’s absent because of the pain it must cause to read so many tell her what she was hoping we wouldn’t put in words.

Skyflower, please, God loves you enough to want that which is in your best interests. What John has just said is absolutely true. The devil has allowed you to waste years of your life believing in a lie. I spent many years of my life accepting less than the fullness of the truth which I would have lived had I accepted all that the Catholic Church teaches. My errors were different than yours have been, but the end result has been missing out on what may have been God’s better plan for me. I took the lesser portion for my attachment to sin.

Please, open yourself to all that God desires for you, and you certainly know that this relationship does not represent that.

You’re worth more than anything that can come from the path you’re on. My prayers go out to you with much love,

CARose
 
Hi,

a quick note to let you know that I am alive and following the debate… The reason for my not being very active is that it is somehow painful for me to talk about my situation. And I have a lot to meditate on, after your many comments and advice, before I can speak. I have also started to keep my mind busy with good, healthy thoughts, to avoid torturing myself with sad ones. It is difficult, but not impossible, and I think it helps.

I would like to thank every single one of you for your compassion and help. Some of your remarks have touched me deeply and changed my perspective on the issue.

Please, do not forget me! I need your prayers, very much!
I put my situation in the hands of the Holy Spirit. He will guide me.
 
Skyflower,

May I strongly recommend that you take this into Eucharistic Adoration. If you’ve never done Adoration, this would be a most wonderful opportunity for you to try it. Call your local parish and ask if they have adoration. If not, they will most likely know of another parish that does and can recommend where and when you can go.

This is a time when you and Christ sit face to face in quiet communion as you seek His guidance on this difficult time in your life.

God Bless you and thank you for taking the risk of sharing your private dilemma with us. I hope we’ve helped.
CARose
 
skyflower,

I have read the posts after I wrote mine. I am never saying or condoning to sin. Always, a marriage is a marriage and that is always that. However, I think we realize that with our day in age with so many marriages falling apart and truthfully so many of them also getting anullments granted, an anullment is not a divorce it is God speaking that there is no marriage or that this union was never a union to begin with. I am not saying to go this route either, but that this is the only real answer to knowing if this is a marriage or not. And that is really up to the man and his wife. For now and until, and if there is ever an anullment, they are married. The reason I state that feelings, even feelings of sexual desires are not a sin is because they are not. The writings of Dr. Conrad Baars have been approved by the catholic church and been given the blessing by one of our past Popes as a “gift to the church.” You can find more information on this at www.conradbaars.com There is real clarification on how come feelings and emotions are not sin. And it is backed up by the Teachings of a father of the church, St. Thomas Aquinas. Again you would have to read the book or books on this to better have an idea what the author writes. And a therapist who knows of Affirmation therapy would be your best bet in this. They truly understand this.

I really wonder about all the priests and nuns or even all the way up the chain of command of cardinals and our Pope who ever just felt something and then it just went away. They are not evil, they are human, to feel. God made us this way as a whole human person and why would he ever do this if it was not a good. Before original sin, there was not this. We were without sin, without original sin, now we are how we are and Christ came to redeem us.

By the way if the man has feelings for you and feels he loves you too, then either he and his wife are having problems they should get taken care of so their marriage is strengthened. That is their problem and if there was never any love between them then again that is their problem and well you just keeping “being” a child of God feeling love and loving God and doing His Holy Will which is to walk the straight and narrow path of suffering. Thanking him for making you a woman and making you human as He will not abandon you in the time of need, of tempation. Prayers offered for you. I know it is not easy.
 
Lovethetruth,

There is a difference between a passing thought and one that is carried on for a long period of time, years in this case. When you have feelings for someone who is not your spouse, who is in fact married to someone else, and you continue to have an emotional relationship with that person, even if not a physical relationship, you are flurting with, and perhaps even guilty of, sin.

I know you don’t mean to encourage Skyflower to do anything wrong, but be careful that you don’t help her to rationalize away the uneasiness she is rightly feeling for crossing the boundary into the marital relationship of her friend and his wife.

CARose
 
I commisurate with the feelings you and the man may have for each other but I ask you this.

If you truly love someone shouldn’t you want what is best for their immortal soul and not what either of you desire in the temporal world?

I know that may sound unrealistic but think about it really. Isn’t true love wanting what is best for the beloved? Is breaking up his family what is best for him? Is betraying his wife and children what is best for him? And is offering him a life of sin that may deprive him of eternal happiness with God what is best for him? For you?

Is allowing these “feelings” to continue not a form of emotional adultery already?

This may sound harsh but it is what you and he must truly consider - not the here and now but eternity.
 
I didnt have time to read all the previous posts but you can really ruin a lot of lives and souls following the path you are considering.
I will tell you something that 57 years on this earth has taught me…My desires or wants or needs really don’t matter much at all in the overall scheme of things. Why insist on making your life harder than it needs to be? Have you ever heard of the forbidden fruit syndrome? My guess is that if you two got together in a very short time you would be having second thoughts.
Just my 2 cents.
Mike
 
I think my message was taken wrong. A passing feeling and a feeling that is going on for years, the difference is time. I would really say that two people are not talking. I would venture that when the talk really starts there would easily be a change of feelings occurring naturally. If skyflower were to say well I love you and whatever comes to mind, he may say I can’t be with you, or I love my wife, or I love my kids and basically it says, I’m not available. Or if it happens the other way around, he says I love you and what else, hey you can love me all you want but what does that mean. I am a woman to be loved and respected and marriage is the only way to go when there is all this involved. So sorry you can’t give me what I really want which is love forever within marriage, I don’t think there is anything here. End of story. You really have to get a clear understanding of feelings and emotions to understand the clarification on that. I am not condoning anything. I am merely stating how it is which is that for there to be an allowing of a relationship which would lead to marriage and sex and all that love stuff, there needs to be two people who are truly available, meaning not married both of them, and that that only way for that to be a reality is for the man to actually and truly never have formed a union, which is only decreed through an actual anullment. Only that way. Otherwise I’d talk to the guy and say hey you are not available and you’re married and this is how it works, not just the catholic church but an actual union. I know this. Even though I may feel things for you or you may feel things for me, fact is fact, you’re married and not available. Trust me, the feelings quickly fade away when the guy is honest and so is the gal. So they have problems in the marriage. A marriage that is a marriage has the graces needed to stay a marriage. Now, is this a marriage is a question that the man asks himself because he is the married one. All Skyflower can do is be honest with him and state the facts again and accept that he is married. She doesn’t have to like it. She doesn’t have to suddenly force herself to stop feeling feelings that are out of her control. It will happen naturally. If indeed the tempation is too great by being close to him then she knows herself well enough by staying away from him. Each person is different. If a man is around me and he is making passes at me. I know full well I’d say quit your ****. Who do you think I am, some sleaze. And the jerk would quit because I’d report him otherwise of harassment. It’s called proper behavior. Sorry guys I’m just giving an example if it was a guy at work keeping looking for some type of romantic anything with me and I didn’t want it. I’d clearly say what was on my mind to protect myself.
 
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skyflower:
Hi,

a quick note to let you know that I am alive and following the debate… The reason for my not being very active is that it is somehow painful for me to talk about my situation. And I have a lot to meditate on, after your many comments and advice, before I can speak. I have also started to keep my mind busy with good, healthy thoughts, to avoid torturing myself with sad ones. It is difficult, but not impossible, and I think it helps.

I would like to thank every single one of you for your compassion and help. Some of your remarks have touched me deeply and changed my perspective on the issue.

Please, do not forget me! I need your prayers, very much!
I put my situation in the hands of the Holy Spirit. He will guide me.
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Well I’m relieved you’ve at least been following the thread…there was such good advice here and a lot of love behind them that I was worried you’d miss out!

You are certainly in our prayers!

YYM
 
By the way I am not encouraging her. If you read my posts I clearly state that a marriage is a marriage. Anullments are a reality. I have seen some and many marriages in which the two did not have a marriage and ended by divorce but in the meantime the kids were the ones to suffer from the bad marriage. Husband doesn’t respect the wife, or wife doesn’t respect the husband and it falls to the kids. A bad home life. Staying together for the kids and having a bad marriage, both together spells disaster and will show to be itself that. So when the marriage is bad, the couple needs to face life and say they need to get it fixed. For their happiness as after that happens the children get a chance at experiencing happiness too.
 
I’ve not followed the thread. But here are my two cents.

First off, I am sorry that you are in such agony.

It would be best if you two would cut it out. Decide today that you will not allow this. Decide today that it will not even be a possibility for you. When he pops up, run a mental broken tape that says “He is married. I will not ruin his marriage.” Do not harbor the fantasies. I find that the best way to block out a thought is to do a mental Hail Mary.

Love him by helping him to be faithful to his marriage. Love him by desiring Sainthood and heaven for him. Do not be an occasion of sin. Do not be a source of temptation. I’m not saying fake it. I’m saying be real. You can be real once you’ve decided to close that door. So you have to make up your mind now. Understan that the source of his agony is YOU. You are making him think that he’d be better off with you, being your hero. Please break that fantasy; let him know that he is safe to go back to his family, that you will not be distressed and that you won’t need rescuing.

What’s in it for you? Having peace of mind knowing that you did the right thing.

You are not a bad person. Because God who is all good is the one who created you, you are good. Right now you are tempted. Know that God and His angels are by your side to defeat Satan. Defiantly declare “Get away from me Satan!” and follow it with Hail Marys or some such focus on Heaven and the things of Heaven. Formula prayers are great when you are confused, then you won’t have to compose your own.

You can do it…kick that temptation in the butt and get it outta there!
 
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