Mental battle raging.Any help would be appreciated!

[MCH]

First, gratitude that you catch the thoughts starting and pray.
Keep up the spiritual muscle building. From what I’ve studied,
the ones who do NOT fall to temptation REALIZE how strong the temptation is/can be. The ones who fall, do not.

Second, prayer and not falling to temptation, brings greater and
stronger temptation. Keep praying and resisting.

Third, it goes away. Not forever, keep up your guard, but it does subside and disappear for long amounts of time.

Intimacy, spiritual, emotional, and physical is a natural human drive. My priest defined simply for me prudence, knowing what to say/do when. Who better to feel spiritual and emotional intimacy with than someone so close to God, how can we help it.
Fourth, anyone who doesn’t admit to ever having those thoughts for someone who they ‘shouldn’t’ is not being honest.

I’m allowed to pray for you, it says up there I am a prayer warrior,
one of my most beloved titles.

Thank you, thank you and to everyone else who has given me prayers to recite and advice.I really appreciate it.

 

[Rebelecka]

St. Faustina turned to our Blessed Mother for help in issues of purity.

O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer You my soul, my body, my life and my death, and all that will follow it. I place everything in Your hands. O my Mother, cover my soul with You virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with Your power against all enemies…
Diary, Notebook1, para.79

 

[dolphinlove]

I went through a similar situation to yours, except i was the one sleeping with a married man and i was single.
I asked myself the usual questions, how can something so right feel so wrong? why, out of all the men, i fall in love with a married one? etc etc etc.
Well now i have gotten past that phase in my life, thanks be to God for giving me the strength to come back home.
When i thought about my actions and what provoked me into them was lust. What i was feeling was not love, but lust.
The way i got out of it is a long story which ended up with me being terribly hurt, but the point is im making is, it is hard, but you have to let go. I know how you feel (from the lust point of view) and how hard the struggle is.
Instead of thinking about wanting to have sex with this man, ask yourself, what else do you like about this man? I bet you will end up with hardly anything at all when you ask yourself this question.
Secondly, i think its very good you are praying and reading, that helped me a lot. Especially praying the rosary helped me so much.
But the most important thing to remember is you are married, you must concentrate on your husband.
These lustful thoughts that enter your mind are strong, i know that, as i said ive been there, but nothing is stronger than prayer and God grace. The more you pray, the easier it gets, thats what i found worked for me.
It does drive a person crazy, its almost like you lose all rationalization, but really deep down, take yourself out and ask yourself what do you think you will get out of the situation besides guilt and a broken heart?
Keep praying and may God be with you.
If you have any questions about my history or any questions that you would like help with, please pm me, as i dont really want to air all my history out in the open, but im more than happy to help you get through this.
God Bless

 

[pumpkinbeast]

My hunch is that, because you’re doing all the right things to get this temptation out of your life, this is Satan’s last ditch effort to drag you back down into it. He’s really worried. He thought he was getting a hold on your soul, when you were falling into the affair with this priest, and now you’ve managed, with God’s help, to pull yourself out. So, Satan’s a bit upset, I imagine.

So keep at it, tell Satan and his servants to get out of your mind and heart, and pray that Michael the Archangel, your own guardian angle, and the love of Jesus surrounds you, and keep the Evil one at bay. This is the last stretch before the battle is won! Keep praying! I’ll pray for you, too.

 

[Siena]

2 words- SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Keep a St. Benedict medal blessed by a priest with the exorcism prayer on your person at all times.

I keep one in my pocket almost every day (sometimes sleep with it, too, when it’s really bad).

It works wonders for this.

osb.org/gen/medal.html

 

[LISA_Annette]

I have never experienced anything like this before.Recently, I have gone through some very trying times,and the positive side is that I feel closer to God than I have in a long time.I spend more time than ever reading my bible and praying, because it was when I took my eyes off Him that I got involved in things I should not have been involved in as a married woman.

However, the closer I want to get to God the more I feel that I am literally being attacked.My transgression was of a sexual nature- we didn’t have sex, but wanted to(just as bad), and to compound things, he is a priest(as many of you know who helped me through my saga!).

What is happening, is that the most terrible impure thoughts keep invading my mind, at the most inopportune moments.These thoughts involve him and I and sex.An example will be the minute Mass starts, I keep imagining what it would have been like to have sex with him-could it be worse!!!.I keep blocking each thought with a prayer the minute it enters my mind, because I do not want to entertain such disgusting thoughts and images.I spend the entire service doing that- the result is that I could not have told you any of the readings, sermon,etc.Or it happens when my husband and I are intimate-and puts me off totally.

I have confessed my transgression, told my husband, ended contact, and don’t want to be thinking these thoughts.It’s as if I have no control over them, and all I can do is pray when this happens.

I must say I am exhausted with this mental battle going on all the time.The more I pray the worse it seems to get.

Has anyone else experienced this?Any other ideas to deal with the situation?How long can it keep going on for?I am getting my life back in order, and these thoughts keep reminding me of the whole sorry incident,which I am trying to put behind me.I really am desperate.

 

[LISA_Annette]

I have never experienced anything like this before.Recently, I have gone through some very trying times,and the positive side is that I feel closer to God than I have in a long time.I spend more time than ever reading my bible and praying, because it was when I took my eyes off Him that I got involved in things I should not have been involved in as a married woman.

However, the closer I want to get to God the more I feel that I am literally being attacked.My transgression was of a sexual nature- we didn’t have sex, but wanted to(just as bad), and to compound things, he is a priest(as many of you know who helped me through my saga!).

What is happening, is that the most terrible impure thoughts keep invading my mind, at the most inopportune moments.These thoughts involve him and I and sex.An example will be the minute Mass starts, I keep imagining what it would have been like to have sex with him-could it be worse!!!.I keep blocking each thought with a prayer the minute it enters my mind, because I do not want to entertain such disgusting thoughts and images.I spend the entire service doing that- the result is that I could not have told you any of the readings, sermon,etc.Or it happens when my husband and I are intimate-and puts me off totally.

I have confessed my transgression, told my husband, ended contact, and don’t want to be thinking these thoughts.It’s as if I have no control over them, and all I can do is pray when this happens.

I must say I am exhausted with this mental battle going on all the time.The more I pray the worse it seems to get.

Has anyone else experienced this?Any other ideas to deal with the situation?How long can it keep going on for?I am getting my life back in order, and these thoughts keep reminding me of the whole sorry incident,which I am trying to put behind me.I really am desperate.

Do you attend mass where he is giving it? If I were you, I would change. There was once about 20 yrs ago i had a stupid crush on a young priest just as I was getting serious about my faith, and it was in my regular parish. I was so unhappy about my feelings that I changed parishes—when my mom asked me why–I said about my feelings. They were very troublesome to me.

edit 10 min later: yes i get over it—you will too. But I did not get over it until I left the parish. PLease do taht if you haven’t already.

Go to a spiritual counselor one that is an LPC and discuss the thoughts. They sound invasive in nature, almost as if you would prefer NOT to have them. edit: I have had these kinds of invasive thoughts, too. I could not tell you what is the matter without sounding like an expert–it could be any number of things from purely spiritual in nature, to psychological, or a combo—just get help from an expert who is BOTH Catholic and licensed. Please do that as well as pray. I will pray for you too. Remember: many saints have had these temptations (and worse, I imagine) but it is how they dealt with them that made them wiser than the rest. God Bless you, and pray for the Holy Souls—and ASK their intercession.

 

[LISA_Annette]

Do you attend mass where he is giving it? If I were you, I would change. There was once about 20 yrs ago i had a stupid crush on a young priest just as I was getting serious about my faith, and it was in my regular parish. I was so unhappy about my feelings that I changed parishes—when my mom asked me why–I said about my feelings. They were very troublesome to me.

edit 10 min later: yes i get over it—you will too. But I did not get over it until I left the parish. PLease do taht if you haven’t already.

Go to a spiritual counselor one that is an LPC and discuss the thoughts. They sound invasive in nature, almost as if you would prefer NOT to have them. edit: I have had these kinds of invasive thoughts, too. I could not tell you what is the matter without sounding like an expert–it could be any number of things from purely spiritual in nature, to psychological, or a combo—just get help from an expert who is BOTH Catholic and licensed. Please do that as well as pray. I will pray for you too. Remember: many saints have had these temptations (and worse, I imagine) but it is how they dealt with them that made them wiser than the rest. God Bless you, and pray for the Holy Souls—and ASK their intercession.

I can’t edit anymore, but i read that you have distanced yourself. You just need to calm yourself—go to A good Catholic counselor as i suggested, and talk about it. I was also given very good spiritual advice once from a good and holy priest: when you have temptations, don’t get stressed out about removing it—just put a holy thought in its place in a calm way—it may take several tries to do it, but you will succeed with the help of God. The important thing to do is NOT STRESS out because*** if ***it is the devil that is causing it—as he put it—then you are giving it a victory, and it will continue to press your buttons. Let it see you that you are triumphing in peace—even if the peace is feigned at the beginning, you will eventually have peace.

But as we know, temptations come from 3 of several places (the world, yourself, or the devil------or a combo) and we won’t ever know for sure. You just have to cover every possibility by receiving help, with prayer, holy water, fasting, and counseling. I am not trying to say that you WANT the temptations by saying it may come from you—but that it comes from our fallen human nature : our tendency to weakness or even psycholigical difficulty.

I hope you are not offended by my post, because all that i have to tell you is from my experience. I am sorry for my misinterpretation.