More confusion.

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NeverAlone09

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So I don’t remember if I posted a question about this or not, but if I did, is was a while back, and somethings have changed, that if anything just further confused me.
So basically how this all started is when I went on a retreat. I wasn’t even engaged yet, but I was dating my (now) husband and I was going through RCIA and it wasn’t required for me to go on this retreat, and it’s geared towards teens (adults are very welcome though too!) about to go through confirmation, and my husband loved this retreat and continues to volunteer for it when he has the oppurtunity. So that’s the whole reason I went. The only difference is that they’ve now started separating the groups into two halves. Boys in one room and girls in the other, and basically you watch this little five minute video about being called to be a priest or nun depending on your gender (duh…lets say more obvious things shall I :P) So that’s probably the first time I noticed this…tugging feeling. After some long thought, multiple anxiety attacks and struggles with depression, it was increasingly obvious to me that it was not meant for me. Not at this point in time. It still tugged on my heart a lot though. Through prayer and such, I came to the conclusion that I am meant to be married and have a family. And life continued. With this feeling of being pulled equally to both vocations.

So lets fast forward about a year and my husband proposed to me. So yay we’re all engaged and happy stuff and I was excited to be married. I’m still excited to be married 🙂 It’s only been two months (not quite actually) and I am fully content in my marriage. I’m happily married and I can say that with absolute certainty 🙂 Sure we still have our pitfalls. He struggles with his sins and I struggle with mine, but we are happy. If we really have any big issues in our marriage, it would be my depression and anxiety (which is being treated and closely watched, and has been mostly under control with a few anxiety attacks here and there), his porn addiction, which rarely ever causes a major riff unless he screws up (which is not often at all) and I take out my emotions on him, rather than being supportive and helping him heal and find ways to help him prevent it from happening again (He doesn’t want to be this way. It’s an addiction. He messes up once in a while, like…a few times a year, like maybe 5. But we’ve got some new tools, prayers, support groups we are looking into.) and there’s that part where we have yet to consumate our marriage either due to (TMI a too think hymen that won’t break) or an irrational fear of sex I’m beginning to see where it may have come from (thanks to a particular memory magically making it’s way back into my mind, and people mentioning that it’s a possibility, and that might be connected to my low sex drive as well. Sounds like some pretty heavy stuff, and it is, but other than the whole no sex thing, it’s stuff we’ve known about for the 3 years we have been together. It’s something we’ve always been working through and has been improving.

There’s also that whole part where I’m still feel like I have a calling to be a nun. Maybe it’s because I’m really super new to Catholicism (1 1/2) and I’m still adjusting…did I discern my vocation wrong? Is it possible that maybe my husband will die young or something and then God wants me to be a nun? Is there maybe another like…married life type of vocation I’m missing here? What are my options? What do I do? Why do I honestly feel like I could be at peace with either vocation for my entire life? Do I just hope it goes away?
 
Dear, put aside all thought of being a nun. You are married and this requires…as you know :)…your dedication and commitment.
You have received a Sacrament, the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Consider gently that to become a nun is admirable and wonderful but it isn’t a Sacrament.
And no life is easy.
Your call is to live God’s commandment to love God above all and others {eg your husband)
Flower where you are planted, dear soul.
 
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Why yes you are.

You have a great purpose helping him to overcome pornography. Feel certain in that.

But there is an important question you must answer: why fear of consummation? Is it fear if who he is, or is it fear of not following your call?

Overcome the fear so that you can freely discern your call to whatever state in life you must be.

“Be not afraid”. Follow that and you will find your calling.
 
I’ll come right out and say I don’t openly fear sex, or rather, I don’t sit during the worrying that my husband might want to have relations with me. Okay, I do to some extent, but it’s mainly due to having depression, being on anti-depressants, and just a past event that I have moved on from, but now it’s just…a learned reflex. It’s a little stupid, seeing as I don’t think I’ve actually had an encounter with sexual abuse of any kind.

I actually found it almost rude. Maybe I read into it wrong but it seems that one would assume that I am somehow not thankful for the Sacrament of Marriage. Or my husband.
I think if I could some how convey over the internet how extremely torn I am about this whole thing and that I don’t know what to do you would read my question differently. I guess if I had to attempt…I suffer from severe depression. At the absolute lowest point of my depression, I cried at all the chances I had. True depression. I didn’t believe in God, I didn’t have anything here on Earth to live for, and I cried any chance I could be alone, which was most of the time, and I often broke down at school too.

Now that I’m being medicated, and the lowest point of my depression is over, I don’t cry a lot. I probably smile more than I cry for once, and you know, I actually have things to live for and I know that God is there and He loves me. I cannot be thankful enough for all the blessings He has given me, but I’m so torn about why this is tugging at my heart so much if I am married and very, very content. It is so bad that I cannot just stop thinking about it. If I could I wouldn’t, and this question would not be here from me. I know that both cannot be right. I know that I need help figuring this out because I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, and that all I’ve ever wanted it just to be with God and follow His will, but I’m feeling so confused about what His will is! And I have cried so much, because I don’t want to separate myself from Him! And I just don’t know what to do. And I thought that maybe it would go away after I was married…but how can one feel so happy and content in one vocation, but feel so pulled to the other? What is wrong with me?
 
NeverAlone09 said:
I’ll come right out and say I don’t openly fear sex, or rather, I don’t sit during the worrying that my husband might want to have relations with me. Okay, I do to some extent, but it’s mainly due to having depression, being on anti-depressants, and just a past event that I have moved on from, but now it’s just…a learned reflex. It’s a little stupid, seeing as I don’t think I’ve actually had an encounter with sexual abuse of any kind.

I actually found it almost rude. Maybe I read into it wrong but it seems that one would assume that I am somehow not thankful for the Sacrament of Marriage. Or my husband.
I think if I could some how convey over the internet how extremely torn I am about this whole thing and that I don’t know what to do you would read my question differently. I guess if I had to attempt…I suffer from severe depression. At the absolute lowest point of my depression, I cried at all the chances I had. True depression. I didn’t believe in God, I didn’t have anything here on Earth to live for, and I cried any chance I could be alone, which was most of the time, and I often broke down at school too.

Now that I’m being medicated, and the lowest point of my depression is over, I don’t cry a lot. I probably smile more than I cry for once, and you know, I actually have things to live for and I know that God is there and He loves me. I cannot be thankful enough for all the blessings He has given me, but I’m so torn about why this is tugging at my heart so much if I am married and very, very content. It is so bad that I cannot just stop thinking about it. If I could I wouldn’t, and this question would not be here from me. I know that both cannot be right. I know that I need help figuring this out because I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, and that all I’ve ever wanted it just to be with God and follow His will, but I’m feeling so confused about what His will is! And I have cried so much, because I don’t want to separate myself from Him! And I just don’t know what to do. And I thought that maybe it would go away after I was married…but how can one feel so happy and content in one vocation, but feel so pulled to the other? What is wrong with me?
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Honestly, it is very common and very normal to feel a pull in both directions. What you need to focus on is that you are married - by the bond of the sacrament, that is now your duty and your vocation.

Perhaps you could look into becoming an oblate or a secular third order religious. They are laypeople and can be married, so might be a good option for you to be faithful to your marriage bond but still be involved with a religious community. You should speak to your priest about possible communities in your area.

Catholic Encyclopaedia on Oblates
Catholic Encyclopaedia on Third Orders
 
Glad you replied. Adding what you did helps brings perspective. I’m not going to get into a debate with anyone else online, but it would seem to me that if your marriage is not consummated, well, then it is not so. Go to your priest. This is a question for personal spiritual direction.

But I will add that I know where you’re coming from. When I was a child I had to fight off some bad people. Thankfully my parents were with me and I could tell them, and they did not dismiss me. I know what an “I don’t think I’ve actually…” means to a person suffering depression. It could be that God gas preserved you then, and for a great purpose. Discerning that purpose will relieve your depression. But its hard to discern when your thoughts are clouded with anxiety isn’t it?

You fear not only the act, you fear more greatly its effect. Even you fear to admit what you fear. But this is all a part of depression - not being capable of admitting reality.

Depression has as inability to discern purposefulness as its embers and fear as a poking stick which disturbs the fire.

Obviously, God has not given you these past events in your life to overcome without a purpose. The deeper the hurt the greater the purpose. That is a fact!

You will overcome depression with faith and purpose. Either you must find purpose in your marriage, or, since it is not consummated, and you may therefore be annulled, to find purpose in religious life.

Online though, you will find 50 different perspectives. So stay offline. Don’t post anymore because it will only cloud you with more confusion.

Instead, go to your parish priest for spiritual direction. You must do this part. You will need real human contact regarding this issue if you are to overcome it.

And remember, “purpose”, ask what is your specific gift (charism) and then ask what specific purpose do you have for it, what are you called to do with it. To overcome depression one must find a designated purpose.

Godspeed and Grace,

Michael
 
See the thing is (and this is going to be short and not as emotional because I’ve been crying all night over my confusion and just praying all night asking God to help calm my thoughts so I can just get my thoughts in order.) I just don’t understand. People are always telling me “you’ll know if it’s right” and I’m sitting here thinking that this feels so right to be married, but I feel like…I’m missing out.
If anything further solidifies it, and I know this would be a terrible reason to choose one over the other, but it certainly doesn’t make me feel any better, is that we are all called to be saints, but nearly all of the saints I have read about have been nuns or priests. Very, very few are married. Okay very few that I know of, are married…and maybe I just don’t know where to look, but it almost makes me feel like…a terrible person to be married I guess (I’m tired and not the best wit words right now.) but it makes me feel like I can’t be. Which I then slap myself and say yes you can…but I almost feel as if I have to play catch up.
I feel very split sometimesabout my vocation now too. Maybe this is weird of me, but I have this like image in my head about what society thinks a family should be. Perfect white smiles, playing in a large backyard while that dad cooks on a grill in the summer…like a magazine family. Something you would see in a magazine…depicting the “american dream” I guess. I don’t desire that. I also don’t desire a dysfunctional family. Duh. I can’t really describe what I think of when I think of my future. As a married person. Part of me wonders if I got so distracted with wedding planning, that I perhaps didn’t realize I was going the wrong way. But I’d absolutely hate to think that marrying my husband was a mistake, because it wasn’t. I just feel so confused. It keeps turing into this vicious cycle and now I’m all upset again.
 
You’re just fine darlin.

It is easy to be a saint when you’re not formally in religious life. In fact, it is easier. Those who join religious orders have a much greater burden.

You my dear are perfectly fit in your marriage it looks like you have a saintly mission to help your husband overcome his pornography.

But you must overcome your fear of sexual intimacy in order to help both yourselves. Sex is a gift from God, abuse was a perversion of the devil. Take away the power of the devil by giving yourself totally to your husband in a loving act ordained by God. Your separation is the devil’s work.

Now I can sit here and follow you along on this all day, but I suspect that you are about to present another objection.

Yeah I get that. That is how anxiety works. And anxiety is the work of the devil, it is not some clinical medical diagnosis.

So rather than put up an objection to everything said, it is better to just come kit with it all up front.

But if your desire to be a religious is motivated by the fact that that was how you read some other people became saints, then your desire is disordered.

It was their charism they put to work following a specific call. If there are no further “but ifs” or other objections, you were called to this marriage, and when you consummate it, then you will know it.

If after consummation you still feel a call to do more, then consider either Opus Dei or Fransiscans, they have a branch for the married. Then you can have your cake and eat it too.

But first you need to learn to find holiness in everyday things of marriage, that alone will lead you to Sainthood!!!
 
I’m come to the conclusion (or really lack of conclusion) that I’m about twice as confused about my vocation as I was before 😦

On one hand, I’m sitting here staring at my sleeping husband (not to sound like a creeper…wow, but I really haven’t been able to sleep as of late) and just something about just seeing him and thinking abut us and I wonder how it could not be right. It feels right.

I mean I guess the best way to describe it is if it’s like there’s two different me’s in one body. Almost two completely different persons that some how got stuck in one body. The first me couldn’t imagine not being married to my husband, and not spending the rest of my life with him, and not helping him through his life and doing what I am called to do to help him. I can’t.
But the other me can’t really imagine anything other than being a nun. I’m praying about Third Orders now, and that maybe me and my stupid, young, very new to Catholicism self is really just interpreting the heart tugging (yanking is more like it) wrong.

Lets make matter even more confusing. I know I desired children whenever God wants me to in the first month of being married. I don’t know if it simply came out of excitement of being newlyweds, boredom (okay after a year of wedding planning which especially towards the last two months, kind of ate my life whether I wanted it to or not, so having so much to do and then suddenly nothing…I got kind of…bored. I don’t have much to do. My husband is at work or school all the time so that certainly doesn’t help) , or if maybe now I’m too focused on God (could there really be such a thing?) that I really doesn’t desire it all that much anymore. Being a mother just suddenly is not appealing. Who knows. Maybe it’s the lack of sex drive, or depression, but being a mother doesn’t…I don’t know.

I’m really honestly beginning to wonder if I discerned my vocation wrong. I certainly would’ve liked to know that before my husband proposed if I did.

I really can’t honestly tell you how horrible I feel to even think that though, let alone say it. “Wants the married life” me kind of wants “Wants to be a nun” me to just shut up, and vice versa honestly. But I guess what I really want right now is to feel like I did the right thing and I can actually continue life as a normal person. Right know most of me just really hopes I can make it through Confession and choir tomorrow without breaking down halfway through like I’ve been doing for the past two days. Probably doesn’t help in slightest that I really kind of feel scared to go to a priest with this issue. I’m afraid they’ll be angry, even though they probably realize I’m just a very, very, very, VERY confused person who needs a lot of help. Also, I’m very scared that I am wrong. about either vocation. It’s kind of like how you think you might have cancer, but you don’t want to go to the doctor because you don’t want to know.

I just haven’t the slightest clue, and I feel super messed up…seriously…what is wrong with me?
 
Okay, its like others said, you’re not a nun.

So, did you look up joining Opus Dei or the Fransiscans?
 
NeverAlone09 said:
I’m come to the conclusion (or really lack of conclusion) that I’m about twice as confused about my vocation as I was before 😦

On one hand, I’m sitting here staring at my sleeping husband (not to sound like a creeper…wow, but I really haven’t been able to sleep as of late) and just something about just seeing him and thinking abut us and I wonder how it could not be right. It feels right.

I mean I guess the best way to describe it is if it’s like there’s two different me’s in one body. Almost two completely different persons that some how got stuck in one body. The first me couldn’t imagine not being married to my husband, and not spending the rest of my life with him, and not helping him through his life and doing what I am called to do to help him. I can’t.
But the other me can’t really imagine anything other than being a nun. I’m praying about Third Orders now, and that maybe me and my stupid, young, very new to Catholicism self is really just interpreting the heart tugging (yanking is more like it) wrong.

Lets make matter even more confusing. I know I desired children whenever God wants me to in the first month of being married. I don’t know if it simply came out of excitement of being newlyweds, boredom (okay after a year of wedding planning which especially towards the last two months, kind of ate my life whether I wanted it to or not, so having so much to do and then suddenly nothing…I got kind of…bored. I don’t have much to do. My husband is at work or school all the time so that certainly doesn’t help) , or if maybe now I’m too focused on God (could there really be such a thing?) that I really doesn’t desire it all that much anymore. Being a mother just suddenly is not appealing. Who knows. Maybe it’s the lack of sex drive, or depression, but being a mother doesn’t…I don’t know.

I’m really honestly beginning to wonder if I discerned my vocation wrong. I certainly would’ve liked to know that before my husband proposed if I did.

I really can’t honestly tell you how horrible I feel to even think that though, let alone say it. “Wants the married life” me kind of wants “Wants to be a nun” me to just shut up, and vice versa honestly. But I guess what I really want right now is to feel like I did the right thing and I can actually continue life as a normal person. Right know most of me just really hopes I can make it through Confession and choir tomorrow without breaking down halfway through like I’ve been doing for the past two days. Probably doesn’t help in slightest that I really kind of feel scared to go to a priest with this issue. I’m afraid they’ll be angry, even though they probably realize I’m just a very, very, very, VERY confused person who needs a lot of help. Also, I’m very scared that I am wrong. about either vocation. It’s kind of like how you think you might have cancer, but you don’t want to go to the doctor because you don’t want to know.

I just haven’t the slightest clue, and I feel super messed up…seriously…what is wrong with me?
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Get some marriage counseling. Your own health and your husband are your two greatest responsibilities right now. The rest of all of it will have to come after you’ve straightened those two things out. Ok?
 
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