Yes, robertmidwest, I consented to fooling around before marriage and now want to uphold church teaching to the letter of the law. Isn’t that the usual course of events when you have been sinful and make a determined effort to change your ways and follow the path of Jesus? In my mind, getting pregnant outside of wedlock was not an option, but, cliche as it sounds, we were in love and couldn’t wait to be together in that way. Yes, there was some component of my being afraid of losing him if I didn’t go along with it. That was wrong and weak of me. You can’t imagine how much I regret it now.
You are also correct that there were red flags. There were many red flags I can see clearly now. There were some red flags I recognized then and chose to ignore. I cannot go back and change my naivete and mistakes from 10 years ago, but I can own my situation now and try to do the right thing. That is what I am trying to do.
I’ll show you how things add up…I had never been in love before. I had never been in a long-term relationship before. We met in a liturgy study group and built our relationship around standing for the pro-life movement. He had recently gotten out of a marriage ofconvenience whose purpose was, indeed, to help him get more money. He seemed contrite and was recommitting himself to the faith. He was full of zeal for the faith and so was I. I felt God’s blessing was upon our relationship and marriage. He sought an annulment for the marriage of convenience and it was granted. A while after we were married, he told me of yet ANOTHER marriage, a courthouse marriage. Of course I would have insisted that he have that marriage annulled, also. By the time he did tell me about it, we were married and had a child, so I just put it aside because I still believed in our marriage and what could I do about it at that point? I was disappointed and angry, but I let it go and forgave him.
So, yes, I agree with you, actually. I messed up. My marriage to him was a mistake. But, from it came a beautiful child and she deserves to have the best chance in life to see examples of lasting marriages and living examples of forgiveness.
Besides calling me out on my previous mistakes and calling me immature, do you have any advice about how to address my current situation? I know that NFP is not the root of our marriage problems, but since that is what my husband has chosen to put most of the FOCUS on, that’s what I have to deal with. Since you think I’m playing a victim role in the NFP and church genre, what would you have me do? Go along with my husband’s wishes? I’m not sure exactly what you’re getting at.
Just like anything else, say alcohol or drug addiction, the first step to recovery is acknowledging you (in this case, your husband) have a problem. You may very well lead by example and sometimes that acts as a catalyst for the other person, who loses a person to help them keep up their little game, but it’s really up to them.
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