Relationship in the gutter.

[Norseman82]

No one kills another person’s faith without that person’s permission. I’m not saying that the OP had no skin in this game, but it sounds like she was having problems before they met, then she left the faith, and now the problems are compounded. No one deserves that much power to say that he/she destroyed someone’s faith. Just my two cents.

Sharon,

I have to disagree in this instance. Do not discount the power of the devil to seek out and ruin souls. I must repeat what he posted in his opening post here (bolded emphasis mine):

Lately this have changed. I think I’ve gradually won her over to my way of thinking, but unfortunatly, she has not adopted my positive way of thinking about a life without God. It seems she has lost faith, and not only in God, but in life as well.

In the beginning, I thought it would be good that she lost her faith, but the consequenses have been terrible. I have tried to advance the positives of a life without God, but she isn’t buying it, and I am almost ready to give up on trying to make her adopt a more positive world view.

Satan may have heard that and took that as an invitation to do his damage. Persuader should at least humble himself and try to have a diocesan exorcist evaulate her, because the change in behavior may be demonically caused. And the exorcist should be able to determine whether this is something natural or supernatural.

Additionally, the following post is probably the most important one since I last posted:

She doesn’t believe she is depressed. She says that the place in her heart where God used to be is empty, and that it is just difficult to deal with. Then she said she was trying to fill it with her love for me. That really hit me, and I couldn’ help myself. So we had sex.

This indicates a sexual addiction on at minimum her part and that both of them need to go to some sort of sexaholics anonymous group or something similar for sex addictions. Persuader, I say you need to go as well because even if you are not an addict yourself, you definitely are enabling and/or taking advantage of her addiction.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

He couldn’t help himself. She was there. So he took her.

That’s the story of that relationship. It was never about her.

He can help himself. He just doesn’t want to. Because when you have no God, you have no fear of consequences of your actions. Life becomes what you want when you want it, because after all, we’re really no better than animals, are we?

And he wonders why her mother calls him a skirt chaser.

 

[tabsie3210]

Hello, catholics. I hope this is the correct place for this kind of post.

I am not a catholic. In fact, I’m an atheist/agnostic, and personally I’m fine with that, and this has been managable in my relationship with my girlfriend. We have had our discussions and fights over these things, but it has been good.

Lately this have changed. I think I’ve gradually won her over to my way of thinking, but unfortunatly, she has not adopted my positive way of thinking about a life without God. It seems she has lost faith, and not only in God, but in life as well.

In the beginning, I thought it would be good that she lost her faith, but the consequenses have been terrible. I have tried to advance the positives of a life without God, but she isn’t buying it, and I am almost ready to give up on trying to make her adopt a more positive world view.

If I cannot persuade her on this point, I feel that I have destroyed her, and that our relationship will be over. Part of the reason I fell in love with her was because she was full of life. Now it seems that is completely gone, like a needle popping a balloon.

I have been thinking about trying to make her believe again, as this seem to be the only way to fix her. Maybe this is the last chance for our relationship, and maybe the last chance to make her what she used to be. But I have no idea on how to do this. Any advice on this, or some other way to fix things, would be greatly appreciated.

I haven’t read anybody else’s responses yet, but I have to take care of something:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

gasp - choke

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, why do you even care?! If she’s come to share your worldview that there is no God, then there is no life. Her life is utterly pointless. She will die, turn to dust, mean absolutely nothing, be worth nothing, and eventually everything will fall apart. Good gravy, man, why are you so upbeat?

You’re just a lump of educated meat (not necessarily all that educated!) hurling yourself toward empty oblivion. If both of you are now non-believers, it is YOU who should be embracing HER new attitude, not the other way around. You should be proud of her for embracing the absolute truth - that life is meaningless and ultimately absurd and that there’s nothing left to live for.

If you tanked your relationship, then you should be proud. You succeeded beyond your wildest imaginings to bring her to the ultimate truth - that if there is no God, then life is so empty it’s not worth living. It’s YOU who need to learn the lesson from HER. I suggest you go study Albert Camus and the others of his ilk. Spend time with the Absurdists. You’ll come around and eventually either decide that life does have some meaning, which means you’d better re-think your position on God, or you’ll embrace her dispair and come to own it as your own.

But don’t be a hypocrite and say that she should go back to her faith if you don’t believe that there’s any reason for it. Either embrace oblivion and worthlessness or get over yourself and pick up a Bible.

And for this rant, I’ll probably be given ten Hail Mary’s in Reconcilliaton on Saturday.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

The first time in this whole maddening thread I laughed out loud.

You are so correct, Tabitha.

 

[VonDerTann]

Hello All. Long time lurker. First time poster.

Let me offer some thoughts. I will try to be respectful, key word being “try.”

With that in mind, Persuader…what does it say about your supposed level of care, “love,” etc., for your girlfriend, when you will share the most intimate details of HER sex life with total strangers? Do you think describing her orgasms, the loss of her virginity, telling us when you had sex with her, etc., is somehow respectful of her? Have you let her read this thread? Start to finish? How would you feel if it was you, and your lack of experience, your orgasms, etc., being described to total strangers? Your graphic descriptions of her are instead quite UN-loving, UN-caring, and DIS-respectful. I’m calling you out – I doubt you’ve got the fortitude to even tell her of your postings, let alone share the thread with her,

Second, I find it utterly shameful that, over and over again, you say words to the effect of, “I am prepared to give up sex but want to explore other avenues first”…but, after coming here for advice, you reject any “avenue” which would require you to act in someone else’s best interest, rather than your own. Essentially everyone on this thread is telling you that your having sex with her is hurting her, her family, etc. That view is backed up by our Church, as a teaching institution…yet your answer, about “exploring other avenues” gets repeated. What “avenues?” The only “avenue” you seemed to like is the avenue that maybe she needs a psychiatrist,in other words, that the problem lies with her, not with you…when in fact, the problem lies in your girlfriend’s perverse, virgin-deflowering, selfish, afraid-to-give-up-sex boyfriend. You are the furthest thing from a “byfriend,” since that suggests you are a friend" to begin with. So I’m going to call you out again – you haven’t got the intestinal fortitude to give up sex.

The best - and that is used loosely - excuse you come up with for refusing to give up sex is because, essentially, “she might feel rejected.” Consider that you have stolen, or talked her into giving up, essentially everything she held dear: Her relationship with God; her family relationships; her virginity; her dignity (YOU’re the one describing her orgasms on the internet, remember?), and then whining, “I won’t give up sex because it’s all she has left!” No, it’s all you haven’t taken from her…

…And then you come here and whine that you’re not evil, and that all atheists aren’t so bad. As to the first, consider that what some call “evil,” often manifested as “selfishness,” i.e. the self above all others. As to the second, I can’t speak to what all atheists are like, but I can and will speak to the behavior you are exhibiting, and it sure looks and sounds very evil, and very selfish, to me.

Otherwise, I will second everything Liberansalmo has written since page 1,

 

[VonDerTann]

While I was ranting, I missed Tabsie’s post.

That was classic. It actually makes a great deal of sense.

 

[nicreap]

She says that the place in her heart where God used to be is empty, and that it is just difficult to deal with. Then she said she was trying to fill it with her love for me. That really hit me, and I couldn’ help myself. So we had sex.

You feel proud of yourself about that don’t you? That she is trying to replace the God shaped hole with you. Guess, what? It is a God shaped hole, not a persuader shaped hole. I find it funny that the very thing that really hit you, is why your relationship is ultimately going to crash and burn if it continues along this path. You can NEVER fill that hole, you will never come close. You can’t, as others have said, give her the happiness, joy, and agape, that God can. What she is doing is the equivilant, of draining the ocean and trying to take a single drop of water and refilling all the ocean’s. It will never happen, and one day she will realize that you CAN’T fill that hole. When that day comes, it’s over for you. You don’t believe in God, so you better pray you’re right. Because if you are wrong, and she never regains her faith, you will have to stand before a judge, who will hold you accountable for what happened to her. So celebrate the fact she is trying to fill the hole with you while you can. It is certain to fail.

 

[Persuader]

God is love. One cannot have love without God. It is impossible. One can have pleasant feelings, romance, lust, desire, affection, empathy, laughter, pleasure - however, the one thing that cannot be had with out God is love.

If you care about this girl, stop using her body and strangling her faith.

Clearly we do not agree on this point, but as I have said: She has been in this mood for about four weeks now. She will be seeing a psychiatrist shortly. I will continue my efforts to mend things with her family, and try to win them over. If the psychiatrist can’t help her, and she needs God in her life, I will do what it takes to make that happen. What I will not do, is act rashly and throw away our relationship as if it doesn’t mean anything. Especially considering how much emotion we have invested in each other. If she is depressed, this is the worst thing to do.

 

[Persuader]

“God is dead” ~Nietzsche

“Nietzsche is dead” ~God

The supernatural, like the natural, abhors a vacuum. You take God out of someone’s life, something else will rush in to fill the void.

She even told you she has an empty place where God used to be. She is grieving that in a way neither of you understand… you because you are obtuse and cannot seem to grasp any emotion or idea you do not feel or possess yourself, and her because she is young and naive.

And so your solution is to have intercourse with her again. After everything we told you.

Your ego must be ready to explode with pride. You have become her god. But unlike the real one, you will never make her happy. Not eternally happy. Not as you are now. Any attempt we here on earth make to love is really an attempt to grasp the eternal love of God. The closest we come to that is in sacramental marriage, where we are to be the face of God to our spouses and help them to attain that perfection and love of God Himself that we were created for. Is this girl becoming holier and better for knowing you? Did you lead her to God?

Her mother has you pegged right. You are a skirt chaser. You even told us you don’t intend to marry her right now. To you, sex is affection. It means nothing but something you do when kissing isn’t enough with your companion. You’ve already left others. Easy come, easy go.

To her, it was the culmination of the love of her life. But she threw it away on you. And you are an uncertain thing. She’s been on birth control for a few months. It’s starting to affect her hormones and psyche. Probably adding to her depression. Along with her estrangement from her family.

Let me tell you why her mother will never like you. To her, you are the moral equivalent of a drug dealer who got her beautiful cherished daughter hooked on drugs. But you are the drug. And it’s destroyed her. She sees you as the agent of her daughter’s decay and destruction. Now you see the damage you’ve caused, and you’re willing to do some things to fix it, or try and find people who will give her a pill or something and fix what you broke.

If you had any guts, you’d tell her “Your family was right about me. I was wrong to do what I did. I can’t do this to you any more. Please, let them help you. They loved you long before I ever knew your name and I had no right.”

But you won’t. You’ll sleep with her again tomorrow. And she’ll still be depressed. Because not even you are a good enough lover to replace God in someone’s life. And eventually the day will come when she doesn’t want you to touch her. She won’t know why, but it will happen.

All you had was sex. Without that, your relationship is nothing. Her mother knows that. You had nothing else to offer. You took more than you gave. I’m not saying you don’t feel affection for the girl. But if you really did, you would have respected her moral code and not talked her out of it. You would have been a man and said, “I know you Catholics don’t do that stuff and I respect that. So I"m going to try to become a better person and not sleep with you. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” But you didn’t do that.

Other posters have tried to tell you that your little story isn’t new, it isn’t romantic, and it isn’t special. It’s an old retread of a college cliche.

God help you if you led her to the vacuum of nothingness and she gets sucked into the vortex. You’ll go on to your next girlfriend and try to impress her with your pseudo-intellectual “I’m too good for God” garbage. Her family will be left to mourn their loss.

It was all a parlor game to you, wasn’t it… debating how much better a life without God is… . how freeing. How adult. How empty and in vain. The poor girl knows it, but right now is addicted to the drug called Persuader. And you’ll keep doling it out. Because it feeds your ego and makes you feel good that she wants you more than God.

She needs to be OFF the birth control hormones. They are not good for her. She needs to be away from you so she can get her head together.

But you won’t listen to anyone here except to argue that if it really goes irretrievably and dangerously downhill maybe you’ll someday contemplate that we have a point. And as a last resort you might take our advice.

Hope by the time you realize you don’t have all the answers it’s not too late for her.

Look, I have never said that my solution was to have sex with her again. It is just a part of our relationship, and it feels natural and right with her. Maybe you are right about the hole in her heart, that her feelings for me or for other people will not be enough for her. If so, that will be discovered soon enough. I am sure she will be seeing a psychiatrist shortly (he will be made aware of the birth control, and can give professional advice). If he cannot help her, and she doesn’t get better, I will commit to bringing her back to her faith. Remember that she has only been this way for four weeks.

As far as the rest is concerned, you are just abusive. For your information, I have gotten a lot of advice on PM from other posters who feel that some of you are zealots out of touch with reality.

 

[Persuader]

Hello All. Long time lurker. First time poster.

Let me offer some thoughts. I will try to be respectful, key word being “try.”

With that in mind, Persuader…what does it say about your supposed level of care, “love,” etc., for your girlfriend, when you will share the most intimate details of HER sex life with total strangers? Do you think describing her orgasms, the loss of her virginity, telling us when you had sex with her, etc., is somehow respectful of her? Have you let her read this thread? Start to finish? How would you feel if it was you, and your lack of experience, your orgasms, etc., being described to total strangers? Your graphic descriptions of her are instead quite UN-loving, UN-caring, and DIS-respectful. I’m calling you out – I doubt you’ve got the fortitude to even tell her of your postings, let alone share the thread with her,

Second, I find it utterly shameful that, over and over again, you say words to the effect of, “I am prepared to give up sex but want to explore other avenues first”…but, after coming here for advice, you reject any “avenue” which would require you to act in someone else’s best interest, rather than your own. Essentially everyone on this thread is telling you that your having sex with her is hurting her, her family, etc. That view is backed up by our Church, as a teaching institution…yet your answer, about “exploring other avenues” gets repeated. What “avenues?” The only “avenue” you seemed to like is the avenue that maybe she needs a psychiatrist,in other words, that the problem lies with her, not with you…when in fact, the problem lies in your girlfriend’s perverse, virgin-deflowering, selfish, afraid-to-give-up-sex boyfriend. You are the furthest thing from a “byfriend,” since that suggests you are a friend" to begin with. So I’m going to call you out again – you haven’t got the intestinal fortitude to give up sex.

The best - and that is used loosely - excuse you come up with for refusing to give up sex is because, essentially, “she might feel rejected.” Consider that you have stolen, or talked her into giving up, essentially everything she held dear: Her relationship with God; her family relationships; her virginity; her dignity (YOU’re the one describing her orgasms on the internet, remember?), and then whining, “I won’t give up sex because it’s all she has left!” No, it’s all you haven’t taken from her…

…And then you come here and whine that you’re not evil, and that all atheists aren’t so bad. As to the first, consider that what some call “evil,” often manifested as “selfishness,” i.e. the self above all others. As to the second, I can’t speak to what all atheists are like, but I can and will speak to the behavior you are exhibiting, and it sure looks and sounds very evil, and very selfish, to me.

Otherwise, I will second everything Liberansalmo has written since page 1,

Two things to say:

1. You do not know who we are, so I do not think it is a problem giving out details like this. This is one reason internet forums are useful.
2. I have not rejected giving up sex. What I am saying is that I do not know if this is the correct course of action. At least not yet. If sex is important to her, and she is depressed, taking it away form her might make things worse. That is why I want her to see a psychiatrist as the first course of action. If the psychiatrist cannot help her, and it is obvious that she needs her belief in God, I will commit myself to making that happen, and then we will probably give up the sex.

 

[Persuader]

You feel proud of yourself about that don’t you? That she is trying to replace the God shaped hole with you. Guess, what? It is a God shaped hole, not a persuader shaped hole. I find it funny that the very thing that really hit you, is why your relationship is ultimately going to crash and burn if it continues along this path. You can NEVER fill that hole, you will never come close. You can’t, as others have said, give her the happiness, joy, and agape, that God can. What she is doing is the equivilant, of draining the ocean and trying to take a single drop of water and refilling all the ocean’s. It will never happen, and one day she will realize that you CAN’T fill that hole. When that day comes, it’s over for you. You don’t believe in God, so you better pray you’re right. Because if you are wrong, and she never regains her faith, you will have to stand before a judge, who will hold you accountable for what happened to her. So celebrate the fact she is trying to fill the hole with you while you can. It is certain to fail.

Maybe she will not get over the loss of her faith. If this becomes apparent, I will commit myself to helping her regain her faith.

Scaring me will not help. As I have said, I do not believe it. I am not doing this for me, I am doing it for her. Because I care.

 

[Ankabaranka_87]

It is hard to really express everything on forums like this…I know myself that - more often than I’d like - have difficulty expressing my actual thoughts on paper/online (I’m working on it).

I know that you asked her to see her priest and as of now, she won’t…I’m curious (might not make a difference, but still a possibility) to see if there’s a Catholic counselling centre/Catholic family centre around your area. I know they have it in my area, and you pay respective of your income. For her, it could be like going to a priest…or could not be. She could feel more comfortable in this type of atmosphere. My area’s mission statement includes delivering support services to build healthy and caring communities, inspired by Christ’s social teachings. In fact, the centre in my area, for the year 2008, 70% of people using the service were non-Catholic. Why I suggest this, is that they might provide better advice that would fit her and her background in the Catholic faith (they should have had previous situations like this with mixed faiths, etc). They are non-judging, and that’s part of their mission statement.

 

[monicatholic]

persuader,

you’re damned right i’m a zealot. out of touch with reality? not hardly.

if you are really committed to helping her return to her faith, then pray for her. say, “God, I think you’re unreal. But she doesn’t, so, in your unrealness, please you help her.” that way, your worldview is safe but you’ve covered all the bases.

finally, save this thread. 1ke’s description of the mother’s point of view is worth a hundred re-reads (you didn’t get it the first time around.) and tabse’s post was frameable.

with that, man, i’m done. (and you should be too. can’t see as you’ve had much time for study today and, well, aren’t finals coming up?) i’m praying for your girlfriend. and well, whadya know. i’m praying for you, too.

 

[nicreap]

Let’s look at how this has progressed.

After this night, the air seemed to gradually go out of her. She said that she didn’t feel God anymore, and I said it was just because she didn’t believe it anymore. After some more time, she admitted that she didn’t believe it. Her mood was really deteriorating at this point, and I tried to cheer her up with no success.
.

You acknowledged, here and in other places, that her life, happiness, and joy left with her faith. Which led you to come here where you made this statement.

I have been thinking about trying to make her believe again, as this seem to be the only way to fix her. Maybe this is the last chance for our relationship, and maybe the last chance to make her what she used to be. But I have no idea on how to do this. Any advice on this, or some other way to fix things, would be greatly appreciated.

You think her finding her faith is the only way to fix her, and that you “love” her soo much you will do anything for her. At first it seemed true, you had a later post saying

I have told her that I think she seems unhappy, and that it seems to be connected to her losing her faith. Problem is, she doesn’t believe in God, and she has lost what she calls her relationship with God. She can’t force herself, but I am trying to think of things to say to make her remember how she used to be. What I would like, is some advice of what I could say or do to make her happy again. At this point I think I would consider anything.

But then you found out she couldn’t have her faith, and keep having sex with you…and oddly enough this is how you now view the situation.

If sex is important to her, and she is depressed, taking it away form her might make things worse. That is why I want her to see a psychiatrist as the first course of action. If the psychiatrist cannot help her, and it is obvious that she needs her belief in God, I will commit myself to making that happen, and then we will probably give up the sex.

So you have gone from, it seems apparent she needs her faith to be happy, and that it was what gave her life, and that you “love” her soo much you would do anything for her, even if that meant putting your pride on the sidelines, and helping her regain her faith. To I will only help her regain her faith, if a psychiatrist can’t make things better, and make her change the void in her. The only thing that changed from begining to end, was that you found out you couldn’t have sex with her and let her have her faith. You lust after her, you do not love her. You only want to do things to help her as long as you get to keep having sex with her. You acknowledged the problem and the solution, but then cast it aside when it didn’t mesh with what you want, and what you like. This is part of the reason you are taking soo much flak, You have basically told us through the course of this discussion, that you value having sex with her, more than the happiness,joy and life she once had. And you are only willing to give that back to her, if a psychiatrist can’t talk some sense into her and let you keep having sex.

You mentioned way back when, that her faith is gone, because she no longer feels she has a relationship with God, she needs to go to confession, that will help with that issue, because she doesn’t have one, she severed her communication with God through sin, with to some unknown degree, your help.

I’m still praying for both of you,

 

[flyingfish]

The only thing that changed from begining to end, was that you found out you couldn’t have sex with her and let her have her faith. You lust after her, you do not love her. **You only want to do things to help her as long as you get to keep having sex with her. ** You acknowledged the problem and the solution, but then cast it aside when it didn’t mesh with what you want, and what you like. This is part of the reason you are taking soo much flak, You have basically told us through the course of this discussion, that you value having sex with her, more than the happiness,joy and life she once had. And you are only willing to give that back to her, if a psychiatrist can’t talk some sense into her and let you keep having sex.

The OP has said nothing to indicate that he in any way attempted to persuade her to leave the Catholic faith so that he could have sex with her. For all we know, they were having sex while she was still Catholic. And from what he described she came to leave the faith from their natural conversations (that any Catholic might have not with just a boyfriend, but with any other atheist who may be a classmate or a coworker or a friend).

To be honest I am very shocked that this whole thing seems to be all about whether they are having sex for so many posters here.

He’d have to be a pretty sneaky guy to deliberately set out to convince his girlfriend to leave her faith just so that he could have sex with her. Everything he has said here contradicts that.

 

[Kindness]

FlyingFish you may be the one whose being naive here.

Even Persuader was able to join the dots very quickly and see a direct correlation between her loss of faith and her loss of joy and happiness. If you believe what the church teaches as a Catholic you know that we don’t don’t see having a sexual relationship as a recreational activity that can be separated from the rest of your life experience. You may disagree with what the church teaches but why be shocked if other believing Catholics actually argue from a position of faith?

We have different sexual ethics as Catholics, everyone who knows anything about the church knows that and we can look forward to mockery, disbelief, pity and anger from others because of it.

I’m happy to say that practicing Catholics can also look forward to happy intact marriages and a strong foundation for family life. 20 years on I know many happy Catholic marriages and families among my peers but I cannot think of one of my non-believing friends who is happily married or even is still living with the parent of their children.

I know that this situation has obviously touched a raw nerve with many people, but many of them are parents and they find it hard to keep their emotions in check.

Catholic ethics take the long term view of relationships.

 

[flyingfish]

FlyingFish you may be the one whose being naive here.

Even Persuader was able to join the dots very quickly and see a direct correlation between her loss of faith and her loss of joy and happiness. If you believe what the church teaches as a Catholic you know that we don’t don’t see having a sexual relationship as a recreational activity that can be separated from the rest of your life experience. You may disagree with what the church teaches but why be shocked if other believing Catholics actually argue from a position of faith?

This is not what shocks me. I know what the Church teaches, what I am surprised about is how so many posters have reduced the situation the young woman is in to her having sex with her boyfriend, or at least have emphasized it as the main issue that must be resolved before everything else.

I would be extremely surprised if sex with her boyfriend is the reason she lost faith, or is the reason she is depressed. I would also be extremely surprised if either her faith or her happiness returned were they to stop having sex.

I don’t know how many of you stayed chaste before marriage, but for those of you who did not, did it take away your Catholic faith and and make you so depressed that people suggested you see a psychiatrist?

 

[Kindness]

Actually I know two friends who became extremely depressed after the start of a sexual relationship, neither of whom were Catholic or Christian.

I do agree with posters who have stated that depression can be caused by many factors and as none of us know either of these young people in the situation personally it is impossible for us to know if this is a health crisis as well as a spiritual one.

Persuader considers his relationship to be “in the gutter”. He is the one who has connected the problems to her loss of faith. This is her first sexual relationship. Would you not perhaps see even a glimmer of a possibility that the fact that her first sexual relationship is also connected to her loss of faith as being a depressing experience for her?

Science has found that we have a rush of body chemicals which bond us to the person we have sex with, the more frequent the sexual contact the more we are bonded. She is bonded to someone who is in direct opposition to the others that she is bonded to i.e. her family and by extension her faith. Sad. It may have been sexy and exciting for a while but now the person she has always been is reasserting herself and she can’t keep the sadness at bay. She sounds like she is looking for meaning (reading philosophers etc.) and having sex in the hope it will take the pain away.

The difference may be that a non-Catholic viewpoint sees sex as a neutral component in this situation while a Catholic viewpoint does not.

 

[flyingfish]

Persuader considers his relationship to be “in the gutter”. He is the one who has connected the problems to her loss of faith. This is her first sexual relationship. Would you not perhaps see even a glimmer of a possibility that the fact that her first sexual relationship is also connected to her loss of faith as being a depressing experience for her?

The reason I am skeptical is that the overwhelming majority of people (Catholic or otherwise) do have sex before marriage, and they generally seem to be fine.

Later some grow in their faith and come to regret their actions, but not everyone does.

Science has found that we have a rush of body chemicals which bond us to the person we have sex with, the more frequent the sexual contact the more we are bonded. She is bonded to someone who is in direct opposition to the others that she is bonded to i.e. her family and by extension her faith. Sad. It may have been sexy and exciting for a while but now the person she has always been is reasserting herself and she can’t keep the sadness at bay. She sounds like she is looking for meaning (reading philosophers etc.) and having sex in the hope it will take the pain away.

The difference may be that a non-Catholic viewpoint sees sex as a neutral component in this situation while a Catholic viewpoint does not.

Do you think then that any Catholic who is married and having sex with a non Catholic would similarly become depressed? The body chemicals in play would be exactly the same.

I am just skeptical that premartial sex is powerful enough to destroy someone’s faith and drive them into depression. This woman is a college student, she is not a child. Most women will have had sex by their 20’s. Her body chemistry can’t tell if she is having legitimate married sex or premarital sex, it would be the same either way. And there are plenty successful marriages where people disagree about religion, at the very reason the act of having sex with someone of different faith isn’t established to bring out depression that scares the boyfriend enough to talk of psychiatrist and ask strangers for help.

It seems far more likely to me that she is having an existential crisis that many young people have. People that age start to question what they grew up with, it’s not uncommon for Catholics to fall away from the Church in college. I’m would bet that this forum is full of people who drifted away when they were young and later returned to the Church.

 

[Kindness]

I agree FlyingFish that it is a common for young people at this age to have a crisis of meaning.

I did not state however that her bonding with her sexual partner caused her depression. I said that it conflicted with her beliefs and what she knew her family would want for her. This mental and spiritual conflict could have caused her depression. It would make logical sense if it did.

Persuader attempted to get her mom to say and do something that will make his girlfriend feel better. He is therefore also asking her mother to go against her own beliefs too.

Noone has suggested that this young woman is a child or attempted to patronize her in anyway as far as I can tell. As you state most young people will have a sexual relationship at this age. It is disingenuous however to not entertain the possibility that this does not create pain and problems as well as enjoyment and delight.

In general - not in all cases or particulars - men and women’s sexuality operates differently. A case in point are the vast throngs of young women flocking to see New Moon and the other Twilight series movies. Why are they enamoured with a beautiful and sexy vampire who won’t sleep with his one and only love unless it is forever? Women’s sexuality works differently. A man (if his beliefs don’t get in the way) usually can have sex any time any where with almost anyone. Women not usually.

I guess we can tell her to take her contraceptives and maybe some anti-depressants, tell her she has a problem that needs to be fixed while her boyfriend is kind, normal and healthy and she needs to be more "fun to be around’ again.