Well stated. In Training seems to think that you and I are the exceptions and not the rule. I haven’t got that much pride…I know that when I look around, the destruction I see has been wrought by the moral failure of our generations. “Some people can handle it.” I guess that’s somewhat like saying some people can handle a live grenade…or have a tiger for a pet. Sooner or later, it’s gonna blow up on you. I think some people may not even realize what they have lost. If I hadn’t reverted, I may never have had that realization.
My realization came one day when my husband and I were having problems in our relationship (worse than usual). I acknowledged to myself that he really doesn’t respect me, and one of the main reasons is that when we met, I didn’t respect MYSELF enough to keep myself chaste. That kind of respect was never part of our relationship, since we started having sex probably 2 weeks after we met, with no commitment whatsoever. There is no way to go back and re-create that self-respect or create his respect now; that opportunity was forever lost. I can’t recount how deeply that realization hurt me. And it’s not as though my husband even comprehends that he doesn’t respect me on that level. He didn’t revert and doesn’t regret his own sexual past, nor the one we shared before we married. But I know that we are both affected by that past.
I will never know what it is like to have “holy sexual relations.” Part of that is my individual circumstance, being married to a man who is not Catholic in his heart. But much of it is that I gave my most intimate gift away long before I met him, and all of my previous experience (as well as his) does defile the marriage bed.
Well, that’s enough for now. I suppose those who justify having pre-marital sex have not realized the true cost yet. When they do, God’s mercy is there, but the temporal effects do not go away. I long for Purgatory.