Tell a girl about my past sexual sin before dating?

[kevinmags]

So Ive been blessed with this great catholic girl iam crazy about. Shes an incredibly holy and inspiring person. But ive had sex before, I made a mistake one time with a girl i thought was my soul mate and had sex with her. I regretted it from that moment but ive confessed. Time has passed and i really want to date this new girl but i think she deserves the perfect guy. Am i right in thinking its better to flat out tell her and ask her to accept me before we start a relationship rather than telling her later on after weve started our relationship. I dont want her to feel like ive lied to her and was hiding it from here if it never came up in conversation. I dont want her to waste her time on me if she doesnt want to marry a non virgin guy i cant blame her.
So advice please? i havent told anyone about this. Girls is it better if a guy just flat out told you he liked you but his sin was holding him back? Is completele upfront honesty about my past the best route? thanks so much

 

[bilop]

So Ive been blessed with this great catholic girl iam crazy about. Shes an incredibly holy and inspiring person. But ive had sex before, I made a mistake one time with a girl i thought was my soul mate and had sex with her. I regretted it from that moment but ive confessed. Time has passed and i really want to date this new girl but i think she deserves the perfect guy. Am i right in thinking its better to flat out tell her and ask her to accept me before we start a relationship rather than telling her later on after weve started our relationship. I dont want her to feel like ive lied to her and was hiding it from here if it never came up in conversation. I dont want her to waste her time on me if she doesnt want to marry a non virgin guy i cant blame her.
So advice please? i havent told anyone about this. Girls is it better if a guy just flat out told you he liked you but his sin was holding him back? Is completele upfront honesty about my past the best route? thanks so much

Way too early to tell her. It will seem weird and creepy.

Unless she asks you directly, wait until you are considering a serious relationship.

God Bless

 

[kevinmags]

Way too early to tell her. It will seem weird and creepy.

Unless she asks you directly, wait until you are considering a serious relationship.

God Bless

weve been really good friends for a few months she knows mostly everything about me. were going on dates but i feel like this sin is holding me back from starting an honest relationship

 

[bilop]

weve been really good friends for a few months she knows mostly everything about me. were going on dates but i feel like this sin is holding me back from starting an honest relationship

Have you confessed your sin? If so, then it’s gone.

She almost certainly has mortal sins in her past as well. Neither needs to be disclosed at this point in the relationship.

God Bless

 

[kevinmags]

I just want to be honest with her about who I am. Many religious women simply do not want to marry a non virgin boy.
any differing opinions? please?

 

[brinkman2310]

Has it occurred to you that she might not care about your sexual past?

 

[PaulinVA]

Kevin, do not define yourself as someone who had sex once and is forever broken with a need to to disclose this to everyone you meet.

If a girl wants to marry a virgin, she will ask.

 

[bilop]

I just want to be honest with her about who I am. Many religious women simply do not want to marry a non virgin boy.
any differing opinions? please?

And there will be a time to be completely open, but not until you’re contemplating getting serious.

Even if you were both highly secular and had many previous sex partners, you wouldn’t discuss that on or before the first date.

God Bless

 

[JimG]

Too much honesty about one’s past is not necessarily a good thing.

You should each confess your sins to your priest, not each other. You are not each other’s confessors.

Often the desire to tell all is simply a desire to make oneself feel better by letting it all hang out. Don’t demand that your girlfriend be your therapist.

 

[Catholic1954]

So Ive been blessed with this great catholic girl iam crazy about. Shes an incredibly holy and inspiring person. But ive had sex before, I made a mistake one time with a girl i thought was my soul mate and had sex with her. I regretted it from that moment but ive confessed. Time has passed and i really want to date this new girl but i think she deserves the perfect guy. Am i right in thinking its better to flat out tell her and ask her to accept me before we start a relationship rather than telling her later on after weve started our relationship. I dont want her to feel like ive lied to her and was hiding it from here if it never came up in conversation. I dont want her to waste her time on me if she doesnt want to marry a non virgin guy i cant blame her.
So advice please? i havent told anyone about this. Girls is it better if a guy just flat out told you he liked you but his sin was holding him back? Is completele upfront honesty about my past the best route? thanks so much

Too much information for a first date! Give her a chance to get to know you better, wait for the subject to come up and then tell her. Be honest with her and let her make up her own mind how she feels about it.

 

[thewanderer]

My opinion is that you should tell her if she asks about it or if it seems like she is interested in a more serious relationship. You already know each other and have been dating so it is possible that you are at an appropriate enough time to tell her. Honestly,I would just say think and pray about it and if you feel as though you have to tell her in good conscience because of the level of comitment in your relationsship then find a time to do so and do it in the least awkward manner you can. However, please do not feel as though you are “damaged goods” or any less worthy of a good healthy catholic relationship just because of this one failing. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone brings their own unique problems and issues into a relationship and marriage. The important thing is to find someone that can still respect and love you unconditionally despite your own personal failings because that is what you deserve, unconditional love and comitment.

 

[Mangaartist]

I think everyone would benefit from having a serious conversation about their expectations when considering entering a relationship. Such a conversation may be a good time to tell her, but I could also see the justification for waiting longer. I would rather know earlier, though, otherwise I’d feel like he’s been hiding something serious for a long time.

 

[The_Bucket]

Too much honesty about one’s past is not necessarily a good thing.

You should each confess your sins to your priest, not each other. You are not each other’s confessors.

Often the desire to tell all is simply a desire to make oneself feel better by letting it all hang out. Don’t demand that your girlfriend be your therapist.

This. I’d really only get into it if there was a serious, serious reason. Like you have a sexual disease or an addiction of some kind. You don’t. So take Jim and the other posters’ advice and keep it to yourself. Your sin is gone OK? You had contrition, you confessed it and it’s over. Like, really and truly over.

PaulinVA is quite right here. You’re defining yourself as a guy who is “not worthy” of other people because you committed a sin that’s now totally forgiven and washed away. Don’t do that. Satan wants you to do that, not God.

 

[7armyrugrats]

Honestly I don’t think it really matters what happened in your past, her past, or your priest’s past. You’ve gone to confession, your sins are forgiven as long as you have atoned for them AND forgiven yourself. If she is as good a Catholic as you say then she knows this as well. What matters now is how you live your life from here on out.

I had the opposite dilemma. I was a single mom, my husband was a virgin. He obviously knew I had a history (kind of hard to hide a 4 yr old boy), and he didn’t care one bit. It was not important to him at all. He saw me and my son as blessings from God and I knew he was the answer to my prayers. I had prayed for years to St. Joseph to send me someone like him. My husband adopted my son, gave him his last name, and views him no differently than our other children. All are equal in his eyes.

 

[dconklin]

I just want to be honest with her about who I am. Many religious women simply do not want to marry a non virgin boy.
any differing opinions? please?

Religious women? Virgin boys? Where are you getting your info? As someone who has made the mistake… Never assume a woman is or thinks like any other woman - especially a group of women.

Congrats on finding a wonderful Catholic woman!

 

[Carolus_Martell]

Say nothing about that encounter, don’t you think it logical that she may conclude that to be an insinuation that you want to know what she’s done too? Young folks like yourselves don’t need that pressure…if in doubt just ask your mom or dad.

So you had sex …sheesh, it’s not like you’re a convicted felon or forced to wear the scarlet letter. It’s a fact that we’re all sinners. Instead of worrying about your past concentrate, plan and mentally rehearse what you’re going to do in showing her a good time. It’s a night out…have some fun.

 

[thewanderer]

Say nothing about that encounter, don’t you think it logical that she may conclude that to be an insinuation that you want to know what she’s done too? Young folks like yourselves don’t need that pressure…if in doubt just ask your mom or dad.

So you had sex …sheesh, it’s not like you’re a convicted felon or forced to wear the scarlet letter. It’s a fact that we’re all sinners. Instead of worrying about your past concentrate, plan and mentally rehearse what you’re going to do in showing her a good time. It’s a night out…have some fun.

I strongly disagree with this. If you are dating someone you are working towards developing a relationship that entails a complete gift of self to the other. This means that as your attatchment and commitment to each other grows so does your obligation to be honest about yourself and to tell the other of anything which might affect your future relationship. Whether or not now is the correct time for the OP to tell this girl none of us can know for sure, however, it is absolutely something he needs to tell her at some point before they get married (assuming this relationship goes that far). It is not ok to hide something like that.

 

[Sillara]

I strongly disagree with this. If you are dating someone you are working towards developing a relationship that entails a complete gift of self to the other. This means that as your attatchment and commitment to each other grows so does your obligation to be honest about yourself and to tell the other of anything which might affect your future relationship. Whether or not now is the correct time for the OP to tell this girl none of us can know for sure, however, it is absolutely something he needs to tell her at some point before they get married (assuming this relationship goes that far). It is not ok to hide something like that.

Thank you! If you had not posted this, I was going to.

Yes, forgiveness of the eternal consequences of our sins is granted at absolution, but the temporal consequences remain. Furthermore, this is ABSOLUTELY something you need to discuss before marriage. It may very well be that she will not mind, but that is her decision to make, not the OP’s to make for her because he confessed it to his priest. Of course not everyone needs to know your sins, but your potential spouse does need to know your sexual past.

(Take heart, though, OP! I was a virgin girl, extremely religious to boot, whose then-boyfriend was not. We have been married over 15 years now, and we are the happiest couple I have ever met. )

 

[EasterJoy]

I think that conversations about attitudes can come before more personal disclosures. Opportunities for these come up…an example comes up, and you ask, “What do you think about such-and-so example?” People have these over every sort of topic, from the personal to the totally irrelevant (such as how one would act if she had been born in line to the British throne).

If you find out, however, that she currently thinks she’d “never marry someone who wasn’t a virgin”, then probably a follow-up of “do you mean someone who wasn’t a virgin because their attitude was that pre-marital sex wasn’t wrong, or do you also mean someone who wasn’t a virgin because they allowed themselves a near occasion of sin and were too weak to keep from falling?” would be in order as part of the conversation. If she says that it depends on some extenuating factor or other, you can withhold a disclosure as long as the discussion stays theoretical.

If she asks you point-blank whether you’re talking about yourself, then if you are having a private conversation, the jig is up. You say yes, and you do not add details, if not asked. If you are having a conversation that is not private, you say “this is an OK place to have a theoretical discussion, but I hardly think I’m going to fill everyone here in on the exent to which I have a past or lack one!!” But then later you let her know that yes, you were leading up to a disclosure that might prove urgent for her to know.

If it ever becomes clear during such disclosures of attitude that your past would normally be a deal-breaker, then you ought to disclose as soon as you have the privacy to do it, even if she does not ask. If she says in theory that she does not care, then you still tell her eventually, but wait longer if you give her openings to ask and she chooses to let them pass. She has to be given some means to allow the men she allows to court her to withhold what she thinks is TMI too soon!

Do not assume that she will not change her mind if she has categorical opinions that seem to exclude you. Present company, when its full story is known, has this way of soliciting exclusions!

 

[EasterJoy]

I strongly disagree with this. If you are dating someone you are working towards developing a relationship that entails a complete gift of self to the other. This means that as your attatchment and commitment to each other grows so does your obligation to be honest about yourself and to tell the other of anything which might affect your future relationship. Whether or not now is the correct time for the OP to tell this girl none of us can know for sure, however, it is absolutely something he needs to tell her at some point before they get married (assuming this relationship goes that far). It is not ok to hide something like that.

BUT–If she were to tell him, “if he has confessed his past because he believes it to be wrong and has suffered no practical consequence I need to know about, I don’t want to know”, then he may honor her stated policy. That is not hiding.