Sex outside of marriage, here in the United States, seems like it is normal and accepted, if not expected. It sometimes seems like everyone does it. We see plenty of examples of it all around us. Sometimes there are consequences to people and sometimes it seems like people are perfectly fine and happy living in sin. I don’t know all the reasons why our society has gotten to this point. I do know people can and have gone against the norm and lived a more holy life. Generally, I have not been one of those people. I have sinned greatly in this area throughout my life. Thank God for the sacrament of Confession! It gives us an opportunity to confess, repent, and lead a different life free from the bondage of sin!
Why did I have sex outside of marriage and as Dr. Phill would say “How’s that working for you?” Promiscuity is a known symptom of childhood sexual abuse. I do know from my own experiences that this is very true. I felt more in control of my body and sexuality and more distanced from the abuse I had experienced when I made the purposeful choice to sleep with someone. I didn’t realize how much more control and more powerful it would have been to make the purposeful choice NOT to sleep with anyone outside of marriage. Why it took so long for me to figure out what now seems obvious, I don’t know. From age 17 to age 24, I had more sexual partners than I would care to admit. Also during that 7 year time frame I drank, used drugs, was a cutter, attempted suicide, practiced witchcraft, a couple of those years worked as a professional psychic, and more. I think it is clear from the other things I was also doing that having sex was not making my life happier or better in any way at all.
The first man I had a sexual relationship with was 29 years old and I was 17. I had my own apartment at 17 years old because of a need to be away from a dysfunctional family life. The life I was making for myself wasn’t much better though. This 29 year old man I met while working at a grocery store. He was a customer at the store and asked me out when I was helping him take his groceries to his car. (I am sure he didn’t actually need “carry out” help with his groceries.) I was attracted to him but I was very foolish in sleeping with him not only without marriage but without even spending time getting to know his values and ambitions or much at all about him. We had sex back at my apartment one afternoon and while we were still lying together in the bed he told me that if I got pregnant I should get an abortion and not tell him about it. He said he didn’t think he could handle knowing. Even in all my sins his statement was horrific to me! I couldn’t believe he actually said that to me! I got up, got dressed, tossed his clothes at him, and escorted him to the door. He stood in the doorway and said “I really messed up didn’t I?” I nodded and shut the door in his face. He tried to come by and call many times after that but I never spoke to him again. I finally had a male friend pretend to be my boyfriend and threaten him to make him stop trying to call me.
I won’t go into any detail of other men I had in my life, many all too quickly. I think it is enough to say that I can firmly say from much experience having sex outside of marriage does not accomplish any good at all. Sometimes it might be physically pleasurable or briefly it might be emotionally pleasurable but ultimately it is empty and hurtful.
In 2000 at age 24 I started seeing my daughter’s father. We had things backwards from day one. Sleeping together before deciding if we had feelings of love for each other; getting pregnant before getting married; signing the marriage license so I could be on his health insurance while pregnant and putting of any ceremony for a couple years. I fully knew entering into it that the marriage was not one that the Catholic Church would consider valid. He had been previously married and being a baptized Catholic I would have had to have the marriage in the church. We also had alternative vows, not forever vows. The vows I originally planned on were taken from Neal Donald Walsh’s “Conversations with God” book. (Don’t let the title of the book fool you, it is a book series full of heresy). Problems in the relationship caused us to postpone the ceremony further. We had already just cancelled the booked venue at Pine Valley Park in the mountains when I heard there was a massive forest fire in that area. The weekend we had originally planned our ceremony the whole area was evacuated due to this fire. (Was that some kind of sign?) A couple years later my older sister announced her engagement and when talking to her about her ceremony I sighed “one day I will have a wedding ceremony too.” She then offered to make it a double wedding ceremony and I accepted. We went with the venue I had originally planned but she had a Wiccan friend of who would preform the ceremony re-write the vows I had. Much of what I had from the conversations with God book was still in the vows but there were some elements of Wiccan hand-fasting added to it. A while after returning to the church I was watching video’s of Father John Corapi, (present scandal aside, Father Corapi has some inspired works.) Father Corapi’s talk on dating advice includes the quote “an error in the beginning is an error indeed”) Verily, Verily, this is so true!
Many of the problems in my relationship with my daughter’s father come from his pornography addiction. In part my original acceptance and participation in the viewing of pornography was a big problem as well. I had not yet returned to the church but when I had short term disability time off for a detached retina in my left eye, I had more time to alone to begin to see more clearly! Ironic, I had a surgery on my eye, had to keep my eye covered and head down, ended up with a blind spot, and this was the time I was able to see the evil of porn more clearly. He didn’t like that I was no longer okay with it. I didn’t like that he would start to lie to me about it and break my trust. After we had our daughter I almost left him when I found out he had viewed porn on the computer while our newborn daughter was in the room with him. I never really got over that, and he never got over the changes to the relationship either. The marriage ended though not long after I returned to the church. He would like to blame the church since our marriage being invalid and his refusal to take the steps to correct that were ultimately the very end of the relationship. However, our combined sins from the beginning to the end were the problem, not the church. Perhaps one day he will realize that and maybe he will accept Jesus one day and be saved. It seems impossible but my returning to the church at one point seemed impossible too.
Wow, this blog is turning out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be so I am adding “Part 1” to the title and stopping here for now. I didn’t touch on birth control yet and only slightly on abortion, but I feel like this is a bit too long for a single blog at this point. Tomorrow I am leaving for a camping trip with my parish. I will not have internet access up there but when I return I may post a blog about the camping trip before I finish this topic with part 2. Feedback appreciated to help me write a better blog in the future! Thanks!
There are similarities with my story, April. You are courageous and tactful in sharing yours. Praise God that despite all of our ignorance, our mistakes, our sinfulness, He brought us to Himself and He blessed us with our wonderful children.
ReplyDeleteIn the Scriptures we see how Jesus revealed Himself in the breaking of the bread after he had been talking for a long while with a couple of the disciples. There are so many people who have not yet had this revelation, because until one wants the connection, or wants to do right, we are blind to the spiritual realm of God, and He does not impose Himself on us, He gave us free will to choose Him.
I used to think that God was long gone, that He didn't care about what happened to me, I blamed Him for everything, and I was focused on all of the bad things that were happening to me and in my life. I believed in God, but I did not understand that most of what happened to me was due to my human sinful response after the sins of others came to me. The problem is the more we sin and feel right about it, the farther we are from God. And Satan has his evil way with us, because we are lost and without that grace of God. Like a guilty child, we avoid our parents, God and Mary our Mother, and the darkness builds and engulfs us, and we don't even know it exists or that we are bringing so many dire consequences upon ourselves.
We learned from everywhere to see things from the human perspective, skeptical eyes. From our point of view, our behavior seemed right to us because we learned from everyone how little and how gone our God was, that we make our own life, that our opinion is just as good as the next person's, and we believed them all because it all made sense to us. Mostly it made so much sense because of the injustice that we see in the world, and those abuses that fell upon us. We were wounded and few people could see past our sins, unfortunately, which meant further rejection rather than Christian love and acceptance, which is the fertile ground for spiritual growth. We were judged and further taken advantage of, and somehow unbeknownst to us, we shared in doing our part in the dark world of sin, using others to try to meet our own needs.
At least, this is how I see things now, after making the choice to do things God's way whether I understand or not. Things have drastically changed and improved since learning about the truth of our Catholic faith.
I don't know everything about our faith, I am a very simple person who just trusts Jesus and Mary, because of what happens in my life. I could never have the time to write of how many miracles my family has experienced over the past 2 years, things that I would have not been thankful for in years past except to find it curious and cool.
To anybody who thinks that God exists somewhere far far away, let me say start looking at things that seem like serendipity good luck or fortunate, fate, and coincidence, differently, and just begin to wonder if these things might possibly be from God, your Father; because you know something, He is really there for you, and this is a way that God communicates with us to get our attention. Give Him your attention and He will give you His grace. Seriously. It's all up to you.