In complete distress :(

Hello,
I am in complete distress. I started a relationship some weeks ago with a girl
I met from a dating app on my cellphone. It was all fine until this
relationship progressed. To this I have to add that she’s completely right
about my personality and the (sometimes hard and painful) words she says about
me. I’m a complete freak, I love history and collecting information and items
about sports, politics and other issues. I talk too much, and most of time time
my conversations make her feel tired because she’s not at all into reading. A
week before she wanted me to give her my cellphone to see if I was still
talking to the girls I meet from the dating apps. And yes, it is true that I
have met over 10 women from those websites but I didn’t become intimately
involved with all of them and in the cases where I did, I was with them only
once or at most twice. I adamantly refused to give her my cellphone because I
still had the old messages from these women (and since I started a relationship
with her I haven’t met anyone else, I’ve never been unfaithful when I am in a
relationship). We settled the issue and I agreed to delete all these
applications from my cellphone. And by the way, she judged me for meeting those
women putting me in a bad way (and it is true that what I did with those women
was bad and shameful for me being an Orthodox Christian, and I did this because
I felt very lonely). But in fact she smacks at pharisaism (I actually met her in
one of those websites and she herself accepted the fact that she also met men
from those websites and it is therefore unfair to judge me for doing the same
things she’s done). I’ve been through hard times because of not having a job
for a long time (three years) and this made me feel very depressed. And
yesterday things got worse because she was very open at telling me my flaws and
bad aspects of my personality and my appearance. She said I resembled her
former boyfriend who had schizophrenia because of the way I behave, she said I
only talk about myself all the time. She’s always making comparisons between me
and the other men she’s been with. And she suggested me that I go to a
psychiatrist because of that. She said she’s been through that before (relationships
with freaks) and that she does not want to have this problem again and I’m
afraid she might break the relationship. And after all she’s right about this
because sometimes I think I’m weird, and I’m really thinking about going to see
a doctor to see if he can fix all these bad aspects of my personality since it’s
pretty clear that I can’t handle a normal relationship with a woman because of
the way I am. We’ve had problems also because she’s a non believer and does not
like the fact that I pray the Agpeya and that I go to the liturgy once or twice
a month. In my country there are very few Orthodox Christians (and less Oriental Orthodox Christians). I think this is really the end of our relationship and I’m very sad
because she’s so beautiful. But at the same time I just want her to be happy
and I think she deserves a better man.

Comments

  • Hello venadoazul
    I am sorry that you are having problems with your relationship. I pray you are granted tto be put on he right path.
    The first thing I noticed after reading your post was there seems to me to be jealousy in the relationship.
    I would like to talk about jealousy for a bit. We know it's a sin but the aspects of it if you understand them then you might recoqnise what are some of the things happening.
    When we hear people who are always comparing we are hearing jealousy.
    Jealousy is the fear of not being perfect.
    I gather that you know the story of Cain and Abel. They both gave sacrifice to God but it was Abels that was accepted. That gave Cain fear that what he was doing wasn't perfect. The answer is love is perfect. So instead of Cain asking of God what sacrifice he could give the devil deceived him into thinking of himself.
    Two other aspects of jealousy are compeditiveness and searching for details. Look at what you have written and see if there is anything there that have these characteristics.
    If love is perfect then it is something that has to be worked on internally and externally.
    In our orthodox church the way we do it is by humility.

    God bless you venadouzul.

  • Sometimes we need to wait a little before a situation cools down. Till the emotions aren't so strong, before we can be reasonable
    Males think differently than females. For example: my wife said to me that she thought she was getting a bit fat. In my teasing way I agreed with her. Wrong! She immediately said you should be encouraging me. She was spot on. I wasn't leading her anywhere, especially when it came to her feelings.
    I asking her what was the solution? She wanted to eat better food and exercise.

    Males need to lead the way but in the humble way of encouragement.
    If your going to lead, you're going to have to prepare yourself in the way of life you are going to lead Ideally it should be the Christian life through the church. Which is important because then through God's help you will understand what the tribulations and troubles that happen in your life are for the good. You become stronger, more resilient. Which means you are able to overcome them

    If you are serious and want commitment then I suggest you humble yourself and tell her for any bad way that she may of being treated and tell her what you want to do; your ambitions; and I pray, that you want to seek a more spiritual life.

    I know feelings of rejection are hard to overcome but try not to give up.

    You said you were orthodox venadoazul.
    One meaning of orthodox is to go straight. So the church is going on a straight path. When we repent our sins, it is about a change of directon. Let's say you are going on a straight path. On the left side is sin, and on the right is sin, but you find it differcult to stay on the path. There is something always that lures you to go either left or right. It's easy and you are confident. But I'm sorry, the further you go from the path the more you will be trapped in the troubles and tribulations and the sin takes you further away from knowing love.
    If Jesus loves us and He didn't sin, then His love is perfect and He would go and the 99 sheep to find the one that is lost.

    Are we allowed to judge each other? Yes and no. We do not judge out of sin, because this judgement is faulty but we judge out of love, of which we seek repentance to bring them back on the track.
    Jesus was humble but the money lenders were desecrating the Holy Temple by using its ground to do their business, yet He judged them and turned over their tables.
    Likewise, if you love God and are trying to retain your love for Him in the temple of you mind, heart and body. Then yes you must judge to keep the serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enermy out.

    Please don't be hard hearted on yourself. I don't think you were schizophrenic but that she may not have recoqnised a change of atitute when a fear of rejection came upon you.

    May God keep you in His peace.
  • I will pray for you
  • I pray that God helps you in your time of distress and that you get the support you need.
  • I read the Catholicon in church yesterday and as God always helps me I should try to help others. This is part of what I read: 1 John 4:12-13
    No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

    The importance of this that He teaches us His love and that as we go through life we cope more easily with those things that aren't perfect (tribulations and troubles) and that we are guided when brought to mind His teachings.

    In humility we become stronger in who we are because we listen to what is happening inside and out and get to a point where we know who we are in Jesus Christ.

    God bless.
  • Dejar Friends

    I think you're certainly right about all you've said. We do not trust each other because of the things we did in the past. I am in love with her and I hope she loves me too. I deleted many contacts from my Facebook account, especially foreign friends she regards as unreliable. In two weeks I will meet her family.

    My anguish is now the need to find a job. It's clear that no parent would want his/her daughter to have a boyfriend who does not work. It is not because of laziness but because the situation in my country is getting worse everyday.

    I am also worried about the fact that she is not a believer. While I do not try to convince her about the superiority of my Orthodox faith in order not to make her feel
    Pressured. I always pray for her conversion.

    Thank you very much for your prayers.
  • In the English language we only have one word for love but in the Greek language there are three. I can't remember the words at this moment but I do know what they mean.
    One means like the love of ice cream etc.
    One means like the love of family and friends.
    And one means sacrifice.

    Our Lord Jesus Christ sacrifice for us on the cross shows us God's love for His creation and that through the church we will be united. as the bride and groom.
    The church as a bride, was chosen as when we seek someone to be a companion. When Christ chose us, He knew us, but we een weaker only knew Him through the Holy Spirit giving us our theology. So we know Him to a point.
    What we do know is He has chosen us to be a bride and like any bride who is going to be married, she has to prepare herself. It is God's grace in action that we prepare ourselves.

    For myself, I was in engaged for one year before I became married and only after abouna had consented. A friend told me that striaght after he was engaged he was conscripted into the Egyptian army and had to wait years before finally getting married. The church has faithfully waited 2000 years so far in preparation.

    But venadoazul, have you prepared yourself? If you do visit her parents, they will want to know if their daughters future is secure by what is in your life that you can offer and of your plans. For if there is none or not much to offer then the mistrust you experience now will not be resolved once married and the resulting arguements turn to fear.

    I pray you read the bible and that as you read you are knowing the wisdom and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit guides you to be patient in your action.





  • Seeking your father of confession is your first option.
  • I decided to break this relationship because of the way she harmed my relationship with God and the Church, among other things. She's a non believer and the way she referred to my friends whom she made me delete from my social network profiles (with insults and horrendous words) truly made me understand that I can't have a common life with someone who does not love God and who shows that kind of hatred towards other human beings. I thank God that He made me understand that I was about to destroy my future if I continued this relationship. And it is extremely important that the person you choose at least have the desire to learn about Orthodoxy. In my case this is very hard to find, since I live in a Latin American country where only about 30 or 50 families practice our faith. Thank you form your advices, I think I must concentrate on working and do other things, and to return to my normal religious practice. God bless you! 
  • I am so glad for you venadouzul. It was the righteous choice you made, that who you are and your love for the Lord Jesus mattered so much.
    A funny thing happened to me today. A friend whom I work with me asked me if he won the 40 million, that is the lotto prize this week, what can I get you? I paused and said Heaven. He looked at me and said, "aaaw Solomon you are making me feel bad.
    I am glad for you once again venadoazul so that prayer is met because oh Him who wants us to not go with those who harden the heart that your be soft in love for meekness and humbleness.
    God bless
  • Proverbs 15: 28-29
    28 The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.
    29 The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

    I give thanks to you my Lord Jesus Christ for bringing my brothers heart to where it belongs and I also ask for mercy upon the young woman he sort that one day she may find You and understand what my brother knows.
  • Indeed it's a difficult situation. I truly miss her, but I realized this relationship was taking me nowhere, as in my case (I'm 33 years old), I should be looking for a serious relationship that would lead me to marriage, and this person is not even a Christian. She said she would come back with me only if I give her my social network passwords, but I think this is abusive. This means she will never trust me and jelously would always be part of our common life. It's hard to be far away from the church as I'm now working in a different city. I will pray everyday. Thanks for your kind advices.
  • Don't give in to a relationship where there is blackmail. Look for *the beauty of God* above aaaaall, and everything else will be given to you. See I am 33 years old, apostate from the religion of peace, lost my children because of that, can't go back to the country I would like to, I'm also unemployed but because I had burnout last year of so much working (I was waking up at 5am and arrived home at 9:30pm, everyday, except on Saturday, when I arrived at 6pm; I only had Sunday to sleep, and that's what I used to do, sleep the whole day). Anyway, I believe God has plans for all of us, and we were made to look for building a relationship with Him, to discover Him more and more and His neverending love. That is supposed to be the life of the children of God. I can't even think about getting married because although I am extremely happy for having found Jesus after two years I spent as an atheist hating God for everything when I left my former religion, and although my Lord and King of Kings gives me strength everyday to struggle for recovering (ps: I don't deserve His kindness), I wouldn't be able to live a happy life with someone thinking about my kids and feeling guilty for being happy without having them around, have a new family, and then, what if they showed up in some future? They would maybe feel not like fitting in the new family or something, I can only think about seeing them happy, I can't think about my happiness in this sense anymore. And I'm sure your parish and diocese may have a lot more people than mine lol, so you will surely find someone in a pleasant situation, not a dramatic one. Good luck!
  • RUN AWAY FROM HER AND RUN TO GOD 
  • I really don't know what to do. Sometimes my ex girlfriend writes to tell me bad things, but sometimes she says she misses me. She said she wants to come to my city and I really don't have a clue about what I should be doing to deal with this situation. The issue of my social network profiles continues to be the cause of gross quarrels, and while it is certainly true that I add females and comment their pictures, I have never done anything immoral or obscene with them, they're normal and decent persons from my region. She also has a very ugly way to refer to them in a racist and derogatory way, and this is because I come from the countryside and she is from the big city. She always points out that I have no ambitions and that I have the mind of a peasant, despite the fact that I am educated and spent some years in Europe. She threatens to leave with someone else if I fail to move to a personal home (I currently live in the house of a female friend who allows me to stay in one of her rooms in order to save money, and who, by the way, is also the object of hateful comments by my ex girlfriend). Despite the fact that she behaves this way, I have to accept that I am no longer a teenager, I am in my thirties and I think she's right when she says I must choose to stay with her and start a life with her, as after all I would feel destroyed if I find out she left with some of the other men she met before. And I know that she's a very hateful person but quite sincerely, even if I might be able to meet someone else, I am very tired and no longer in the mood to start a new relationship with someone and pass through the same ordeals again and again, as after all she's close to my age and she is not a single mother, which is very rare to find in a woman of my age, and I don't want to be alone the rest of my life.
  • wow, are you guys trying to kill each other?

    it seems like everyone here has given nice, gentle answers.
    certainly they are true, but i don't know if you can hear them.
    so please excuse me as i feel the need to be very honest with you.
    (maybe you are not used to gentle correction and advise, so i am going to tell you the bare truth).

    seriously, if you imagine someone else wrote your post, what advice would you give him?

    she obviously has a habit of acting in a hateful way to certain types of men, and it seems like you are 'her type' (i mean the type of man she loves to destroy).

    maybe you resemble her dad, or someone who abused her in the past.
    she certainly is not ready for a romantic relationship, and if she ever becomes mentally well enough to have one, it should certainly never be with anyone who switches on her 'destroy' mode.

    i don't know if you realise this, but 99% of people are not that spiteful or hateful.
    please do yourself a big favour and go very far away from her, even if it means changing or leaving your social media profiles.

    certainly she needs love and compassion, but i am 100% sure you are not the person who can help her.
    she needs an older, much wiser friend, ideally same gender who is very tough and does not get easily manipulated. a romantic relationship with anyone will probably just increase her pathology and decrease her chances of ever being a happy, well adjusted person.
    please don't destroy yourself (and damage her) by continuing to have any contact with this woman.

    mabsoota
    (middle aged female with experience of crazy people, both as clients and friends)
  • One thing that dominates this affair from begining to end is a gross and dangerous lack of prudence on my part with regard to the management of my social profiles. I actually didn't know that they could be so easily found and read by anyone else, and that the ladies I met in the past and the comments I posted (nothing immoral) on their profiles were visible to all. If I had seen this information at someone else's profile I would have thought the same thing, that such person behaves like a Casanova and does not live according to the principles and values he preaches. And I am a public person (even though not a superstar, I'm a politician), and I'm pretty sure that such information does not inspire a great deal of confidence. And sometimes even though I am not a crazy person I have to accept that our society is filled with sensual desires and that this floats in the air, you breath it just as you breath oxygen. It's already there and you can't use a device to purify the air you breath. One thing that helps you Coptic Americans and Canadians, is that you have a strong Orthodox community and can manage to have Orthodox friends who are raised with these values. Our community is very small, we are very few and we are located in many cities. The Eastern Orthodox do not see us as their brethen and denounce all other Christians as fake. A Latin mass catholic from the 1950's, on the other side, would easily find our faith and religious practices as equivalent to theirs and would certainly unite forces with us. But modernistic Catholics of nowadays think we are stuck in the Middle Ages. 
  • You are a politican venadoazul?
        
       Well, I guess that's one of getting caught up in this world. I went to school with someone who wanted to be Primeminister of our country, and now he is. He wanted to be Primeminister since he was ten years old and when I was ten, God saved my life and so when he told me it was a big turning point in my life. I saw him as living for this world ( his mother survived the holocaust as she was jewish) and that he also wanted to be a millionaire which are the things I had rejected. They weren't impotant to me because Christ was taking me on another path. One that has riches in the inside and one that I would not trade for all the prestidge and money he has. 
     
       He obtained alot of things, but I'm worried venadouzul, that you are trying to obtain relationships, (through the internet) that don't have the depth reqiured to be a true relationship ie. face to face in honesty the truth. That you will let yourself down until you have put some effort and time into something close and personnal.

       My advice is to concentrate on one person and to be friendly. More prayer also.

        I'm trying to memorize 1 John 4 at the moment. Pray for me please.

  • Dear Joshua

    As you correctly pointed out, there are some people who must remain as occasional Internet chat buddies. And in this case, I came to believe her, met her personally and this eventually turned into a very intimate and personal relationship. I opened my heart to her because I had several problems that made me feel sad. She managed to obtain advantage from self-steem issues on my part. She's threatened to pursue a relationship with me at all costs. I will never put myself in such a vulnerable position ever again.

    God bless you all!
  • joshuaa gives good advice.

    venadoazul, what is your 'small community'? (you can ignore the question if it makes you lose you anonymity.)
    i would recommend making face to face friends from other, maybe similar Christian communities if yours is too small.

    as orthodox Christians, for example, we can meet / marry Christians from the other orthodox Christian groups, we are not limited to marrying only coptic orthodox Christians.
    (of course we can meet any humans for friendship, i mean only meeting orthodox Christians if you are looking for potential later marriage partners).
    also we can marry people from other countries who share the same faith (i did) we don't have to limit ourselves to people of the same ethnicity.
    i would strongly suggest these as alternatives to online friends if you have not got good friends in your small group.
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