Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian English Spanish Portuguese

Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have been crying and putting my life on standby for months. My name is S., I am 34 years old, and for about 6 years I lived with S., who is a few years younger than me. After years of renting, he insisted on buying a house and so we did; we moved in last April, but then in October he left, telling me he did not love me anymore; all my attempts to make him change his mind have been in vain and I have been feeling broken ever since.

You see, Father, all his coldness came out during last summer, when I had an argument with his father after having a car accident (one of the wheels blew out while I was going on a visit to relatives and there were no injuries, apart from the car damage, of course); maybe his parents do not really have anything to do with it, maybe the feeling is just gone, but I am always tormented by questions and I hope that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you will be able to help me. I have never been lucky in love, and according to my parents it is because I tend to nullify myself for the other person.

Before being with S., I had been engaged to a boy (A.) for 3 years… until one evening he came to me and told me that he was leaving me because he did not love me anymore. I became sick, I was visibly losing weight, I had insomnia, panic attacks, and lost faith, taking it out on God and not knowing that someone else had manipulated the situation.

I recovered, I did not want more relationships, but I was fine, until one day, because of an overtaking maneuver on the highway, I met S.

It was he who insisted with me, I did not want to get burned again. However, I took it as a sign from God, despite our “critical relationship”.

S. is a policeman with his head on his shoulders, who wanted children and marriage. After three months, he introduced me to his parents, and according to everyone it was a significant gesture for him. These years have sometimes been dull, I am self-employed and given the expenses we had, I have always tried to bend over backwards; he is a stay-at-home kind of person and I admit that this weighed on me a bit; his family, despite being 800 km away, has always been very present, I always knew I came after them… but after what I had gone through with A., I never expected to live again the same bad experience in an amplified way.

Father, I know it is not God’s fault, but I do not understand why he allowed it. Above all it hurts me that everyone tells me: “you have to resign yourself”; I resumed praying daily and perhaps God wanted to have me back and knowing me, this was perhaps the only way, but I cannot resign myself.

I want back my life with S. and I also pray for this every day, but more than three months have passed, his family has disappeared and his friends have also disappeared; he has put our house up for sale and there have been terrible fights. Father, I cannot believe that God has allowed the devil to play the same trick on me and above all that he does not do anything about it.

Jesus said: “Ask and you will receive; knock and the door will be opened to you”, of course it will happen if that is God’s will; and this thought drives me crazy, is all of this really God’s will? Father, I am feeling confused, shattered, humiliated, and guilty, because I do not even feel worthy to make these requests to our Lord. I must also mention another fact: the day before S. left home, I was in my car and I smelled an intense scent of rose; the first thought I had was of Father Pio, but having seen how the facts evolved, I begin to think it was just a delusion. In short, as you will understand, I really need a miracle.

Thank you for your attention.

S.

Answer from the priest

Dear daughter,

1. I apologize for the long delay of my reply, but I reached the emails of February 13th only today.

I’m sorry for what happened to you and for the greatness of your suffering.

Your partnership situation was disordered before God.

It is true, you hoped that from a situation of partnership you would go on to achieve stability with marriage.

That did not happen.

You knew such a thing could happen.

And yet you wanted to invest with him to set up a home. It was an even more serious mistake that led to arguments that are difficult to heal.

2. You now pray for him to come back.

You do well in praying, because prayer gives you hope.

But for the prayer to be answered it is necessary to conform one’s will to God’s will.

And if your purpose is to restore the domestic partnership, I’ll tell you right away that you can’t hope for anything.

You would start off on the wrong foot.

Living together more uxorio puts you in an objective situation of serious sin, which makes confession and Communion impossible for you.

3. But now I come to the basic mistake, which you seem not to be aware of.

The basic mistake is sin and more specifically the sin of premarital sexual relations.

4. The law of God, which is very wise and only wants the true and lasting good and happiness of people, prohibits sexual relations outside of marriage.

It forbids them because they are a lie.

In fact, the two behave like husband and wife while knowing they are not.

Furthermore, they do not give themselves wholly. And not only because they know they are free to turn back however they want and whenever they want, but also because those acts are done through contraception.

Now, contraception clearly means that one does not want to give oneself completely, because one does not give the other one’s ability to become father and mother.

5. As you know, contraception is excluded by God’s law even in marriage. And this is because it makes mutual love impure by making it slip into sheer lust.

Now, lust is an emotion that comes and goes.

6. From this you can understand why your boyfriend says that his love is over. It was based only on lust.

Once lust has vanished, maybe because it ignited for another woman, for him it is all over.

7. In marriage, however, this is not the case.

Marriage is not based on lust or emotion, but on will.

Indeed, on the desire to dispossess oneself in order to be the property of one another with the seal of God.

8. In marriage, moreover, the presence of children helps to overcome the difficulties that arise from the difference of personalities and moods.

The presence of children forces us to forget ourselves.

And so, love for children indirectly helps spouses to purify their love more and more, preventing it from becoming dull.

9. Purity, or pre-marital chastity, is all too important for the two engaged people to learn to love each other in a true way, overcoming their own selfishness and the temptations of lust.

Chastity strengthens the desire to belong together, without forging ahead. Because, as you have seen, burning the stages ended up burning up and disintegrating your union.

10. You have started a love story twice in your life.

And both times it ended badly, because it started badly and went on likewise.

For the future, or even to get S. back, commit yourself before God to live the engagement as He wants, in perfect chastity.

It is only in this way that you will keep love intact in yourself and in him.

It is no coincidence that God pleaded to observe his laws in order to be happy and live a long life.

If you observe God’s law, happiness will always exist and will be renewed. And love will live long, until death does part.

I assure you of my prayers that your suffering may be dried up and that you can start from now something that will last forever.

I bless you.

Father Angelo