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Dear Father,
I am heartbroken for having cheated on my fiancé.
With difficulty I broke off this relationship and got closer to Christ.
In fact, perhaps I really got to know him after this period, and this brought me back to my boyfriend with my heart.
Now I feel reborn, happy.
I am however tormented by a doubt: should I confess my betrayal to my fiancé?
I think that by revealing to him what happened I would feel relieved by the crushing guilt that’s oppressing me and I would feel honest toward him.
I’m afraid of hurting him and seeing him suffer. He doesn’t deserve it, just like he doesn’t deserve what I did.
I only want the best for him and I want to give him my whole life, but I wonder if I can marry a man without telling him what I’ve done.
Thank You.
Priest’s answer
Dearly beloved,
1. although you may not be entirely convinced, it was premarital sex that brought you to the unhappy stretch of road you traveled.
Chastity commits one to fidelity and helps one to be master of oneself, even in the face of temptation.
2. Matrimonial and premarital fidelity cannot be improvised.
It must be prepared and guarded through purity.
In engagement, purity must be very great, because otherwise the conditions are laid for handing oneself over to those who do not belong to us.
In the engagement you promised yourselves to each other, but you do not belong to each other. You will belong to each other only through the bond of marriage.
3. Now that, thank God, you are back with your fiancé, commit to living chastely.
Make him also commit to do the same.
When you arrive at the wedding, you will feel that the most beautiful moment of your engagement will have been precisely the one you lived in perfect chastity.
4.It is with chastity that love is purified and you learn to respect yourself more and more.
A beautiful definition of chastity is proposed to us by John Paul II in Familiaris consortio: ‘’[Chastity] signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization.” (FC 33).
5. Everyone needs spiritual energy to protect fidelity and promote true self-giving by eliminating selfishness.
Chastity is an energy that must be brought out by good will and at the same time by the grace of Christ drawn from the sacraments, mainly the Eucharist and confession.
The grace of Christ communicates a new strength of a supernatural order and directs one’s emotional life towards its ultimate meaning: sanctification in Christ.
6. Impurity, on the contrary, removes all restraint and causes us to become victims of passion and sensuality.
Here lies the cause of many infidelities, followed by endless suffering and not infrequently by the dissolution of the couple’s relationship.
7.By the grace of God this did not happen between the two of you.
But now go to confess before the priest not only the betrayal, but also the premarital impurities.
He will tell you whether or not it is appropriate to reveal what happened to your future spouse.
8. In my opinion, since it has been covered forever by God’s mercy, it is something that must be buried between you and the priest confessor. The revelation of what happened would certainly cause enormous suffering for him and consequently for you too, but also of permanent insecurity in the relationship.Your future spouse’s mind must be at peace and absolutely confident in your faithfulness.
9. Take sacramental confession, which is the sacrament of Christian healing, as a constant point of reference in your life. It must be regular and frequent. Like any medicine, it must be done methodically.
Time after time you will feel its liberating effect. It will become one of the irrepressible experiences in your Christian life.
You need it in a very particular way because certain wounds don’t heal in the blink of an eye.
I wish you all the best together with a peaceful and holy Christmas.
I assure you of my prayers and I bless you.
Father Angelo