Should I give up this love
I don’t even know if I want answers or not, but I’ve got to tell someone the idiotic mistakes that I have made before I go mad. I am a teenager. I hate to say it, cause I don’t fit into the mould, but I’m still 17 and I’m still an idiot. I don’t like parties; I go to church; I like school; I don’t swear all that often. I’m not an outcast and no-one as far as I know hates me or thinks I’m weird or whatever and bullies me. But I am still a teenager.
I’m not sure how well I can cut a long story short…but here goes.
I’m in the choir at my church, along with my mum and my little sister. We’re a very strong family; none of us have ever been any trouble- mum always jokes about that; the fact that she never had to do anything, we just never bothered with the ‘teenage’ years. There aren’t just the three of us, mind. My parents are married, and I’ve got two elder sisters as well as my little sister. There’s an age gap between the pairs of sisters, so although we’re all close, our elder sisters share a bond, and my little sister and I share a bond. Of the elder two, one is married and just become a mum and the other happily partnered; and both on the first attempt. Neither of them had met anyone before the one they’re sticking with, both at about 18. So obviously I got fake jealousy thrown at me when I started going out with a boy at 13- the likes we’d never seen before! This wasn’t a problem- eventually about a year later we grew apart and broke up. The problem started last year, when a man at choir offered to give me some driving tutoring cause I was so keen to drive. From there, we hit it off- the lessons dwindled out cause with so little time on my hands, I barely got time with the family as it was, so we just chatted, and became really good friends. This didn’t surprise me; mum got on with him really well, so I knew he’d be a funny guy. Bad news is, he’s not quite 3 times my age.
So the closer we got, the more that people worried; and we did too. Neither of us had done anything of the like before, and ignored it for a while, but eventually he came out with it, and we started trying to be together. And the twits we were, we kept quiet about it because we still didn’t know what we were doing. We very, very rarely got time alone and when we did it would be at church, so didn’t, obviously, get that close physically.
I can’t say that I wholly trusted him- I’d be even more of a fool to say that I did. Anywhere along the line he could have raped me or buried me under his patio, to be blunt. So occasionally, when he’d find ways to meet up in places that I felt uncomfortable with (e.g. when no-one knew where I was) I would make an excuse. One day, very recently, he caught me lying to him, and we stopped and talked. I told him that I couldn’t hide this much longer, so he agreed that we should reveal things a little more and stop worrying my family and friends. So we did- we’ve told my mum first, as she was visibly the most worried. We caught her one evening and said we’d like a chat when we had time. She managed to take him aside and talk to him the next day when I wasn’t there, and he fed a little back to me- not much, cause he said she’d want to talk to me without knowing what she’d said to him. But she wanted to tell the Vicar, cause he’d know much more about what to do, and our Choir-master, cause we’d screwed up in his choir and he was our friend.
So I waited for when she and I would have time to talk alone, and we eventually did. Well, when I say talk, she talked at me. She didn’t need to hear my opinion, and in my family, that has never happened. She had also already talked to the Vicar and Choir-master, and I had assumed that she would ask me first before she did that. So basically, I started to get confused. Still, she asked for him to go and talk to the Vicar, and he did so promptly. The Vicar said that we hadn’t strictly done anything wrong, among other things like suggesting we all sit down and talk, and said he’d pass the information along to my mother and father.
About 2 weeks later, and I found out that the Vicar had, in fact, done no such thing. I was assuming that he was looking for a time to be alone with mum to talk it over, but was still irritated.
In all this, all the way through, there is one person I did not tell, and that was my younger sister. I was waiting for a chance to tell her gently, because I knew that I would deeply hurt her. If I had told her, and only her, from the start, what sort of burden would that have been on a 14-year-old girl? That she was the only witness to a relationship between the only two people who really shouldn’t be together…
Tonight, she has told me the blunt truth, and I just don’t know what to do. She was so worried about me that she went behind my back to read my text messages. She knew right from the point of us going out that we were. She’s lost all faith in me because we’ve never kept secrets from each other before, and I’ve scarred her so much deeper than anything else I could have done. She told me about all the comings and goings between my parents and the church, and my friends, and everything that has gone on behind my back that, worryingly, no-one else would dare tell me.
The thing that hurts me is that all of this seems to be being arranged without a word from me- I don’t actually seem to have any say in the matter.
The thing that breaks my heart is that I have failed in the one thing that I tried to do the whole way through- protect my own sister, and my family, and be a role-model to the young woman my sister’s turning into. I don’t know how long it will be until any of them can trust me again, or if I can trust them. This is the sort of thing I read in books and joke about how simply stupid you would have to be to make such a horrible mistake. But I don’t even know if I have made a mistake- I don’t even know for sure if I love him, or whether I’m just in love with love.
I’ve always burned to be a mother, and a teacher. But if I can’t even sort my own relationships without destroying everything, how can I ever be fit to help children? I can see two choices, and both of them are yelling at me. One, I could watch this through to the end and show that I really mean it, knowing that my family hates it. Two, I could drop him and apologise to everyone, start again and know that I gave in.
Please, help me- anything you can think of to help me- I’ve done everything so wrong and I don’t know where to turn.
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Comments on Should I give up this love
Hi,
I was in a similar situation a while ago. He was my first serious boyfriend, but his life was a mess. He quit school after high school and never made any serious efforts to take his life anywhere, he was 4 years older than me, I was 22 and had just graduated from College, lived abroad for a while, and was applying to law school.
From the beginning I knew we were going nowhere in the relationship. But he came into my life when I needed exactly him the most. I wonder if he was not a Godsend sometimes. Pple looked down at us, family would pass comments and talk about him in unflattering ways and the more they did that the more I felt the need to protect him and not to let them break us up. As a result of the resistance I think we ended up staying together much longer than we should have. As a result I was never comfortable in the relationship but I felt I owed it to him. So I was not really in it for me or for the love of him or us. But I was just resisting social pressure and interference. At the end of the day he fell more inlove with me and the idea of me taking care of him and when I was finally ready to call it quits he was very hurt and I felt bad.
I think your family is afraid for you. You are very young. Having dated older men myself ( the oldest being 8 years my senior) my advice to you would not be to start dating an older man until you have grown more and matured, for your own good. Older and more experienced partners have a certain confidence about them that we are drawn to, strenght, maturity, insightfulness all things we hope to develop ourselves and such we tend to be willing students aiming to please. when you are much younger especially without a lot of relationship experience its easy to be manipulated, maybe not in a deliberatly harmful way, but your decisions tend to be heavily influenced by what your older partner wants and feels.
I’d advise you give yourself some space, not because you are a failure ( as you seem to say), falling in love is a gift, but you literally need time to grow up. You need a chance to learn yourself and how you feel about things, and what you want from things, how to manage your personal and family lives safely and respectfully. In a few years after a few life lessons if you meet him again and you still feel the same way about each other then thats fantastic, but in the interim, you have so much life ahead of you, so many lessons to learn, so many more mistakes to make and they will all mould you into this strong and confident woman who can take on anything and not be forced to pursue something you think may be harmful so that you can resist social pressures.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck with making lifes hard decisions, and as my office mate always reminds me, don’t forget to pray about it. =)
Thiis happened to me before but iit was the other way round.
My friend was goiin out with this boy called richardo &wenever I was around he never liked hugging her or anything &he used to give me money behind her back &whenever we had to go he wud say bye to me &ignore my friend (girlfriend) who he was going out with!
&when my friend phoned him he would ask if I was there &my friend was getting annoyed &told him how she felt and asked him why he was so hyped on me &he jus said he wasn’t!
But then he stopped doing these things now cuz she dumped him but he still jus does a sly smile @ me &i don’t even like him in that way and I never diid to be fair!
I dunno if this helped but yh lol
X
Alright darling firstly dont fret so much x
Just take a moment to re-read what you’ve put.
You seem more worried of your family’s opinion in your decision then your own.
You want your own say. Make your say heard by what you do.
You dont trust him that is obvious and a relationship is built on trust.
Family should always come first so i woul suggest giving him up for now.
Tell him how you feel on the matter and if he cares for you at all he will understand and will give you the time you need.
Focus on fixing the hole you have in your family especially with your sister and mother and good luck hunny xx
This matter is very straight forward.
You have to ask your friend if she likes him.
If she says No. then you must tell her he changes around her and that your uncomfortable with it.
If she says Yes. Then i would strongly recommend telling her how he changes around her.
Tell him if he doesnt stop changing. Its over. If shes your best friend a boy wont come between you two. If he continues to change. Dump him im sorry hunny but thats the honest truth it isnt worth the heartache xx
Oh sweetheart I feel your pain. I’m a similar age to him now and I well remember having a huge crush (believing I was in love) with a man more than twice my age when I was 17. I was miserable at the time because in my heart I felt it was wrong and inappropriate. At the time I observed an aunt who was married to a man 15 years older than her – she was vibrant and full of life at 30 but he was very settled in his ways and boring and expected her to wait on him and mother him. SO even though I was miserable and confused I followed my conscience to break away from him and I began to spend time with people my own age and started having so much of the sort of fun appropriate for my age that I soon lost interest in him. I let me conscience and inner voice guide me. You sound to me like your inner voice is nagging you to stop this ‘friendship’. Our own inner voice is our best guide in all that we do. When I was about 28 I ran into the man I knew and he looked old and crinkly and I thought ‘yuk’. Good luck sweetheart. Di
Heyy, my boyfriend is exacly the same, but the only difference is that my bf kissed my best friend whilst she went out with another guy, but i want going out with my bf at the time, but i know how you feel. Its hard but I know i can trust him not to do anything ever again. Try talking to him about it, say how you feel, I did, and you’ll be surprised at what happens. Or why dont you try talking to your friend, she could maybe back of abit? I hope i helped,
Abbie xxx
P.S Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Firstly do you not think there is something wrong with this man for him not to be able to find love with someone his own age?
Secondly, I do not think you should be with him – at all.
I hope you’re not confusing love with infatuation. I think it’d be best to drop him because less people will be hurt that way, you’re still growing and learning about yourself – is it worth risking everything you’ve built over the years for a feeling you’re not even sure about?
“/
x
Hello!!
Firstly, I just want to make it clear to you that you are NOT an idiot. For the simple fact that you like school, go to church and don’t like parties sets you apart from a lot of people. It really does make you unique. What kinda world would we be living in if everyone liked the same things or simply conformed to the ‘norms’ of society in hope to gain friends or popularity? I’m a Christian myself and as it states in the bible – we should not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It’s the only thing that will set you apart from everyone else, choosing to think differently. There are many things you can do but you choose not to because you know they are not for you.
With regard to the incident with your former driving instructor/choir guy. I know this may be hard for you to believe but he was watching you from before the lessons took place, watching you from the time you were in the choir. From the start your spirit didn’t warm to him. By your own admission you stated ‘I can’t say that I wholly trusted him- I’d be even more of a fool to say that I did’ this was right at the start before anything had happened. I’m sure, whole heartedly, you know if anything happened between the two of you it wouldn’t be right, not only because of the age gap but the fact you had not told anyone about it. If there was really nothing wrong in what you were or were not doing it would be safe to at least confide in one person, right?
I can now understand why so many things are now happening without your knowledge. The family feel like they have been betrayed due to the fact they were kept in the dark about all that was happening. I would suggest that you inform the older choir guy that he should leave you alone and that the both of you cannot continue meet secretly in the church. I’m sure that this guy could find a woman around his own age to start a relationship with. Having said that, what is it that he likes about you so much? Is it that you are young?
I really hope you can get some peace in your heart with this and trust that by the time you read this the matter would have already been resolved.
God bless!!
Wow it sounds like you are really tormented! However, it doesn’t seem to me that you are really in love with this guy because if you were you would know it- you also wouldn’t be thinking that he could rape and kill you! You are very young and probably have hormones raging, and although you seem very wise for your years, you are probably largely motivated by the desire to be loved. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you are in love with love. My advice to you would be to wait for the real thing! When you eventually find Mr Right you will be so glad you waited- don’t settle for second best- you deserve better. As I know you are a Christian, I strongly recommend a series of sermons on dating at http://www.orthodox sermons.org just do a search on ‘real dating’.
Also, you need to stop being tormented by guilt- this won’t help! The best thing you can do for your little sister right now is to pull yourself together and take control of your life as she is probably really worried about you. It is through weakness, failure and problems that my relationship with my siblings was made stronger than ever so don’t worry! You will get through this and I pray you will make the right decision.
Im 16 and my boyfriend is only a year older. I love him and we have been together for 2 years. We have had sex.
Recently we have had arguments about other girls. When i hang around with my boyfriend and his friends, i get upset. They all talk about girls who are “fit” including girls who walk by. Including my boyfriend.
I have told him time and time again about what i feel and think about all of it. Recently i have found out he ditched his football training to go out with his mate. They went to Sainsburies and were talking about girls that were “fit” in there. I am totally confused whether or not he loves me now. He doesnt know i know about the ditching training though. How can i tell he loves me? How do i show him i am upset with this and stop him from doing all of this?
You sound like a very religious girl. I know it must feel like you have the whole world on your shoulders but you haven’t done a lot wrong you may need to think about the relationship between you and the guy you have been seeing as there is quite a difference in the age gap between you two and he may have a lot more experience with relationships and ye probably want two different things at this time in ye’re lives. Your sister is still very young and you did the right thing by protecting her sit her down and tell her that, As for the others who have been going behind your back sit them down and explain to them that you don’t want to do anything to hurt them but you feel as if you are not getting a lot of time to be able to think about things and everything is getting out of hand ask them for time to think and then discuss your decision with them and the guy your dating
hello, well you probably already have lots of comments from people but heres mine too.
I felt really upset when i read your letter, there was alot of things i could relate to like not telling my sister or my mum things…
I think that you where absolutely right when you say your in love with love but i wouldn’t put it that way. For example theres this boy called james that i like and this other one called sam; but i’m not sure if i like either of them and when i think about relationships everything falls apart and school always seems more important. Iwant to be a journalist, just like you want to be a teacher but when we think about kids that stops us. You can’t always be there for your child[ren] when you are working. What i’m saying is i don’t think you really love him i just think your lonely and wanted someone to be there with you; and the idea seemed good at the time. then you didn’t tell your parents and your sister…. I found out that life is very hard when you live in seacrets and lies and you keep it locked up inside, its always better to tell someone. tell him you need to start again with someone else or stay with him if you really love him but that’s up to you to decide. tell your parents you know what you have done is wrong but now you really need their help on this. and promise your little sister you will never keep a seacret from her ever again… hope this helps, xxx, isis, 12y}
dear miss 17, you clearly know whats wrong and whats right by now…. i agree you are just a teenager yet but by this time you have the mind of knowing what is good or bad for you and your family,
right now reading to what you had to say,, i realised you have a consciousness that you are not on right path and if you really think its not too late… then you are fortunate to make things right…
well its never too late , and one more thing, our parents and our family loves us unconditionally , no matter how many mistakes we make,
and this “17″ being the age of hormonal imbalance , all the feeling you had for that guy may not be exactly what you think it is,
and once again i would like to remind you that sometimes our loving family has that eye which can see whats good for you while we cant,, so trust their instincts, trust yourself,
be the right model to your sister
and do the right thing…
p.s. your family loves you more than anyone else can..
Hello,
I wish I knew what age he was then it would be much easier to reply.. But I will do my best to advise you any how. I came across you letter looking fo help for myself.. coming from a different aspect.. although I have been in the same situation.. I have been with a man 25 years my senior for the past 7 1/2 years.. my mother was totally agienst us we have a child together.. I ended up loosing my whole family over for a while it but on the same side I was in love with this man.. I many a time had the same thoughts if I just end it and appologise to my family then everything will be ok.. but you know what I didn’t because I did love love him and I didn’t want to live my life saying what if?? but you see you haven’t said that once in your letter you have said you don’t know what you are feeling.. I think for your own sake you need to find this out.. at the end of the day your family will be there for you no matter what eventually your sister will come around. Mine did.. In the end tonight myself and my partner broke up.. but you know what you need to find out the difference between love and lust it is hard to tell look deeper into your own heart and see how you feel don’t jump the gun in any direction because you don’t want to live you life in regret.. like I said we broke up tonight but I don’t regret the past 7 1/2 years because I did love him…. best of luck I know I didn’t give you any answers but I hope I helped. Take care and I wish you all the best X
I’ll say one word: pray.
Pray and ask god. He knows the concequences of your actions, if you ask him for help he will willingly help you
Love? Do you honestly think it might be love? Love – it’s not an emotion. It’s a verb and an action. Would you go to the ends of the earth for him, would you stay with him even if he got some sort of terrible disease? What would you do for him?
If the answer is ‘everything – I would do all that’ then, I think you love him. But if the answer is ‘not all of those things’, then i don’t think you love him.
Just remember to pray to god – God wants you to be happy and in love with a guy, but he wants you to be in love with the right one. Does he have the same goals in life as you do? if not, consider moving away.
Above all, just remember that god will love you no matter what
there’s so much more I’d like to tell you, but I don’t want to bore you with my long sentences…
I really hope you’ve been blessed by this and hope that everything will work out
God bless,
-Rose
You can pray all you like- but really, all you are saying is that you have a problem. God cant sort out this kind of problem, because there probably isnt a parallel situation in the Bible, and therefore you cant identify any instructions from god as to what you should do. If you were to pray audibly in a homegroup, others in the homegroup might give you their opinion. They have a small concern for your welfare, and arguably your parents might have a little more. Taken together, the two sources of Godly information might help you.
Hello, I just wanted to say that I was in the same situation a while back, I’m 15. It all ended in complete shambles. You have to know that your mum is seriously worried and just wants to protect you. YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. In no way, shape or form is any of this your fault. If you feel he is effecting how well you and you’re family get on and you don’t feel safe with him then I would, personally, stop all contact with him and end it. If it slightly feels as if it’s not right, it definatley isn’t. It sounds harsh but there are plenty of other guys your age who will love you even more. You may feel lonely after this, but you have to stay positive and everything will be alright with your family, they will trust you again please don’t worry about that they still love you so much and always will. I guess another option would be that IF you both love each other that much and he is willing to be with you and spend time with you but champeroned (your mum will probably want this) then I say you have to act as mature as you can and take in consideration everyone else, talk with everyone and see where it goes from there. You’ll be suprised how your parents will try and work things out for you, to make you happy, so you need to respect that. After you have made a well thought out desision you have to tell your mum and tell her how much it would mean for her to listen and take your feelings into account. I really hope this helped a little, and I really hope things go well for you, this is a tricky situation you are in but trust me, even in the worst times, everything WILL be alright again.
I think you already know the answer, in my opinion you need to make the decision to move on, and begin rebuilding the relationship with your family and your church.
this is not ‘giving in’ or giving up’. there comes a point where just hanging on to something to not ‘give in’ becomes foolish.
you say you are not a typical teenager, and that may be true. you seem to have a fairly mature outlook, however, regardless of this mans age, you aproaching the issue in a niave and immature way, and im afraid you are therfor a ‘typical’ teenager.
there is no use continuing a relationship where you lose your family and alienate yourself. from your description you are lucky to have an incredibly close family, who although you feel they are going behind your back, only want whats best for you. now i am not saying they did or didnt react in the best way, but you must understand they reacted in the only way they knew how, and they acted out of love.
ultimatly, this needs to of course be your decision, and not your families, but consider that your family will be with you for the rest of your life, this man may not be, and i hate to say it, but it is unlikely he will be – regardless of the age difference, relationships dont always work.
if you are determined to ‘see this through’, perhaps come up with some sort of compramise, discuss honestly with your parents why you dont want to end the relationship, and discuss with the partner how your family feels, if he cares for you, he should be willing to meet with your parents, and perhaps cool things down until you are a little older, if he truely cares, he would wait, and you can demonstrate to your family you really are mature enough to handle these decisions with their help.