Should I continue this relationship?
Question:
Hello,
I am badly in need of help. Please help me as I have seen your answers to queries on your web site.
Here goes my story..
I am a girl who has fallen in love with many guys in the past. When I was in my teens, a guy badly deceived me, and I had sex with him many times. Later he ditched me. I was broken-hearted, but then came another guy with whom I was involved physically, such as kissing but not sex. Then he left me and the third guy also had sex with me once. I somehow broke up with him after I learned he was not a very nice guy. The fourth guy, though, I had no sex, we were involved in kissing and other physical caressing. Now after reading all this you must be thinking I am a whore, but things changed when I matured, and with God's help, I overcame my past. I decided not to be involved physically with anybody. Since then I sought God's help.
Recently I met a wonderful guy, a guy I always dreamed of. I admit no guy would forgive me if they knew my past, even though it was because of my innocence and immaturity. I never disclosed my past to anybody. This guy has shown me the truest love. He cared for me. He is innocent, loving, prayerful and just the perfect person a girl would want. He was the best support for me when my dad died. He loved me truly, but he is not settled yet. So he decided to go to another country and settle down. Later he would ask for my hand for marriage. He was a virgin and the whole problem started here.
He is studying and working in this other country. There wasn't a day when he didn't call me. But a week ago I looked in his phone details and found a girl's name who was his college friend a year ago and lives in my country. When I asked, he lied that it was his aunt's number, so I decided to investigate more, rang up the number, and found out that it is this girl's number. I spoke to the girl and found that he never told her that he is in a relationship with me. But I also learned this girl is already committed to someone else and is going to marry her boyfriend soon. When I investigated more I found that this girl has a very bad charactered and often flirts with every guy she comes across. When I called her, she told me that my boyfriend is a flirt and that they were loving each other. She sent me a bunch of evidence, such as instant messages. In those messages, he told her that he loved her since college, and was asking her to kiss him on cam and that though she will be married he will wait and love her. After I read those messages I was lost. I thought everything is over, and I wanted to die. That is when I put the girl, my boyfriend, and me on a conference call. My boyfriend scolded this girl, saying why you are trying to spoil our relationship? Both scolded each other badly, used profanity toward each other, and I am sure it all ended because she is going to get married to her boyfriend.
Later I asked my boyfriend what is all this and he told me that he never loved her and was flirting with her because she was the kind who wants to flirt with everybody. On hearing this I decided to break up with him, but he repented, promised me he would never ever do that again, wants me back. He didn't eat or sleep for two days until I spoke to him. He cried for me and told me he loves me a lot. My problem is that I forgive him one moment but later remember all that has happened and think about breaking up with him again.
He doesn't know about my past. I never told him, but God forgave me. Now I feel he just flirted with a girl on the phone who is in another country from where he is at. He flirted with her on webcam, they gave flying kisses to each other and that's it. There probably was no physical relationship at all because I took his virginity a few days before he left for the other country.
But my problem is I am not able to forgive him and keep recalling all those messages. I feel horrible. As for my boyfriend, he loves me, he wants me, he repented for me. It is just that he flirted with that girl on the phone and webcam and that's all. Ge promised me that he will never ever do that ever again and wants to marry me next year. I believe that he will never do it again but those thoughts are killing me. I have a horrible past, which he doesn't know about, but after he came into my life I never flirted or loved any other guy. How could he flirt with a girl even after being in a relationship with me is my biggest question? I want to forgive him and get back with him, but I want all his promises to be serious. I believe that he will never break my trust and will never be disloyal to me, but should I go ahead with this relationship and marry him?
My mother knows about all this and wants me to stop talking to him. She feels he is not the right person for me. She is searching for marriage alliances for me. However, I feel I can trust my boyfriend because I have been with him. He is never strongly interested in physical activity, and I took his virginity. How can I look at another marriage alliance? I am not able to forget him. We are great moral support for each other, even now. I want God's help to guard this relationship against all such things. I also need your advice in regards to my problem.
Please help. He is a wonderful person. I know nobody can replace him. I cannot lose a man who is one in a million just because he flirted with another girl, but how can I convince myself and forget all that happened? I need help. Please pray for me. I would be ever grateful to you. I am praying constantly for this relationship and he is praying too. We have decided to fast and pray for three days for this relationship.
Answer:
"Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (James 4:1-4).
The core problem is your two-sided approach toward morality. Notice that you said you changed, that you have given up committing fornication, yet you did so with your current boyfriend. You are certain that you were the first person he has had sex with and you believe that you have hidden your past from him. But he has known from the time you had sex with him that you have had sex before and were practiced at it. He knows you haven't been fully honest with him. He also knows that while you want loyalty, but you don't bind yourself to rules of morality if it is something you want.
As for you, you know that he is willing to commit fornication when the girl is willing, that he saw nothing wrong with suggesting committing adultery, and that he will lie to cover up his indiscretions.
You've both made a lot of mistakes, so to hold his mistakes against him when you've done so many wrongs yourself doesn't make sense. This is why Jesus warned: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:1-5).
I don't know why he chose to flirt with this other girl. I'll accept that he realizes he was wrong and is committed not to sin that way again. If you believe you can change, you should give the same credit to him. But what I see is that you are again going two ways at once. You say you believe he won't do it again, but at the same time, you refuse to let go of the past. That isn't love. Love "does not take into account a wrong suffered" (I Corinthians 13:5). What defines a relationship is the present, not the past. The past only gives you clues as to his character, but a person can grow and change.
Therein is what needs to be addressed. You both are far too casual about following God's teachings. You both need to straighten up or your sins will destroy your lives later.
If you told me you would marry him next week, I would say you are crazy. But you are waiting for a year. If you see a repeat of this behavior, then you should seriously reconsider. But if he remains faithful, then there should be no reason to doubt him or yourself.
