Expert: Carl Fuglein - 2/22/2009

Question
QUESTION: I can't seem to forget about my boyfriend's sexual past. When I met him, we were both 17, and I was a virgin, but he wasn't. He'd had sex when he was 15, 16, and 17 with one girl a handful of times, and it pains me to think that he loved and cared about someone else besides me, and that he gave himself to someone else in the past. She is a very harsh, selfish, and cruel person. She cheated on him numerous times, and even got an abortion on their child, anc yet, he still had sex with her, and stayed in a relationship with her. I JUST DON'T GET IT! Why did he care so much about someone like her? He even continued to talk to her for 6 months into his relationship with me, and he hid it behind my back. He sent her e-mails telling her that he still loved her too... I just don't get it. I feel so heartbroken. I'm pregnant now, 29 weeks, and he just came to me the other day, telling me that he misses her, and wants to contact her again. He's taken it back now, and says he doesn't really miss her, that it's his family he misses, but I just don't believe him. I just don't know what to do... I still feel like he loves her, and I don't see why. I hate his past with her, and I can't take thinking about it anymore... I don't know what to do!

ANSWER: Hi An,

I'm sorry for your problems.  This is a perfect example of why we should wait until marriage for sex.

Bottom line is that you have to figure out whether you're better off with him, or without him.  Only you can make that choice.  If you still love him and want to be with him, and want him to be a hands on father, then you are going to have to find a way to forgive him, and forget about his past.  As long as you hold on to that resentment, your relationship will be rocky.  

If you feel that you're better off without him, then dump him and forget him completely.  This is hard, too, since you're carrying his baby.  He has to stay responsible and pay child support, and you'll probably have to see him in order to do that.  Or you could just leave him totally out of the picture and go it on your own.  This, too, is hard.

You have to understand that God has already forgiven him, and you must, too, in order to free yourself from resentment.  If you don't do that, you'll never be free.

This may not be the advice you wanted, but it's the best I've got.  I hope it helps.

Blessings,

Carl


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I just have one more question regarding virginity. When you lose it to someone, are your souls somehow connected? I heard once that they are. Is my boyfriend's connected to his ex-girlfriend's? What is my soul connected to? I'm so confused!

Answer
From a religious/spiritual point of view, I don't think that an act or two of sex would connect you.  From an emotional/societal point of view, whenever you become intimate with someone, you have to have some sort of connection, and I think you give away part of your heart that you will never get back.  But I don't think it has anything to do with your soul or spirituality.