I'M NOT REPULSED BY YOU — MARRY ME!

Dear Professor Theophilus:

I am in the strangest, most painful situation I've ever found myself in, apart from my parents' divorce. A young man is pursuing me. He wants to get married, but he's not, well, firing on all cylinders. What I mean is that he doesn't find me sexually attractive. In fact, he doesn't find women in general sexually attractive. He used to suffer from homosexual desires, and he used gay porn. He no longer has homosexual desires, but he doesn't have heterosexual desires either. He's not pursuing help to be restored to sexual wholeness, which makes me wonder what he's really in the relationship for.

I didn't know all this at first. Now that I do, my hopes are frustrated and my heart is shattered. Oddly, I find myself caring more for him than before. I hurt more than I have ever hurt for another person. I'm also very confused and angry at myself for letting myself get so involved with him.

He explains that he pursued me because of my "godliness," and he does "think" I'm beautiful, but that doesn't matter to him — the best he can say is that he doesn't grow cold at the thought of holding my hand. When I said this couldn't be a basis for married love, he asked "Do you want a man to fall in love with you because you're beautiful, or because you're godly?" I told him that I want a man to love me because I'm a godly woman. Beauty fades, but I'll always be a woman. I have not only a woman's body, but a woman's soul. It isn't enough for him to be attracted to my godliness. He has to be appreciate my womanhood too.

Here's my question. Does the relationship need to end? I'm getting mixed counsel from my home and college pastors. One says no, the other yes. The "yes" pastor says that God will give the young man sexual desires when the time is right. I know this isn't the right time for sex because we're not married. But isn't it the right time for sexual desires? At my dad's advice, I've ended the relationship, but it's like torture. We've been trying to back away and keep conversation to small talk. It really hurts. It doesn't feel right, but I know my feelings deceive me.

Maybe God is saying "wait." Maybe He's saying "no" and teaching me some hard lessons about men and His will for my life. I've been in daily prayer and repentance. I've been reading books on homosexuality. I've been shaken in my womanhood and find myself wondering what true beauty is.

Anything you say will be helpful, so let it loose.

Reply

Okay, I'll let it loose. Your intuition is right, and the pastor who told you to stick with the fellow should have his head examined: The relationship has to end. Marital love involves union between two whole persons, total self-giving, which cannot be separated from sexual self-giving. If the man doesn't want eros, then he doesn't really want marriage; he only wants the legal form of marriage. You are right to be suspicious of his motives.

Mind you, the relationship has to really end — you say you've ended it, but obviously you haven't. End the whole thing, small talk and all. Break off. Don't see him at all. You're like someone with an infected tooth. You're afraid to pull it out because it will hurt. The problem is that if you don't pull it out, it will hurt much worse, for much longer, and in many more ways.

I know you feel compassion for the young man, and that's not wrong. True compassion, though, should lead you to desire his true good, and this relationship is no more good for him than it is for you. As you remarked yourself, he's not trying to get well. In fact, he is using you. The only question is in how many different ways he is doing it. You see, he's not pursuing you because he is seeking sexual wholeness; he's pursuing you as a substitute for sexual wholeness, as a way to keep from facing the fact that his emotions are still not in order. I can't help but wonder what else he is up to. In these books you are reading on homosexuality, look up the concept of an "accommodation marriage" — a marriage of convenience which is kept up merely as a front.

As for you, my dear, you must stop confusing pity with romantic love; that's a disorder in your feelings. Some guys have a soft spot for broken girls. You, I suspect, have a soft spot for broken guys. What a man with broken emotions needs is a counselor, not a wife; what a woman with an extra-soft heart needs is a husband, not a patient. All those novels and movies where the girl marries a damaged guy and then "fixes" him are frauds. The marital relationship is one thing; the therapeutic relationship is another.

You also have to stop blaming yourself for what has happened here. "I've been in daily prayer and repentance," you say. Prayer, good, but repentance, why? Maybe you've left something out, but nothing you've said suggests that you've sinned. Apparently the young man didn't tell you the truth about himself or his reasons for pursuing you until the relationship was far advanced. In fact, he still isn't being honest — with you, or for that matter with himself. How is that your fault?

You haven't asked that question yet, because the young man is an expert at manipulating your self-doubts. When he asked, "Do you want a man to fall in love with you because you're beautiful, or because you're godly?", your answer was perfect. It's true that a woman's true adornment is her godly spirit (1 Peter 3:3-4), but just as you say, her godly spirit remains a woman's godly spirit. Then why does his question still troubles you? Even now you are wondering whether there is something wrong with you for wanting your womanliness to be appreciated. The answer is no.

Be reconciled with your womanhood, and find a man who is reconciled with his manhood. God wants us to be whole.

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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I ONLY LIKE YOU WHEN WE'RE ALONE

Dear Professor Theophilus:

My friends and I have all been having a similar problem. We're all fairly introverted, "intellectual" men who don't show our emotions except to those we are close with. All the girls are fairly independent, ambitious, have a difficult time understanding our occasional feelings of jealousy when they casually meet and talk with other guys not making an effort to "be associated" with us, and are reluctant to show any dependency on us in public settings (they don't really want to be seen "with" us, don't want to be seen "as a couple").

Now some of this is why we like them. We don't like women to be clingy. The problem isn't that they're not clingy — it's that they don't seem to want to be close. They resist the natural progression that takes place in emotions, so that the man and woman come to depend on each other. They also don't like us to depend on them (which is curious because in general I think women want to be wanted). Sometimes they let down their guards, but only when not in public. My own girlfriend says she doesn't like the fact that some of her friends know me only as her boyfriend. She's unhappy that I don't have an independent identity in their eyes.

We don't know whether our girlfriends are going through some sort of phase, or have some deeper problem that will show up in the future and prevent marital intimacy. Somehow it seems to spill over into a lack of excitement about motherhood, which worries me too. I don't want these things to develop into a life-long struggle. My older, wiser friends don't have any insight into girls like our girlfriends; their wives and girlfriends are different. Any thoughts?

Reply

Just like young men, young women may have lots of reasons for resisting the normal development of a relationship in the direction of commitment — especially fear of growing up, previous bad experience with the opposite sex, difficult or broken families, or confused ideas about manhood and womanhood in general.

Things like that may have something to do with what's going on here, but I don't think they're the main problem. Fear of commitment or confusion about sex roles may explain the behavior of girlfriends who act cool and distant all the time, but they don't explain the behavior of girlfriends who let down their guards in private, but act cool and distant toward you in the presence of others.

The evidence suggests that these young women are using you and your friends as good-enough-for-now boyfriends, to be dropped when someone better comes along. If a young woman is on the lookout for Someone Better, she isn't going to want to seem committed when Possible Someone Betters are in the vicinity. Nor will she want to be tagged as "attached" when her own female friends are around. So, she has to treat you distantly when other people are around, and she doesn't want anyone to think of you as her boyfriend.

If I'm right, then, you and your friends are (a) dating the wrong women, and (b) misunderstanding their character.

You probably think I'm wrong. If you do believe me, you may feel crushed. Don't. There is no need. Intellectual young men like you tend to be late bloomers, but you do usually bloom. One reason is that, as you grow older and more mature, you grow better at social relationships, and therefore you grow more attractive to women. Another is that, as young women themselves grow older and more mature, they learn to appreciate the qualities of smart men who don't fit the mold of "cool."

Unfortunately, the sort of young women who are willing to exploit young men as good-enough-for-now boyfriends are not the sort who learn to appreciate them later.

Be patient, watch, and trust God. By being patient, I don't mean sticking with these girls; they are the wrong ones. What I mean is that the right ones will come along.

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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THIS TIME, WHAT'S RIGHT ABOUT THE PICTURE?

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Would you please explain a point that has come up a number of times in your Boundless columns and your book Ask Me Anything? When you discuss how sex should work in marriage, I don't get how it takes each spouse "out of the Self."

Reply

Okay, let's review. God invented sex. It was His idea. After He created, He called His creation "good." Three things are good about sex, and each one needs marriage to come into its own.

The first is procreation, making families: God told our first parents to "be fruitful and multiply." The second is union, becoming one: When our first father saw our first mother for the first time, he cried "This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." The third is grace, supernatural gift: When the husband and wife are united to Christ, they become a living emblem of His sacrificial love for the Church and the Church's adoring response. These three goods are the point of sex, what sex is for.

You're asking about the second one, union. For the husband and wife to be truly united to each other, the most important thing to happen is that they give themselves totally to each other. That means in soul and in body. To give yourself is to get outside of your Self — to get out of the narrow little prison house of Self-regard. Do you remember Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? He can't stop thinking about "My Precious." In our fallen condition, we're like that too. We can't stop thinking about our Precious Selves. Sexual love between husband and wife love pulls in the opposite direction. It pulls you toward the Other. Instead of thinking about your Self, you are thinking about the Beloved.

The sexual impulse can go wrong. It can be directed toward your Self; that's auto-eroticism, which locks the prison door even more tightly. It can be directed toward a mirror of your Self; that's homosexual intercourse, which is like auto-eroticism with another body. Or it can be directed toward another Self in a way that won't let go; that's casual sex, which is like signing a contract in disappearing ink. It's a kind of fraud, enacted in the language of bodies instead of words: "I give my Self, but I don't give my Self."

The Bible uses conjugal union as a symbol of the even more profound marriage that God plans between Himself and His people. The everyday humilities and mutual sacrifices of earthly husbands and wives are a training for heavenly union; the awe of their wedding night and the ecstasy of their embraces are a glimpse of it.

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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If you have a question you'd like Professor Theophilus to consider for this column, please send it to asktheo@trueu.org. Please note, all questions that are selected for "Ask Theophilus" may be edited for clarity and privacy and become the property of Focus on the Family.