Impossible love
Climacus
Shipmate
in All Saints
God has been gracious in that I've only been consumed by love twice in my life: once with a colleague (I left the job) and now, disturbingly, with a priest (I'm not at his parish now).
Once I left the job the feelings dissipated gradually. With the feelings towards the priest, they have only intensified over 3 or so months.
As I am immature emotionally and inexperienced in love, I have no idea how to manage this. I don't mean to bring up people's painful experiences, but is there any advice to get over a love that can never be? I'm unsure whether to bring this up, specifically or generally, with the current priest, but given it's consuming me I feel I need help.
Once I left the job the feelings dissipated gradually. With the feelings towards the priest, they have only intensified over 3 or so months.
As I am immature emotionally and inexperienced in love, I have no idea how to manage this. I don't mean to bring up people's painful experiences, but is there any advice to get over a love that can never be? I'm unsure whether to bring this up, specifically or generally, with the current priest, but given it's consuming me I feel I need help.
Comments
May I ask (and feel free not to answer if this is too personal): are you in a position where if the sort of person you are likely to develop feelings for reciprocated you would be able to pursue a relationship, or are there impediments to that? I suppose what I'm asking is, are you looking for how to deal with "crushes" in an interim period prior to finding a partner, or are you more likely to be making peace with celibacy?
1. Time. There's nothing like time for making those kinds of feelings soften and back off, though they may intensify in the first few months. But if they are not fed with anything (either fantasy or real-life interactions), they eventually die away.
2. Straightforward confession to God together with thanksgiving that the person exists, even if not for me. Because love in itself is not a bad thing, though this particular love may be impossible. This step gets repeated as many times as necessary, until finally the crush converts itself into 99% thanksgiving (yeah, it takes a while).
3. Keeping busy (yeah, the old fashioned recommendation) with worthwhile stuff that makes it harder for me to moon around thinking of the person.
4. Keeping strict watch on myself to prevent myself from accidentally-on-purpose happening across said person. I don't think it's always best to completely avoid the person--you may not be able to, given your responsibilities. But you certainly want to avoid making deliberate efforts to see or hear the person.
5. Watch yourself to make sure you don't have a case of mentionitis--that is, where people can tell just from your conversation that you're preoccupied by that person. It just makes everything worse.
6. If said person has a partner, make it a daily habit to pray for that person by name and for their relationship. It's sort of like setting a bone--you want to get things back in shape they're supposed to be in and then let the healing cement them that way. By praying for the person who would otherwise be your (impossible) rival, you prevent a lot of the bitterness that otherwise erupts.
As for confessing the crush to someone else BY NAME, I would be very careful about that, unless I was absolutely confident in the person's love for me, professionalism, and confidentiality. You don't want to be the person for whom their standards fail because they can't resist the urge to gossip. If you think there's a chance, better to say nothing, or to very thoroughly disguise the identity of the person.
Thank you for your response and sharing your own personal experience. Time is a good answer; I suppose I just want it over with and am so conflicted because the priest was a great help to me spiritually and losing that aspect was devastating. But maybe my feelings are colouring my view.
Thank you again.
Fortunately with Mr F it was winning through to the realisations that I actually liked him that grounded the love that lasted these 40 years.
Its hard, but the habit of thinking about the other slowly wanes.
No details, but changing church, increasing my work commitments all helped. This was over 40 years ago.
Alan29: thank you. That helps.
Puzzler: thank you for sharing what worked for you. I've done the church thing; keeping busy is next.
Wise, wise words. Sometimes, in God's mercy, the other person's, or your situation changes, and opportunities for meetings lessen.
Thanking God for this, difficult though it is, helps the process.
I speak from experience.
And thank you for your post The_Riv; I've responded on the Purg thread.
The second time was more adult - it was 10 years later, apart from anything else, but I didn't realise I had fallen in love with him until literally our handshake at the end of his leaving service (he was the curate). I had never let myself get to know him as well as I might. The only definite thing we did together was preparing for his first mass - the church had a tradition of accompanied intonation of the eucharistic prayer and, though I say it myself, his first mass was a model of supple sensitivity. Later, it became clear why.
Neither of these, therefore, give me a great deal of wisdom to offer, but a whole lot of empathy. The problem for me was that I'd broken the rules, and I didn't know what to do and how either to make myself a new rulebook or get back to the existing one. Eventually, the old one kind of reasserted itself, but always with the sense that it was no longer quite as authoritative as it had been, because there was another part of me which was beyond it.
Your last paragraph also gives me something to ponder. Thank you for sharing, and I wish you well.