Feeling The Spirit Again - Part 1

Dear Bro Jo,

So I’m 17 years old, & I have been a member all my life. Growing up in the Church, I got to know my standards quite well & I always promised myself I would never date a non-member, never date seriously until I was ready for marriage & I would get married in the Temple.

Well I met a guy in March. I guess you can pretty much know what happened?

We started talking everyday (he likes half an hour away & with no drivers means not seeing him a lot) and at the end of April (after a few dates) he asked me to go steady.

I agreed overjoyed because I’m crazy about this guy.

He’s not a member & I can’t say he exactly has the best standards.

You see, his life growing up wasn’t exactly great. He came from a broken family, drugs, crime & death happened to a lot of his family members.

He was adopted when he was a little kid & stuff has happened to him over the past while (drugs) but he told me he was done with that.

I’m getting a little off track but I just thought I’d give a bit of back round on the both of us…

So I’ve broken two promises to myself already.

But that’s not exactly the problem…or not all of it at least.

We saw each other Tuesday (me sneaking over to see him with my sister - I know, not good) we met outside his house and went for a drive down to a place we could be alone.

The reason was that he was very likely leaving to a place far away because of problems between him and his family.

Anyways well…we were alone..and stuff happened.

Making out.

Inappropriate touching.

I didn’t feel guilty about any of it…but I should have.

So I saw him again…and it was worse.

It was touching…down there…and other stuff.

All over clothing but still…words can’t explain the guilt I feel now.

I feel broken inside because I have given a part of myself…we didn’t have “that” or anything exactly close to it but we were doing wrong things & I knew it.

He did ask me…but every time I said I wasn’t ready, he asked again and again and basically I felt I had to.

So I gave in.

I don’t feel worthy anymore…

I know I must repent. But I feel like when I see him again, he’s gonna expect it.

I let myself and Heavenly Father down …

I’m the Laurel Class President so what example am I setting?

I’m so confused and sad…

But after all this I still want to be with him & it just farther confuses me …

I always thought it’d be easy to avoid temptation.

But it’s not…I feel stupid…and the fact I liked it makes me even more disappointed in myself and disgusted. …

I just really needed to talk to someone about this. …

What can I do?

What should I do?

- Feeling So Alone




Dear Feeling,

Listen to what the Spirit is telling you ... to what he's been telling you.

You feel the need to talk to someone and to repent.

I think you know who you can talk to about both of those things.

First God.

And then the Bishop.

You're not a horrible person. You're learning some lessons the hard way.

You knew you shouldn't get romantically involved with his guy. You knew you shouldn't sneak over. And after going as far as you did you knew you shouldn't go over the second time.

You know if you see him again he's going to expect you to do what you did ... and more ... and you know how you'll regret going over and giving in.

So don't.

All of that stuff about his background is frankly just you trying to make it a little less bad that you did what you did. Do us both a favor and don't lie to yourself.

You deserve better.

I want you to please consider one more aspect of all of this, and that is your feeling that you "had to" give in to the begging.

That's not good.

The manipulation. The pressure. That's not love.

And it's not respect.

Either for yourself or for you from him.

Doing things that we know we shouldn't and we deep down don't want to do because we feel the person we're with will think less of us if we don't is a Big Red Flag.

It means that they aren't the good people we pretend them to be and our hanging out with them is not a good idea.

Remember your training.

We make the decisions about what situations we're going to allow ourselves to get in BEFORE we get in them.

We determine how we'll respond when faced with temptation BEFORE we're tempted.

Go talk to your Heavenly Father.

He loves you.

He'll always love you.

And He's hoping you'll come talk to Him now when you really need Him.

As soon as you can, make the appointment to go talk to the Bishop.

And no more seeing this boy.

Honestly, I think once he realizes that you have no intention of doing this stuff again, no intention of letting these sessions eventually lead to sex (which is his goal, by the way, and once he gets it he'll expect that all the time, too, until he's no longer interested in you ... which may be the moment after it happens...because he doesn't respect you .... and no one lives anyone they don't respect) ... once he realizes that's never gonna happen, sadly I predict he'll dump you.

So I say get out now. Before you go through all of that garbage.

Everything thing is going to be okay.

Just go do what you know you're supposed to do.

- Bro Jo


[Dear Readers,

Part 2 of this post will publish Monday, July 18th.

- Bro Jo]