I’m just so incredibly exhausted.
24M, middle Tennessee, big city, Southern Baptist convert. Really never dated or had any relationships before, went on one “date” in high school that the girl I went with just used as a way to try and let me down easy, because she knew I liked her and just didn’t feel the same way. Never had any hard feelings towards her for it, she was just as awkward as I was and had never been asked out before. But even after getting rejected by her I still carried on that crush for far longer than I ever should have, and that went almost 2 years. Between now and then, I’ve been through a few times of expressing interest or asking girls out and getting rejected, or otherwise finding myself in a position where it would be far more prudent to keep my mouth shut about my feelings towards someone. So I did just that.
I've always been a lonely person by nature, and as much as it sucks to be alone, I don't think I could ever expect another person to fix that, nor would I ever ask them to, especially not a woman that I would be romantically involved with. It's not her job nor is it something she'd be capable of, and I'm okay with that. But I still wanted to marry and start a family, and I've dreamed of having a big family since I never grew up with a big one. I've spent a lot of time from when I graduated high school to now watching friends and peers my age marry and start families themselves, constantly holding out hope that maybe my turn will come soon. I'd hoped that, seeing a lot of relationships fall apart with other people, too, that maybe the Lord was holding me out for
I entered the Church this year during the Easter season, through OCIA at a more traditional Novus Ordo parish near where I work. For most of the time I was in OCIA, I had a huge crush on this girl who I was in it with that I'd known for a while and was a couple of years younger than me. She rejected me at one point too, and I thought we could just be friends (she did too); turns out that was a mistake, because that whole thing lasted for almost a year longer than it should have and she spent most of it completely oblivious.
So I got over that, and have been for a while. After entering the Church, though, that desire for marriage and a family has really only grown stronger. I'm still lonely. I'm still struggling. I've hit some very low points during this whole thing, and I just don't enjoy doing things alone, and it's as simple as that. But a lot of my friends don't really have time for me anymore, because they have jobs or school or they're married now. I don't hold that against them. The friends that I am able to see frequently just don't really enjoy doing a lot of the things I really want to do, or don't really have as much overlapping interests, so sometimes being with them is hard. Overall it's just been extraordinarily difficult to navigate, and for a long time I had very little hope, because I just didn't have anyone around me I found especially attractive.
Probably about three and a half months ago, I started attending a traditional Latin daily Mass in my diocese, because the church is currently closed for repairs and they'd done so right around the time I'd hoped to join the parish in full (I went to a Sunday High Mass there several times both during and after entering the Church, and I find the liturgy extremely beautiful and reverent, and hope to raise a family in such an environment). I had already been in the midst of one of these low points that I mentioned before, and just felt very dejected and had been for probably a couple of weeks. Shortly after I started going to daily Mass, I noticed a girl there who I thought was really pretty, but didn't know much about, and so I decided to just go for it, approach her, and ask her on a date. And for the first time in probably six years, I found myself taking a girl on a date, and I can't begin to describe how ecstatic I was. She went on vacation not long after, but I talked to her sporadically while she was gone, and over the next month or so we continued to go on dates, see each other, and get to know each other. I thought it was going very well, and I think it was the consistently happiest I've ever been in probably years.
I made it clear earlier on that my intention for taking her out and getting to know her was that I was seeking marriage; I hope to be a husband and a father someday, and that was the express purpose for doing what we were doing. She said she was still figuring out how she felt, but that she was there for the same thing, and that she'd only ever been on a couple of first dates before. We continued to get to know each other; she was really smart, really pretty, nerdy and super conservative. She gave off the impression of being an old soul like I am. She loved Our Lord very deeply and it was evident with how she lived and how she approached things. She also seemed genuinely interested in me and the things I was doing, would ask me about my day, and so on. It was wonderful. My birthday was around that time, too, and she made me a pan of brownies and got me an icon of the Mystical Supper. Things were going extremely well, and I decided that I think I wanted to take things a little further, so after one of our dates I asked her to be my girlfriend; she said no, but more just because she wanted to wait a slight bit longer. But she expressed that she still really liked me, and enjoyed seeing me, and would be interested in such a thing. So even though she said no, I was still hopeful. A few days after, she even expressed that her family would be coming to town for her birthday and that they wanted to meet me.
About a week later, she went on another trip out west. Before she left, she told me she would miss me. In the meantime, we kept talking; I called her a couple times while she was out there, and on her way back, she called me. When she returned, we went and saw a movie that she'd said she really wanted to see, and it was good. I thought about asking her again to be my girlfriend, but decided I'd wait just one more date before I did. She wasn't able to go out for the rest of the weekdays, but we made an arrangement to go to a park that had falls and a nice watering hole that we could swim in that Saturday. We kept up with each other, and everything seemed just fine (to me, at least).
That Saturday, at least at first, was good. I picked her up in the morning, we drove to the park, hiked down, and just sat and talked by the water since it was a little too cool to swim. We explored a creekbed, and ate lunch. A little while later, we headed back up to my car, and I drove her home. It was on that drive, towards the end, when I asked her again to be my girlfriend.
She said no.
But this was more of a hard “no,” and she told me that she was sorry, but didn’t think I was the man she was going to marry. She had intended to tell me when I dropped her off.
It hit me like a truck. I did what I could to keep my composure, but I could barely hold it together for maybe the fifteen or so minutes back to her house. But I did what I could from there; I resolved to get her home safely, and I did. I tried to ask a few questions to better understand, and from that I gathered that sometime between that Wednesday morning and Friday evening, she’d realized that she just didn’t think she could carry on. I don’t know exactly when, just somewhere in that timeframe.
So I dropped her off. I thanked her for her time, and told her that I was glad to have been able to see her for the time we had. Then I went and spent time with some friends, and spent the rest of the night barely holding myself together. I folded to the temptations of lust that night after doing so well against it for a while, and went to the earliest confession I could in the morning and just…could not take it. I barely made it through the first five words of the Act of Contrition before I burst into tears. Father did his best to console me, and I managed to get through it, but I felt horrible. She had planned to go to Mass at a more traditional Novus Ordo parish that morning, and I had already told her I’d be there too before she turned me down. So I went to Mass, and afterwards, I met her in the parking lot and gave her the things I had gotten her for her birthday. She offered to pay me for them, and I refused.
The rest of the day was pretty awful. I went to a university group that I spend a lot of time at, and spent probably a good few hours on and off in the chapel sobbing until I couldn’t breathe. There were times where no one was in the building and I just couldn’t hold it in. I felt so bad, because all I wanted in those moments was to be with her, to celebrate her, meet her family. I kept thinking about how close I’d come to something I’d been searching for for nearly six years at that point. I just didn’t understand what was going on and why, and why it was so sudden. She had told me before that she really liked me; apparently she’d told her family about me and they wanted to meet me; before she left, she said she would miss me, and said she was looking forward to seeing me again. And I believed her.
After daily Mass that next Tuesday morning, I finished my prayers and left the chapel. I waited for her so we could talk for a minute. I asked her if I had done anything wrong, and she assured me I hadn’t, but that she just knew I wasn’t the man for her. She knew how sudden it was, and didn't want to wait long after she realized it to break things off. I had a film camera I'd taken a few photos on and most of them were of her on our last date, so I gave it to her, because I shouldn't have something like that anymore. I told her it would be best for us not to try and be friends, because if we were I would likely not be able to move on and would still have feelings for her, and I didn't want to go through that AGAIN nor do I want to do that to her. Probably since our third or fourth date, I had wanted to tell her I thought she was beautiful, but figured I'd wait until we were more official to say something like that. And since this was it, I just went ahead and said it. I told her that I thought she was beautiful, and that I was certain there was a man out there who would someday be happy to call her his wife. And I meant it, sincerely.
We told each other we would pray for one another, and I have. I wished her a good day, and told her to be safe, and that was the last thing I said to her. It's been a about a week since I spoke to her last.
I drove to work. I could barely see with how much I was crying. I don't think I'd ever truly wept before until that morning. The rest of that day just felt so incredibly empty. So did the day after, and the day after that. I just didn't want to do anything. It's like there was no joy, no happiness, no drive to even really wake up. It was just like the feeling I had before I met her, only exponentially worse. It's hard to wake myself up to go to Mass. It's hard to wake up to go to work. I've barely eaten for days, and I just don't have an appetite. I haven't slept well, and even though mentally I'm exhausted my body is completely wired and it's hard to go to sleep, or get back to sleep if I wake up. I miss having someone I could look forward to, who would tell me about her day and the cool things she got to do. I miss being able to make plans with someone to go and do something together. I miss being able to buy her a flower, or tell her that I think she looks really nice today. It's like I got a small taste of something I've always looked forward to, and it was snatched away from me before I even had an opportunity to grab hold of it. I don't even know how to reduce someone I've grown so attached to so quickly down to somebody that I don't talk to and just happen to know a lot about.
I'm sure it must have been hard for her, too. Sometimes I wonder if she's taking it just as hard as I am. If she is, then I would love nothing more than to be there to console her, but I know that I never can and will probably never have the chance to be there for her when she really needs it; I can't be there to hold her when things are rough, and the thought of that alone makes me feel worse. I appreciate that she chose to end it as soon as she knew, rather than keeping me on another week or two or more, or rather than accepting a relationship only to tear it down shortly after. I can tell that she didn't want to hurt me more than she knew she was probably going to be. And for what it's worth, I truly don't believe she was being dishonest when she told me before that she'd miss me, that she liked me, and when she said she looked forward to seeing me again. I know that the most loving thing I can do for her is to just let her go, and ultimately I want what is best for her, even if I'm not that. If I have to step aside so that another man can come along and love her better, then so be it. I want her to be happy, even if I'm not going to be the one to bring her such happiness.
I just wish I was the one for her, and I'm sorry to her that I wasn't able to be. From what I can tell, it was at the fault of neither of us; things didn't work out and that's just the way it is. I'm not mad at her. I don't think I ever could be mad at her for this. In a weird way, I almost wish I had done something wrong, because then I'd be able to pinpoint something I could correct or fix or just not do again. It honestly feels so much worse because I just couldn't have predicted this. Nobody around me could have predicted this. It blindsided me so hard and tore me to pieces.
Every time I go to Mass or Adoration, I wish she were beside me again. Every time I see something I want to go and do, I wish that I could ask her if she wants to go. I wish I could see her text messages again telling me about what she did today. And now I'm back to the search, and I don't know how to even pick myself back up again after this. How do I resolve the anxiety of a girl I'm seeing just…deciding one day I'm not for her, and even if things have been going well, she just leaves?
I'm terrified. I've been lonely for most of my life. There's been some times where it's effectively crippled me, and days where the loneliness manifested as actual physical pain with how bad it got. And I'm back there, and I begged the Lord not to let me go back there, but I don't really have a choice. I look back at the idea of having to wait so long because God was going to put someone in front of me that I wouldn't break up with, and things would work out. And now I can only think of how naively stupid I ever was for believing something like that, that I'm too old to be this dumb. And the fact that I'm still thinking about her, and still can barely hold it together makes me feel astoundingly pathetic. Every day I hope that this is all just a really vivid bad dream, and that I'll snap out of it, or I'll go to sleep tonight and I'll wake up on Saturday morning; we'll go to the park, I'll ask her to be my girlfriend, and she'll say yes. Still, I know it's not true and that it won't ever happen. An idea like that makes me feel even more pathetic. But every ounce of hope that I held and every bit of happiness is just…gone. Right when everything seemed like it was going okay, the floor fell right out from under me like it feels like it has for my entire life every time something seems to be going okay or I feel stable for even just a little while.
The idea of getting back into the “dating game” is also scary. As it is, I have no idea how long it'll take to move on from her. We don't talk, but I still see her at daily Mass. If I can manage to get over it, then I still have to go out and start trying again, but I don't really have a lot of options. There aren't a lot of young women that frequent the Latin Mass, or at least not during the week. At the university group, most girls are already in relationships or not really looking for one. Some of my female friends go out of their way sometimes to make it clear they'd never consider dating me, even if I've never once expressed interest in them.
There's hardly any other third spaces I can go to that are explicitly Catholic in nature so that I'm with people of the faith, and if there are, events are infrequent and I just can't make it to them. I don't like dating apps and I've tried a few before with no success whatsoever. I'll be entering a trade school soon, and for probably about two years I won't have time to even go out and look for someone. My life will pretty much become just school and work. I'm scared that I won't be able to motivate myself to stay in school, and even if I do, I will be so incredibly lonely that it may end up being the worst couple years of my life so far. By the time I get out I'll be in my later twenties, and if I don't give up on it completely here soon, then any hope or dream of marrying and having a family while I'm still somewhat young will be completely wiped away. Even then, that's just the time it'll take to get through school, and it could very well take even longer. And as much as I desire a wife and a family, the Lord just may never see fit to allow me one, and I just kind of have to be okay with that. Even if He does, I might have to give up on being young, or give up on having a large family and household. I may have to settle for someone who doesn't really want to do the things I'd always hoped to do with a companion, or who I don't really find as attractive, or who doesn't share the same desires for a large family or prefer more traditional liturgy or anything of those sorts, all so I don't have to be alone for the rest of my life. But I recognize that as much as I wish these things worked out with this one girl, if we carried onwards eventually to marriage then she probably would have ended up settling for less with me, and I wouldn't want that for her. I just wish I would have been good enough.
It's difficult to lurk this sub and find people older than me who are just as hopeless and still feel like I'll ever find what I'm looking for. I know God still loves me, and He'll still take care of me no matter what, but I really don't know if I can hang on much longer like this. I don't think I have it in me to go through a breakup again, and the idea of doing this all over again but potentially with a relationship that lasts longer or goes deeper is almost enough to make me not even want to try at all. I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm scared I'll never find anyone, or if I do, it will take so long that any dreams of a family or the marriage I'd hoped for will be long gone. Maybe I should just stop holding onto this dumb and juvenile dream that these things could ever have gone how I'd hoped and just hope that I get SOMETHING and be thankful I was even considered by someone else even if it's not what I'd wanted.
I don't know. I'm just so tired of this. I have no idea what to do. I hope she never has to know how bad this hurts for me, because I don't want that to be on her soul. It just feels so awful that this is what I'd waited so long for. And as much as I really shouldn't be thinking about her, I hope she's handling this okay.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to learn from this. I want to stay hopeful and take is a lesson in patience or perseverance, but it's just hard to really see anything coming out of this except hurt.
Some people have tried reassuring me by saying how I'm so young and I still have so much time ahead of me and that I shouldn't concern myself with finding a wife right now, as if it's a better idea for me to wait until my later twenties or mid thirties before I consider marrying and having a family. Or the alternative of someone pointing out that St. Paul said it's best for some not to marry. How is that supposed to make me feel better?
I'm sorry if this is too much. I'm just feeling…hurt, and extremely frightened and anxious. I don't know how to process this or how to carry on. I've never been equipped to deal with something like this. My soul wasn't built to do this.
small edit/after note: Thanks to all who have commented or messaged. It really means the most. I know that I'll be okay, it just kinda sucks right now to be dealing with. Hopefully soon I'll be able to be a little more 'over it,' however long that might be.