Last updated on November 2, 2020
Question:
I’m a 17-year-old girl, who dated a guy. He was a Christian. We broke up because his parents found out that we touched each other. His mother got mad and made him break up with me. I went to church with them all the time because I respect his religion, and I actually thought it was interesting to learn. I started learning more about his religion.
I care about him so much and would take back what we did. He said he would as well, in a heartbeat, to be together. We only did it once and we both regret it. We still talk to each other, but I feel like we will never be able to date again. I don’t know why when we both feel bad about it, are owning up to it, and said if we dated again, it wouldn’t happen again.
I care about him, and he cares about me. We used to talk all the time, and I knew him very well as a person. I care more about him than touching him. I just feel that because I meet his mom once, and I was a little shy, she assumed I was a bad child when I’m not. We just made a mistake, and I wish I could go back to that day when he ended things and talk to his mom. I would apologize, even though I think when he told me, his mom was there listening. I said it, just not straight to her face.
I don’t know what to do because I care about him a lot.
Answer:
I only have your side of the story, so it is difficult to fully know all the dynamics that are occurring.
You both sexually touched each other. That phrasing could be interpreted widely, but consider that God forbids sexual touching for good reasons. “Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman” (I Corinthians 7:1). One simple reason is that sin is progressive. What starts out as touching eventually moves to more serious sexual acts. Then, too, when people are sexually aroused, they don’t think clearly. People tend to go further than they intend.
While you seem to take full blame, what I detect is that you both were equally at fault.
There can be several reasons his mother insisted that this relationship had to end:
- She didn’t want her son to sin, and he had already started. Thus, she is trying to protect him from himself.
- She didn’t want you to be led into sin by an erring Christian. You said you were learning about Christianity, but the worse thing that can happen is for someone to be lead into sin by someone who should have known better.
- She didn’t want you to become an unwed mother. Frankly, if she didn’t stop this, it would have progressed to intercourse. I notice that it was only because he broke up with you that you realized that what you two were doing was wrong.
- She didn’t want her son supporting a child in his youth or feeling obligated to marry a girl he got pregnant because he had no restraint.
I’m glad you realized what you did was wrong and that you have no plans to repeat this sin. I have no idea if this young man will start dating you again later when he matures more or not. Much can happen over the next few years. You can be patient and wait, or you can consider other boys as possible husbands in the future over the next few years. Just realize that sex is for marriage. “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Don’t be in a rush or try using sex to snare a boyfriend. Fornication is not worth the consequences it causes.