Do you have any advice for healing from my boyfriend's sexual past? If Peter is the rock upon which the Church is built, why is Mary given to John at the foot of the cross? My fiancé wants to use contraception. Do you have any advice?

Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II’s beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body.

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Q1: I have been dating my boyfriend for 2 years now. He is a Catholic missionary and we met through our church. When he was in college however, he wasn’t living out his faith. He was indulging in things like drunkenness and hooking up with girls on a regular basis. He had a major conversion his senior year of college and now is an incredible man of God who passionately lives out his faith. I have been saving myself for marriage and when I found out he didn’t and has been with many women, it broke my heart. This is something I struggle with to this day. I see a Catholic counselor to try to deal with it, and the emotional pain has gotten better, but isn’t completely healed and is sometimes still a real struggle. I was wondering if you had any advice for me and if there’s hope that I can actually find full emotional healing from this.

Q2: I'm in a TOB study group. One of the questions that we are intrigued by is that according to the spousal analogy there is a man on the cross and a woman at the foot of the cross. It explains that our Lord is the new Adam and that Mary, the new Eve, is at the foot of the cross and that from these nuptials "women, there is your son" is the beginning of the Church. In this passage of the bible the son is John. Nevertheless, the apostle that God gives the Church to is Peter. Our question then is, based on Archbishop Fulton Sheen and this analogy if John is representing the Church in the cross, then why is Peter the founder of the Church?

Q3: I am currently deployed In a combat zone overseas and have been gone for over a year now. My fiance and I are getting married in January. She is a practicing Lutheran (NALC) and wants to be on contraception for the first year or two of our marriage as she is still in college and wishes to finish school before potentially getting pregnant. What resources would you recommend that her and I can study together to make decisions in our sex lives as a married couple?

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Resources mentioned this week:

Desert Stream Ministries

Theology of the Body Congress

TOB 1 Online, Nov 2-13

Word Made Flesh - Full Set

Word Made Flesh - Cycle B

Good News about Sex & Marriage

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Christopher and Wendy hope their advice is helpful to you, but they are not licensed counseling professionals. If you are dealing with serious issues, please consult our list of trusted professionals.

Featuring music by Mike Mangione.