Thinking of joining a monastery

[IncelMonk]

Hi guys. I’m IncelMonk. I was born and raised Catholic. I even have a Godfather. I’ll be 23 this summer and I’m about to graduate college with a degree in theology and philosophy. I’m originally from northern Vermont just a few miles from the Canadian border but going to school in elsewhere.

This is going to be quite the story so please bear with me as I have a lot to get off my chest.

I grew up in a small town of just a few hundred people. I went to a Catholic school 45 miles away. I have had sex with one girl when we were 13 but she is my cousin. Her parents caught us one Saturday night as I was staying over with them while my parents were out on a date. We had been doing it for about 6 weeks pretty often before we got busted. I guess her mom, my aunt, heard us and came downstairs to check out the noise. We heard her footsteps on the rickety staircase and tried to cover up quickly by putting our shirts on and getting under the covers while we quickly pulled up a show on Netflix. What we forgot was that our pants and underwear were in plain sight at the foot of the bed. Her mom pulled the covers back and figured it out.

My parents had to end their date early and pick me up. Our moms gossip pretty frequently about everything and it soon spread around both of our schools. I was bullied, harassed, and even beat up a few times, but the worst part had to be telling this 70 year old priest in confession every detail of everything I did with my cousin.

Before long our entire town knew too. I wasn’t allowed to be alone with her anymore and that just killed me because she was literally my only friend.

Being born into the Catholic faith I'm naturally predisposed to feeling shame about everything except my love for God. I felt so awful about everything that I even tried to kill myself twice before I was 17.

My cousin is literally the only girl I’ve ever done anything with. I’ve never even kissed another girl let alone hold hands with one. These feelings of shame are so intense that I can’t even bring myself to interact with the women in my classes because I’m afraid I’ll be caught again and shamed even more.

I’m about to graduate in a few months and if everything stays on track I’m expected to leave school with Summa Cum Laude honors.

I want nothing more than to be normal. I’m not ugly, obese, or anything like that. I workout, have cool hair (comes with being short), and I’ve had a few girls compliment me on my clothes. I just cannot bring myself to interact with them. I’ve seen a therapist and he wasn’t much help. I’ve been suggested to joining the priesthood by some of the clergy on campus. But getting up in front of a congregation and delivering a sermon isn’t what I want.

I know I’m not like a lot of you guys. I’m not “blackpilled” (whatever that means). But I just don’t know what to do.

I still talk to her on the phone. We text and SnapChat and those same pubescent desires are still there between us. We could get married as Vermont has some very liberal laws regarding that, but we’d have to leave the State due to our family and not every where would recognize our marriage.

So I’m thinking of joining the priesthood as a monk, taking a vow of celibacy (which honestly wouldn’t be too difficult now), and spending the rest of my life meditating, studying religion and philosophy, and maybe even writing some books.

I’m going to FaceTime with her this weekend and see what she thinks as she’s not certain of her own future either and she’s about to graduate from Yale Divinity School in the spring.

What would you do if you were me? Maybe your insights and opinions could be useful in making up my mind.

 

[lordoftheincels]

If I was you I would marry her. Einstein married his cousin. One of my regrets is not taking the opportunity to have sex with my hot aunt. Had a hot female cousin too.

Of course, then there is also the possibility you are a troll, making up a story just to pass the time.

 

[IncelMonk]

No, I’m not trolling. While there are plenty of historical references that normalize incestuous relationships, and it was common up until about 100 years ago in western civilizations, societal norms have changed. We would have to lie to everyone we met and lying is a sin. It’s one thing to tell a little white lie to spare someone’s feelings but it’s entirely different to live a lie every second of every day, and that’s not something I feel comfortable doing. I’m not sure God would forgive us lying on that big of a scale.

 

[lordoftheincels]

Withholding information is not the same as lying. People have no legal right to demand you answer their questions about what you do in your free time.

 

[Doomer92]

What would you do if you were me? Maybe your insights and opinions could be useful in making up my mind.

Hi there. I really hope you're not a troll, as your story is quite curious. There is a lot I could tell you, but unfortunately I am currently occupied. I'm going to respond as soon I find the time. Your story reminds me a lot of myself. See you.

 

[Doomer92]

So here goes.
I used to be a student of theology and philosophy too. My intention at this point was indeed to become a catholic priest. However it all came to a quick and bitter end when I got mentally ill in late 2012. At that point I had not had any romantic interaction with a girl whatsoever. But when I fell in love with a solid 10/10 that was of course already taken my mental sanity startet degrading fast. When I first considered becoming a priest a few years prior, I knew the celibacy would be a heavy burden, but as I was convinced never to be able to find myself a girl anyways, it did not make that much of a difference. That´s what I thought before developing serious feelings for a girl. But alltough I was whithout hope anyways, the prospect of living the lonely life of a priest while my friend who was also religious got married to the most beautiful and adorable woman I have ever seen (even up until this day), was pure torture. I talked to many priests about my supposed vocation, and all of them made it clear to me, that one should never consider becoming a priest just because he is´nt able to find a girl. This is by the way one of the reasons for homosexual swine joining the clergy.
Think about it. If you became a priest in spite you still have feelings for her it would inevitably let you become bitter and resentful, probably for the rest of your life. A priest must not be bitter and resentful. It is an obstacle to holiness.
Also the way you wrote about your religious upbringing makes it sound to me as if you were not even that convinced of the church and her teachings. At your age I was still struggling a lot with my vanishing faith and talked in a similar fashion. Today I have nothing negative to say about the church altough I no longer practice. Most people who lose their faith blame the church afterwards. I just admitted to not being able to follow her teachings, which I still consider being true, at one point and withdrew. And why would you describe your sinful acts in every single detail to the priest? That´s not how confession works in my experience. And I used to confess very often. So my question to you is: Do you REALLY believe? Or are you just afraid of God´s punishment? I used to be. In addition, as you ought to know as a theologian, believing in the gospel and just theoretically regarding it as the truth are not the same thing. Personally I believe the gospel to be the ultimate single truth, but I do not believe IN it. I am convinced by mind, but not by heart, so to say.
The life as a monk is also really hard. Spent some weeks in different monasteries myself and found life there to be quite boring and emotionally depraving. I felt more lonely there than just sitting in my room at home all day. If God wants you to become a monk, he will evoke a clear desire in you for doing so. Otherwise you will most likely not be able to endure it there. "I won´t be able to have a family anyways" is obviously no positive motivation.

So much for the religious part at the moment. Now here is what I have to say about the romance with your cousin.
Frankly, I don´t see anything wrong in marrying your cousin. There is even some obvious benefits. To my knowledge, there is nothing in the holy bible written against it. The CIC (Codex Iuris Canonici) forbids it however, but exceptions can be made as long as she is not your 1st grade cousin. I have on several occasions made the experience that it is way easier to form strong relationships (not sexually in my case) between relatives, even distant ones. Similarity evokes affection. When I was a child, for example, I met some random kids one day and instantly made friends with them. Turned out we were related, later.

I also had a crush on a cousin (3rd grade) of mine some years ago. That said, I don´t easily fall in love. Plenty girls I find sexually attractive, but the few I actually developed serious feelings for can be counted on one hand. She was about my age and we had never met before. The easiness of becoming acquainted with her was absolutely stunning to me. I used to be very insecure and shy amongst girls, even younger ones at that time. Also never had any plan what to talk about with girls. With my pretty cousin I got along perfectly from the start. She turned out to be quite out of the ordinary (in a likeable way), as am I. Most girls seem to be the same and generally have boring personalities. Maybe I am just getting carried away by nostalgic feelings, but at the time it seemed we had a lot in common. That is altough we were from different cultures. I am german and she was born in the US and had just come over to explore her german heritage a bit. Nonetheless neither the difference in upbringing and culture, nor the language barrier could compensate for the tiny drop of common blood that we shared. In the end, no romance took place whatsoever. I enjoyed spending time with her, we had some truly inspiring deep conversation until late at night, then she left to the states never to come back. We used to write frequently for some two weeks or so but then my insanity kicked in, I wrote some truly disturbing schizophrenic stuff (no love confession, it was about some religious topic) and she became understandably afraid and blocked me for good.

Beside the fact you are related, emotional bonds from childhood tend to endure much longer. I generally advocate early marriage. The sooner the better. If you were able to have sex at 13, you were no children anymore. That you still regularly talk proves me right. This kind of first teenage love has something innocent to it, so much that it could make me dreamy, had I not lost the ability to feel anything long ago.

So after all, I recommend you marry her. You are both old enough to free yourselves from parental supervision. Leave home, find a place where you are allowed to marry and get happy together. If she is not your 1st grade cousin, you can even remain a faithful catholic.

 

[HollowLifeJR]

I am a person who does not always believe that "happiness" should take precedence when it affects other people. Still, having said that, I think that you should marry her. To me, "lying" is something done to slander, or to unethically advance a politic, monetary gain, career advancement, etc. Your potential future situation inasmuch as where you would live, to me, would not be very burdensome as far as keeping that fact secret. As far as having children, that a separate question. One cousin-cousin offspring group every 4 or 5 generations is not dysgenic in my opinion. The next generation of offspring will just gravitate a little more to the other mate's DNA structure. Our DNA is hardwired to take that into account. Brandi from Storage Wars is supposedly the result from a cousin-cousin marriage, and she's beautiful and smart. The only problem is some small town or village where every marriage is between second and third cousins and it never clears out. The Amish population is 330,000, all from something like 6,000 people, and they haven't suffered too many genetic problems because of the outgrowth. So, I would vote "yes."