Boyfriend and I broke up the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, but my heart continued to cherish him dearly. I transferred from the college of my freshman year to a college close to the home my family lived in at that time. I had a growing awareness that I needed to transfer because the college I attended my freshman year didn’t offer the courses I needed to prepare me for the career I was being drawn to. The college near my home offered the courses I needed, but I had to do a double major to get the specific training I needed for what I thought would be my career choice. What I wanted most was to be the best wife and mother I could possibly be, and that included being educated and prepared to take on a career if my family needed me to do that. I condensed my education courses and completed 6 years of required courses to get teacher certifications in both majors, and I did it in four years time by taking maximum credit hours during regular semesters as well as during interim and summer classes. At the same time I felt convicted about not taking any loans for education purposes, so I also worked while attending college. All that left little time for romance, but I did some dating. In truth I couldn’t imagine myself ever loving anyone other than Boyfriend, so dating wasn’t a very serious pursuit.

I went back to the college of my freshman year to help celebrate X’s graduation at the end of my sophomore year, but it was still mostly on a friendship basis. I was his date for the activities of the graduates, and he kissed me for the first time during that visit; but it felt harmless and safe because one of the things I most admired about X was his commitment to his Catholic faith. I would never have wanted to take that away from him, and I couldn’t imagine me ever becoming Catholic, and I was not willing to enter into a marriage with someone of a different faith than me – consequently, I could do casual “dating” with a friend without fearing a conflict of interest. It sounds so silly now to write it out like that, but to me at the time it seemed a safe way to live without conflict.