My 20 year old, college student son has lost his mind and is being tempted by the devil!  Please, pray for him.

I will be brief.  He grew up Novus Ordo and in public schools.  He has a really hard time with judging a persons character.  Either he is blind, naturally, or he has been taught to be this way.

In any case, this weekend he drove 6 hours to bring his girlfriend home to meet us.

Oh, boy.  What a mess this poor girl is.  She, herself, needs prayers, so pray for her too.

Our son either kept a lot of information from us about her or she lied to him, but now we are the bad people for "judging" her.

She is generally not a good person, a liar, a deceiver, a game-player, but he is smitten by her.  

Our attempts to reason with him have caused a rift in our family.

I don't care so much about that as for the safety and health of my son.  He is very lost.  

Prayers for your son and family.

St. Agnes, pray for us.
 

Please be assured of my prayers, CathMom.

CathMom-

Don't be too critical of your son. I know two otherwise very intelligent (and mostly balanced  :wink:) young men who went through situations like this. One was my brother. He had a girlfriend who lied more often than she told the truth. It was obvious even early on for almost everyone but him, but as it went on, it got really ridiculous. She even faked having terminal cancer ... shaved her head because "she'd lose it all anyway." That was just one of MANY things, but meanwhile, he was shopping engagement rings, literally!

What shook him out of the stupor was discovering her online messaging logs in which she had a whole new set of lies for what he understood to be her very good online (female) friend. As he knew the things she told her did not correspond with the things she told him, it opened his eyes enough to get rid of her.

Unfortunately, there were plenty of family and friends telling him that she was bad news, but none of their counsel was heeded. He was convinced that she just had a difficult life and lots of unfortunate situations, but was very well-meaning and good-hearted.

It seems to be pretty common for certain types of young men at that age to latch on to whatever comes their way.

Pray and beg him to at least not make any permanent decisions.

 

My 20 year old, college student son has lost his mind and is being tempted by the devil!  Please, pray for him.

I will be brief.  He grew up Novus Ordo and in public schools.  He has a really hard time with judging a persons character.  Either he is blind, naturally, or he has been taught to be this way.

In any case, this weekend he drove 6 hours to bring his girlfriend home to meet us.

Oh, boy.  What a mess this poor girl is.  She, herself, needs prayers, so pray for her too.

Our son either kept a lot of information from us about her or she lied to him, but now we are the bad people for "judging" her.

She is generally not a good person, a liar, a deceiver, a game-player, but he is smitten by her.  

Our attempts to reason with him have caused a rift in our family.

I don't care so much about that as for the safety and health of my son.  He is very lost.  

No matter what stay in contact with him. These types love to paint others black (she is painting your family black to him) and alienate their victim from their families and friends.

Keep communicating with him.. no matter what, even when it's very painful for you to do so and he does hurtful things.

I've seen good mature men be charmed to..these girls sell them a fantasy.

CathMom-

Don't be too critical of your son. I know two otherwise very intelligent (and mostly balanced  :wink:) young men who went through situations like this. One was my brother. He had a girlfriend who lied more often than she told the truth. It was obvious even early on for almost everyone but him, but as it went on, it got really ridiculous. She even faked having terminal cancer ... shaved her head because "she'd lose it all anyway." That was just one of MANY things, but meanwhile, he was shopping engagement rings, literally!

What shook him out of the stupor was discovering her online messaging logs in which she had a whole new set of lies for what he understood to be her very good online (female) friend. As he knew the things she told her did not correspond with the things she told him, it opened his eyes enough to get rid of her.

Unfortunately, there were plenty of family and friends telling him that she was bad news, but none of their counsel was heeded. He was convinced that she just had a difficult life and lots of unfortunate situations, but was very well-meaning and good-hearted.

It seems to be pretty common for certain types of young men at that age to latch on to whatever comes their way.

Pray and beg him to at least not make any permanent decisions.

I couldn't disagree more strongly, being a younger man myself and having caused my parents no small degree of consternation over my behavior when I was closer in age to CMof7's son.  Coupling the hubris of his age ("I'm a man now!") along with man's natural inclination to defend a woman, especially one for whom we feel strongly, and you have a recipe for a kid, and I do mean kid, to act like an idiot.

You can't coddle someone in that situation, especially when they're an adult and the repercussions are so great.  This isn't tagging or destroying mailboxes.  This poor boy could be complicit in all manner of sins in the near future if it's not stopped, from civil divorce and remarriage, contraception (statistically already happened), illegitimate children or abortion, and so forth.  The only weapon that a family has to correct an adult child is to make it clear that they are loved, but that they are welcome only when their behavior has been corrected.

I think ditching young and "in moral danger" family members used to work, but that's when there were jobs and no billions of $$$ porn industry, when a lot of cops were good Catholics...before such a dismaying breakdown of society.

The risks in the US are too great for this these days, IMO.  The realities are prostitution, drug addiction, AIDS horrific abuses in the juvenile justice system, enforced psychiatric intervention, etc.  ѕυιcιdє is very common, also.

From what I have studied, most youth grow out of their waywardness after about 4 years.  I think our trad families are too much under the gun as it is; I think we need to circle the wagons and say , 'these kids are messed-up, but they are our young Catholics, we need to keep them as close as Our Lord will possibly permit".  

I mean, look at what would happen in many states if they got the corporal punishment they might richly deserve--we could have all the kids removed.  Everything is too unsafe out there.  

Prevention, such as the 9 First Fridays & 5 First Saturdays when they're younger and more innocent will help; we have Our Lord's promises attached to these devotions.

I really do understand John Grey's point of view, but I just don't think it turns out well in the US.