Just left someone I loved and who loved me

I met someone a year and a half ago. We met at church. We began to sin early on. We also fell in love.

The problem was we gave into our desires and had premarital sex. And the church warned me to stop early on, but it took months to really sink in, and I had been single for so long before her , that I couldn’t let go or stop.

Eventually I prayed about my sinning and the Holy Spirit seemed to have taken over. I felt like I had to either stop sinning with her, or leave her.

Naturally, I didn’t want to leave her. She had a few lifestyle choices and customs I didn’t agree with, but I loved her.

I begged her to stop sinning with me. She replied that she liked intercourse so much that she would not consider ending it until marriage. Even after pointing out 1 John 3:4-10 and other verses and mentioning that she was putting her desires above God, she refused to accept having a relationship without sex. And she didn’t want to get married for at least two years. I couldn’t imagine wilfully sinning for that long.

So I left. I left someone who loved me immensely but who refused to end sin. And it hurts. I cried this morning - I left her a week ago. I have never ended a relationship with someone for God before. In fact I used to be an atheist so this is rather hard for me to deal with. I’ve never left someone who loved me because they wanted lots of sex.

Moral of the story is (I think) not everyone in church lives biblically, and sometimes you have to let people go if they are standing in the way of yourself and God. I don’t think it’s right to wilfully sin and “just ask for forgiveness before you die”.