Dating Discernment · The Bound Attraction
The Pull You Could Not Explain
When the attraction did not match what you actually saw of them.
On paper you would have walked. The signs were there: the way they spoke about their last partner, the small evasions, the small cruelties to a waiter, the friends who shifted the topic when you asked. Your friends saw it. You saw it. And you felt, alongside the seeing, a pull stronger than the seeing — a magnetism that did not match the evidence, a difficulty leaving the room when the room said leave. The older tradition has a name for this: the bound attraction, or in the medieval language, amor ligatus.
The site is careful here. Strong attraction is not by itself evidence of a spiritual operation. Bodies want what bodies want; chemistry is real; lust is real and old. What the tradition discerns against is the specific pattern of attraction that overrides the reader’s own evidence — the pull that survives information that should have ended it, the longing that returns after each rational departure. That pattern is older than apps, older than even the Malleus, and the tradition’s remedy is unbroken.
The principle in the old books
“The bound attraction is recognised by its refusal of evidence. The lover sees what should send him away and still cannot leave. This is not the body alone; this is a binding upon the soul, requiring not argument but loosing.”Malleus Maleficarum, 1487, Part II, paraphrase of the amor ligatus passage
“Sarah, daughter of Raguel, had been given to seven husbands, and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them all before they could come unto her. And Tobias was afraid; and Raphael said to him, Be not afraid: I will deliver thee from him.”Book of Tobit 3:8 and 6:7 (Douay-Rheims) — the original scripture of the spirit that compels and the angel that binds it
“Cassian: the eight thoughts attach most strongly where the soul has already been wearied. The wearied soul cannot argue its way out; it must be carried.”John Cassian, Conferences V, on the weariness of the soul and the operation of the eight thoughts
The modern translation
The pull-you-could-not-explain is the modern dress of the bound attraction. The dating apps and the algorithmic feed do not create the binding; they create the conditions for it. The conditions are: the curated profile of someone whose real life would never have reached you; the rapid intimacy of text that bypasses the slower social filters; the late-night message that arrives when discernment is at its lowest; the cluster of small intoxicants (the playlist, the perfume, the gaze trained on Instagram) that operate together as the modern philtre.
The site holds: the bound attraction is recognised by what the reader has to argue around. If you are repeatedly saying to yourself I know, but… — I know, but they’re different with me; I know, but they had a hard childhood; I know, but no one understands what we have — the I know is the discernment, and the but is the binding. The Tobias remedy is to honour the I know.
The protections, in order
When you cannot argue your way out of the room
The remedy is to be carried, not to argue. Do these in order.
- Name the binding aloud to one trusted person. Not as a confession of failure, but as a description. “I’m drawn to X. I see Y about them. I cannot make the seeing change the pull. I’m asking you to know this with me.” The medieval rule: the bound person is not isolated.
- Pray the Tobias-Raphael prayer daily for nine days. The novena form: “St Raphael, who bound Asmodeus before he could come unto Sarah — bind what binds me to this attraction, that I may see clearly and choose freely. Amen.” Once daily, ideally at the same hour. The classical Catholic novena is nine days because nine days is what the tradition observed worked.
- Physical removal from the channel for the nine days. Mute their handle, do not view their content, do not respond to messages. The brief explanatory message at the start is acceptable: “I need a week of quiet to think.” The honest party will respect this; the philtre will not.
- Receive the sacraments, if you are Catholic. Confession is the older form of the loosing-of-the-binding when the binding has become consent. Communion is the strengthening of the soul against the operation. The site is direct: the unbroken Catholic discipline named this remedy first because it works.
- Carry amethyst for the nine days. The medieval stone against compulsive intoxication. Pliny preserved its name (a-methystos, “not drunken”) and the older tradition retained the principle. Pocketed near the phone, near the heart.
- At the end of the nine days, decide deliberately. The decision is made by the unbound version of yourself, not by the version inside the pull. If the pull persists after nine days of the discipline, repeat the novena. If it diminishes, the discernment has done its work.
- If the binding survives multiple novenas and is causing real harm (financial, social, spiritual), seek a priest or trusted Christian counsellor. The older tradition’s rule on persistent bindings: do not isolate the work. The deliverance ministries of the Catholic Church, conducted with caution and obedience, exist precisely for the cases where ordinary discipline does not suffice.
The diagnostic threshold
Two indicators is “take the nine days.” Three or more is “tell one friend and take the nine days.”
- You have repeatedly said “I know, but” about this person to yourself or to friends
- Multiple people who love you have raised concern about the relationship
- You have lied to friends or family about the relationship to keep it
- You have lost weight, sleep, friendships, prayer life, or a sense of self since the relationship began
- You return to the relationship after rational departures, and the pull on return is intensified, not lessened, by the absence
Common questions
Couldn’t this just be trauma bonding?
Yes — and the site does not pretend the clinical reading is wrong. The Catholic discernment-of-spirits tradition and the modern attachment-theory reading describe overlapping territory, and the remedies overlap as well: removal, time, the testimony of trusted others, the slow restoration of the self. The site adds the Raphael devotion because the older tradition preserved it; the modern reader who finds it foreign can apply the rest of the discipline and the discipline will still do most of its work.
What if they’re actually a good person and I’m just scared?
The discipline answers this. The nine days are a test the good person can survive. If they cannot wait nine days for you to think, they are not the bond you should be making. A real good person would, in fact, encourage the discernment.
Is wanting someone a sin?
The site holds: no. Desire is not the sin; the tradition is clear. What the tradition names as the sin is the consenting to the desire to override the discernment that protects the soul. The discernment is the question; the consent is the answer; the Tobias three days, nine days, forty days are the tradition’s honest tools for letting the answer form in the right place.