Not a virgin, want to wait until marriage?

[MotardSD]

My boyfriend is my best friend of 5 years. he is my soulmate. Not an oz of doubt. We've been secretly in love for as long as we've known each other. We dated other people over the years, but nothing has lasted because the one person both of us wanted was right in front of us the whole time and we didn't even see it. We have now made it official, and I KNOW we're getting married in the next 2 years. He's a marine, and lives a 10 hour drive away, so he only comes home during the holidays. He's coming home in November.

Neither of us is a virgin. And neither of us has a problem with that. But I have this incredible strong feeling that instead of jumping in bed together, we should wait until our wedding night.

Is that crazy?

I just feel like our love is so special it should be saved until that night, so we belong to each other in every sense of it.

 

How do I handle telling him I want to wait? When he comes home in November he's staying with me. How do I deal with that?

[pink_sugar]

How often do you see him? I have a friend, although she is a virgin, she wants to wait until she is married. Nowadays, intimacy is very important in a relationship and you need to have a physical connection to make a marriage last as well as an emotional connection. If you feel so strongly about this, there really isn't any other way but to have a private, yet casual conversation stating this and asking him how he'd feel about it.

[Nyla]

What exactly are you saving if you aren't a virgin?

 

When people speak of wanting to wait until marriage for sex, they mean that they want to give their virginity only to their spouse.

 

I can understand not wanting to jump into bed right away, but I don't get waiting until marriage if neither of you is a virgin.

[daletom]

. . . When people speak of wanting to wait until marriage for sex, they mean that they want to give their virginity only to their spouse . . .

Yes, that's one possibility. I experienced the emotional and physical intensity of a double-virgin wedding night with the woman who has been my life partner for over 38 years. We were both 23 years old when we married.

 

When we exchanged virginity (I gave her mine, and she offered hers) it simultaneously represented several things. Yes, we had mutual lust for each other. It was also our way of giving ourselves to each other in a way we had not given to anyone else. And it represented that we would be sexually exclusive life partners.

 

Most of those reasons can apply to a couple (or individual) who wants to wait until marriage to have sex, even if one (or both) partners have already had sex with others - or even with each other. There are quite a few posts on this forum where people (both men and women) say something like, "Well, I lost my virginity when I was xx years old, and have had nn partners . . . but I wish I had waited until I met the person I'm with NOW!".

 

It takes a lot of strength and courage to admit that something you did was, if not a mistake, at least not a good idea. It says something about your character and values if you say, "Yeah, I already gave my virginity to somebody else. But wwhat we have between us is so much more than what THAT was! I want to keep it VERY special - and as a reminder, I want to hold off having sex together until we are married.". (Or, until we are engaged. Or until we have a definite date on record for our wedding. Or whatever occasion or event marks your mutual commitment to each other.)

 

I didn't meet my wife until I was 22 - just a year plus two weeks before we married. Although I was horny to experience the pleasures of sex, I sensed that it could be - and wanted it to be - more than the physiological experience. I wasn't totally sold on the "wait until marriage" idea but I definitely hoped that my first sex partner would be my life partner - and I would also be her first. I was pragmatic enough to admit that the odds were not in my favor, since even in 1970 the majority of people had their first sexual intercourse before they turned 20. If my wife had NOT been a virgin when we met I suspect I could have accepted it, though we would have talked a lot more about what sex meant in our relationship. It definitely would have been puzzling if she had said, "No, I'm not a virgin but I want to wait." - but I think we could have worked through it.

 

I have come to understand that there are important mental and emotional elements to sex, and I have to confess that I didn't comprehend the significance of those factors until our mutual first time. For me, there really IS something to the old fashioned idea of "consummating" a marriage with the couple's first intercourse. Even if one or both partners in a couple are NOT virgins, I suspect they can still capture some of that emotional experience.

 

(I know that others didn't have that experience - I respect those who come down from their first intercourse with the thought of "Is that all there is to sex?", or "I waited 20 years for THIS?". My first thought is that maybe they didn't choose the right partner but that may not be true in all cases.)

 

And if you're wondering: First-time sex between my wife and I on our wedding night wasn't very good in the erotic or physiological sense. To this day I am ashamed that I hurt her as much as I did, and I'm disappointed that I had finished twitching my sperm into her only 60 seconds after I entered. It was STILL an awesome, physically and emotionally intense, VERY meaningful experience for both of us. And we were still horny enough to try again just a couple hours later - which was physiologically MUCH better for both of us. Now in our 60's, we still make love with each other - and have sex together - and occasionally even f**ck "just because".