(Closed) Christian/Baptist/Believer Bees… Who Didn't Wait. Discussion.

• Kacey23
• 4 years ago

My boyfriend and I don’t live together but we have sex. We are also both Christians and are trying to find the right church for us as a couple. We originally planned to avoid sex until marriage but it just felt right. We love each other and marriage is something we both desire. I have one Christian friend who has expressed opposition to my boyfriend and I sleeping together. We are still friends but I try to avoid that topic. We have tried to stop but it only added stress in our relationship. I grew up being taught that sex before marriage is wrong. I just don’t see where it’s so sinful for a couple who loves each other and is in a committed relationship.

I think more and more Christian couples our age are sleeping together before marriage and in many cases living together. There seems to be greater acceptance in many areas than in years past. 

• CurlyTop24
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: October 2013

@iDreamofJune:  Hi there! My husband and I are both Christians and got married four months ago. We did not wait until marriage before we had sex. Our first time (which was the first time for both of us — we’ve only been with each other) happened just under a year into our relationship. We’ve now been together for more than seven years. Even after the first time, we had penetrative sex sparingly. We did engage more regularly in oral sex. After we graduated from college, we were long-distance for three years. We saw each other every couple of months or so.

When we got engaged, we decided to abstain until our wedding night. We had no sexual contact with each other for eight and a half months. It wasn’t easy, but it was something we both really wanted to do for each other and for God. I’ll admit that the distance made it somewhat easier. My husband (then fiance) got a job in my city and moved in with me two months before our wedding. Even after he moved in, we did nothing sexual (aside from kissing) until our wedding night.

I understand what you’re saying about disrupting the connection that sex gives you as a couple. You’re living together and sleeping together, but the fact remains that you’re not married yet. For us, we wanted to do things the right way before our wedding, even if we hadn’t in the past. And it was easier because we knew the end date — our wedding day. If anything, waiting built anticipation for us.

We were married by the pastor of the church we attended together (with other friends) during college. He’s watched our relationship grow, and we respect him and trust him. In our premarital counseling, the topic of sex was discussed. He never asked us outright whether we’d had sex before marriage, but he did discuss the dangers of it, mostly regarding people who have had sex with someone other than their spouse and the fact that they’ve given away something that was meant for their spouse only. He did suggest that if we’d had sex in the past that we consider abstaining until the wedding. But we had already decided on our own to do that. In a later session we did mention that we’d had sex in the past but were now waiting, and he was happy to hear that we’d decided to honor God leading up to our wedding. He was never judgmental and said he figured we had in the past. He knows that waiting is rare these days, but not impossible. He also knew at that point that we were living together, and he didn’t say anything negative about that.

I suggest that you pray about what it is that God wants you to do. 112 days really is not long at all, and you may find that you grow even closer by abstaining for a few months leading up to your wedding. You could even use this period to fast from sex, replacing the time you would be sexually intimate with joint prayer and Bible study. And keep looking for someone who will agree to marry you. There are probably more Christians near you than you think who have had sex before marriage, and not all pastors are as judgmental as the ones you’ve come across.

Sorry this is so long! I barely ever come on Weddingbee anymore, but I felt compelled to respond to this post. God bless, and feel free to PM me if you want to talk more. I’ll try to remember to check my messages!

• mademoisellesacha
• 4 years ago

I was raised in a christian home, however I had some very negative experiences in churches as a young teen and as a result I would definitely say I’ve strayed and become much more private about my beliefs and much more unorthodox. I deeply respect the christian faith and all of it’s denominations, because I have a lot of respect for anyone who can make a committment and keep it, to their religion/spouse/job/pass time/heck even to just working out regularly.

That being said, I was always under the impression that I would wait until marriage. I met my now FI when I was 17 and he was 22. I had never had a boyfriend, never been kissed, and had no previous sexual experience whatsoever. He had a girlfriend in high school who he never even kissed, and had kissed a couple of girls in university but never beyond that. My FI was not raised in the church but I find that our beliefs are incredibly close and our values in sync, so that has never been a major concern for me, however because neither of us are currently apart of a church and my previous experiences with pastors were absolutely dreadful it was difficult for us to find someone to officiate.

I think in my life I would have been proud to say that I had waited until marriage, however I haven’t waited and I feel no shame about that. I don’t openly discuss it, because I understand that my younger siblings are being raised in a family where that is the ideal course of events, and so I try to respect that. I honestly feel that if we had waited, I would constantly doubt whether or not he was truly motivated to marry me because of ME, or simply so we could have sex (he’s not that type of man at all, I’m just a cynical person) and so I feel a sense of comfort because I KNOW he wants me, not my body. I also feel that the committment we had to each other when we became sexually active was very much the type of committment marriage is based off of. We’ve been through some incredibly difficult personal situations and tragedies in our dating life, and I definitely believe marriage is sacred, but I think that in our hearts we always knew. And, to some extent, I feel kind of sentimental that we are each other’s firsts and are also getting married. Kind of nice.

We have chosen to have a close family friend who at one point was a pastor marry us. His license has expired, but fortunately the owner of our venue has a license and she will be happy to sign all the legal papers, and he will be a witness along with performing the ceremony. He’s known me since I was a child, and has had his own difficulties with the church, and so I think he’s a good fit for me and my FI. Not too traditional, but knows the values we hold close, he also isn’t holding us to any sort of counselling course or guilt-trip beforehand. We knew we would rather be legally married first and then have our ceremony performed by someone we agreed with and who knew what type of people we were, than just get any pastor who wasn’t feeling very celebratory for us.

As for abstaining until the wedding, i don’t know if that’s something we’re going to do, but we may do so a short period of time before the wedding. More as a token of remembrance for the time we did wait for each other, and the years we have waited to make this committment official.

Just thought I’d put my two cents in, I’m definitely not a traditional christian of really any denomination, but what I’ve always valued about the hive is that there’s a little bit of everything 🙂

• Stace126
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: September 2013

@iDreamofJune:  So I know you posted a few weeks ago, but just wanted to pop in and offer another suggestion: have you considered getting married in a Unitarian Church? They welcome all religions (and people like me who don’t follow a specific religion).

Or do you or your fiance have any friends that attend church but still live(d) together/had sex before marriage?

I personally had mostly negative experiences with the Catholic Church, which is why I did not get married in one, but I have many friends who lived with their SO (and had sex) long before marriage but a Catholic/Christian priest/pastor still married them.

(a girl I worked with had a son before she got married, but her Catholic priest still baptized him and later married the couple). This would be UNHEARD of in the Catholic churches I attended. Where I went, you weren’t even allowed to take communion if you were divorced!

If your religion is that important to you (which is great), perhaps you could look into a new church? I was pleasantly surprised to hear that some of my friends belonged to (and were married by) a much more lenient priest with more modern (or accepting/non-judgmental) views.

Good luck!

• L22
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: May 2014

@iDreamofJune:  

I had to move from Texas to California when we got engaged. ( He was transferred for work.) I wasn’t going to get an apartment for a few months because it seemed like a complete waste of money. My family didn’t like that we were living together… even though we have been together for 5 years, and we had already had sex.

Anyway, we started feeling guilty for living together and sleeping together, so we went ahead and got married. My grandpa is an elder in the church and he performed the ceremony for us. Our parents already know we are married, but most of the wedding party, friends, and other guests do not. 

We are still super excited about the wedding, and I don’t feel like signing the papers early changed anything, except that we are doing things God’s way. We feel like we have been extremely blessed by this. 

So that is an option, you could go ahead and get married, and then find a Pastor to perform the ceremony at the wedding. My Pastor had no problem with that. He actually thought it was awesome that we took the steps to do things God’s way.

Another option is to find a Pastor who is non- denominational and doesn’t ask questions.  

Are you set on having a pastor marry you? You could have someone close to you get ordained online. 

• twoangels
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: April 2010

iDreamofJune:  

“To the bees who didn’t wait or are already married, you understand that not having sex is simply not an option. When living and sleeping together you become one, a team, a unit.”

This I would agree with to some extent.  Sleeping together does make you one, a team, a unit.  Marriage is a natural institution, not man-made institution with a piece of paper.  That said, this natural institution is regulated by both civil and Church law and rightfully so.  Why?  Because

1. Marriage isn’t something to be entered into lightly.  There is wanting to be married, dreaming all the dreams and growing with anticipation of it, and then there is the reality of actually doing it. 

2.  When we are honest, we have to acknowledge that the marital commitments include embracing the possibility of poverty, sickness, etc.  It includes things we don’t naturally want to embrace. We often think that our feelings of being in love will pull us through, but it won’t.  What holds us together is our commitment to face the dark times together and to push together through our own inner darkness, to honestly face our vices and our spouses vices.  To acknowledge that you both have to grow if you are to love each other well.  Love is a choice and not an easy choice.  If you want to know what love looks like, look at the cross.  In marrying each other, we say “Yes, though the world might find me crazy in embracing this cross, I will”  We vow to love each other through our crosses and our joys.  We can have hope that if we stay committed to our marital vows (mutually, that is), that even when we seem to be going through our own emotional crucifixion, there is a ressurection.  There is always hope so long as you don’t despair.

We have this ceremony to celebrate these and we delay marriage because marriage is serious business. 

That’s the key thing to understand.  When you’re dating, you’re delaying rushing into things.  You are holding yourself back to get to know each other a bit better.  It’s looking before you leap.  Saving sex for marriage is just an aspect of holding back.

I’m not saying that it’s like your wedding day is the first day you met.  My husband and I have been married now almost 4 years.  We met seven years ago.  I am astonished everyday that he’s been a part of my life for seven years.  What I am saying is that when you marry, it should mark a dramatic change in the nature of your relationship.  It shouldn’t be “Well, I’ve been with my husband for such and such years, but we had this beautiful wedding this many years ago.”  That reduces the wedding to some party you had.

I would say, there is a point where you can date too long.  Perhaps its out of fear of marriage.  Perhaps its out of a desire to save money to make one simple day fulfill your fantasies.  I’d say, marry when the time to marry is right and then look at your financial resources and plan the size of your wedding accordingly.  Your marriage is more important than your wedding.  The wedding is there to signficify and mark the deliberate change your making, where you say “Ok, not only is this the path I want to take, but I’m not committing to this path and am choosing to take it.” 

• oneofthesethings
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2011

L22:  So you got married but are keeping it a secret from everyone?  Why?  Don’t they all think you’re still “living in sin,” thus negating the point of getting married in the first place?

• oneofthesethings
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2011

iDreamofJune:  OK, I get that. Then why keep it a secret?

• oneofthesethings
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: July 2011

iDreamofJune:  Ah. I went back and reread – she wants to have a PPD and pretend like she’s not married already. That’s my guess.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  oneofthesethings.

• MsW-to-MrsM
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: September 2014

I intended on saving myself for marriage (just found a journal entry from junior high about that when going through old boxes), but I ended up losing my virginity at 17. FI was not my first. We met in our twenties, and I was a wild party girl until I settled down with him.

I have a lot of respect for those who hold to that ideal because it’s a very rare thing. I even found out that my very devout parents who married immediately after high school graduation in 1968 did not wait for marriage. My mother finally admitted that to me just one year ago.

• Coventina
• 4 years ago

• Wedding: May 2014

FI and I did not wait. I don’t regret this, as he is my first, and my future husband. I don’t understand the people that say, well, what if he dies or something and you had sex with him before marriage? Well, what if he died after we’re married?? Isn’t that the same thing?? God forbid either happens any time soon, but still. We made promises to each other already that to me are just as important and precious as wedding vows. Why hold back a natural act of love? I am not worth any less than before I had sex. It’s sad that some people think it diminishes your self worth once you’ve had sex.