Husband and I were together for 5 years before getting married. It works much easier when both are of the same mind-set and beliefs. We were both virgins prior to the wedding night, which I think helped because neither one of us had the “knowledge”. We were married in 2003, so it’s not like we lived in the old days and my husband was a normal, hotblooded young man. We were surrounded by almost all of our contemporairies either living together or sexually active prior to marriage.
The natural desire is definitely not easy to fight. We attended mass together almost every weekend. A lot of prayer - especially during times when it seemed extremely hard. My sister acted as a chaperone many times. I also had my parents to use as role models. They were also both virgins prior to marriage and my mother always insisted on my dad’s younger brother and sister to be chaperones when they went out on dates. I wasn’t as stringent as my mom in terms of having my sister there all the time, but I also knew my threshold AND his threshold.
The other factor for me, too, was that I was once sexually molested and forced to fondle that pervert as a child. (He thankfully never raped me and I was strong enough at 5 to not allow him to do it again a second time - never tried it again afterwards, but when he lived in the house for a few months I did keep my door locked.) Through that horrible experience, I gained a sort of strange wisdom to never allow anyone to take advantage of me again and to protect myself against being used sexually - wanting to be sure that whoever I would eventually share myself with would be worthy of me and were truly a holy person. The doors weren’t opening until the marriage was blessed by God and I was absolutely sure of the person. But again, that didn’t make “waiting” easy at all especially since I was very sure of my future husband.
Most importantly, though, it was very important for us to save that act of love for when we celebrated the sacrament, and for us, it was so worth it. We just kept that first and foremost in our minds. Like I said, what made it “easier” (NOT easy) was the fact that we both wanted this for each other and respected each other for that. It may not have been as easy to resist had we been with someone else.
