Sexless Honeymoon (Help!)

[bluerose]

And I’d be careful what you say about couples in their 40s!! You might be surprised about the sex life of some of those couples! 40 isn’t old!!

On behalf of the other 40+ year old couples, THANK YOU!

 

[joandarc2008]

Maybe your wording was off but you mentioned something about them extending a honeymoon? I hate to say it…but you really have to learn not to include other family members in your sex life, especially when they do not share your mindset. They will always be imposing their opinion on you and that can get ugly and feel like a lot of pressure.

I know in many families it is the culture for the Brides family to pay for the wedding and the Grooms to pay for the honeymoon. While his family many not be willing to extend the honeymoon - would they be willing to pay for it at a different time not directly after the wedding?

 

[Rach620]

I can’t help but laugh as I’m reading your posts. I’ll take a bit of artistic liberty here, and postulate that you’re anticipating that sex is going to be this huge thing that kind of takes you over and holds you in it’s thrall until you and your lover are utterly spent and can do nothing except lie in each others arms… hate to break it to you, but, unless you’re really lucky, honeymoon sex ain’t going to be like that. It will probably be more like… huh… so that’s how it works… interesting.

And that’s not a bad thing! As others have pointed out, couples get better at it over time. Heck, I’ve only been married a few months, and we’ve come a long way already! But the point is: waiting another few days will not impact your marriage negatively at all. If you have to wait a bit longer, so what? You’ve been waiting your whole lives, a few more days won’t kill you. And if you end up not being able to wait, well, no problem, you’ll be married! I didn’t catch if the OP is the woman, or if their fiance is, but the stress of the wedding might mess with her cycles, and you might be just fine. And there is more to the honeymoon than sex! This is your time to spend a lot of alone time together, doing whatever you want, with no time constraints, no chaperons, with only your imagination as the limit! Get out of the hotel and explore, have some fun, build some memories!

EXACTLY! This is the best advice I think has been given on this thread. Sex within marriage is an incredible gift, but the societal wisdom that the honeymoon is full of incredible sex really doesn’t reflect the experience of most couples who abstain until marriage. A lot of couples only have sex a few times on their honeymoon…compared to “societal expectations” this might not be “very much,” but compared to a relationship which up to that point was totally abstinent, it is quite a lot of new intimacy.

We used NFP to avoid conception for the first few months of our marriage, then shifted to trying to conceive. I started my period on our wedding day and was technically fertile that night and for most of our honeymoon. Even though our intention had been to abstain in the early part of our marriage, we had been praying with each other that we would do God’s will on our wedding night and on our honeymoon, and talked about how we felt. We knew that we had serious reasons to avoid a child (we were both still undergrads; I still didn’t have a job…), but that didn’t keep us from consummating.

PRAYER is really the key, PRAYER teaches you how to trust God and His will for your new life together, whether that life involves a baby now, or later…it’s all up to His plan. Marriage exists to teach us fallible men and women that “We make plans…God laughs.” That’s just the way it goes

OP, really, don’t worry. Pray that you can do God’s will, whatever your fertility is on your wedding night and during the honeymoon…and know that you will both have wonderful memories of your honeymoon, sexless or not.

 

[DJgang]

I would have a 13 yo now if I hadn’t lost my honeymoon baby. :bighanky:

Imagine the love you are about to share for the very first time and if a baby is the result…what a beautiful gift.

I wish that I had my honeymoon baby…

Dana

 

[catholic79]

If you get to your honeymoon and decided that you still have reasons to avoid you will also find the strength to avoid.

I wonder though if you are questioning not you ability to avoid but your reasons, which by the way should be reevaluated often. Don’t put to much pressure on yourself to decided today, what you will do on your wedding night (unless the wedding is tomorrow! ). The wedding date can’t be or wont be changed, you have decided to use NFP and follow the churches teaching, you will not be disappointed, on your honeymoon you and you husband will have to decided what you are going to do, and it is a decision you will make a lot in your marriage might as well start that 1st night. Also if you change the date of your wedding your cycle my change stress/weddings do that sometimes.

God Bless, you are making a fantastic decision one I wish I had made,

Mary

 

[armywife]

I wish I could give some advice. We went ahead and had a honeymoon baby, just couldn’t wait. We were broke, for a while but at least DH is in the Army so we always had a place to live.

Hope you’re stronger than we were

 

[jrabs]

Don’t stress over something that is not a reality yet. My cycle was so messed up over other wedding stresses, first time I can ever remember it being that way. We ended up just fine for the honeymoon and had a great time.

Oh yeah, hmmm, should I even mention I in my mid 40’s and my new husband is 10 years older then me when we got married last year?
And we are darn crazy in love like young kids.

Save your worrying.

 

[ac_claire]

Congrats on your engagement! And that’s wonderful that you’re using NFP even with being Protestant, that’s not really heard of much with Protestants I used to be one.

My fiance and I are also getting married, next year. I’ve been thinking of this as well. We have the date set, but I’m not sure where in my cycle it will fall. I think at the time, we won’t be financially ready for a baby should it come, but I believe in trusting God. If he gives you the gift of a baby, well, what a wonderful gift that is! He doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Sometimes it’s hard to trust, I know how that goes!

Just wanted to say, I love your attitude! This is how me and my husband looked at our honeymoon too, just last month.

To the OP: I’ll second what someone else mentioned. Start charting now, and by the time the wedding rolls around you will know for sure when your fertile days are. Usually there are only a few days a month in which a woman can get pregnant. So…if you start charting now, it shouldn’t be hard at all. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

 

[ac_claire]

I wish I could give some advice. We went ahead and had a honeymoon baby, just couldn’t wait. We were broke, for a while but at least DH is in the Army so we always had a place to live.

Hope you’re stronger than we were

I’m pregnant right now with our Honeymoon/wedding night baby. Our situation is going to be *extremely *tremulous and uncertain in this next year and we could have justified avoiding, but we decided to trust God. And now that we’re expecting, we’re both thrilled. We didn’t want to tempt God…who knows if we’ll ever be able to have another baby after this? We’re both young and healthy, but still…there are no guarantees in this life. That was our attitude anyhow.

 

[DJgang]

I’m pregnant right now with our Honeymoon/wedding night baby. Our situation is going to be *extremely *tremulous and uncertain in this next year and we could have justified avoiding, but we decided to trust God. And now that we’re expecting, we’re both thrilled. We didn’t want to tempt God…who knows if we’ll ever be able to have another baby after this? We’re both young and healthy, but still…there are no guarantees in this life. That was our attitude anyhow.

Congratulations dear! Praying for you and your honeymoon baby. What a great story you will have for her/him one day…

My grandmother got pregnant with their twin daughters on her honeymoon and they were born two months early according to grandma, people were counting the days, yet she knew the truth. It was so sweet of her to tell me that story when I found out that I was pregnant from the honeymoon.

God bless, praying for you today, Dana

 

[Romans15_5_7]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. Honestly, I feel a little misrepresented, but good discussion was sparked nonetheless. I did not mean for replies to focus so much on the physical, and I’m sorry if my original statement made it seem is if I didn’t view sex as a profound spiritual union. I have been surprised by many of the replies because a lot of them went like this- “Don’t worry, the sex isn’t that great anyway”. And the poster that imagined me with some sort of romance novelists version of sex implied far too much. I was speaking of an anticipation much greater than just what sex will “feel like”. Thanks again to those posters that gave me the benefit of the doubt in that regard…

And for goodness sake, look back to page one for an explanation of the forties comment. I could have just as well said a 20-year-old couple, and I wish I had.

 

[mizznicole]

hey there,

Just wanted to say that I too struggled with the idea of a sexless wedding night/honeymoon, and I would like to remind our posters that the spiritual is not OPPOSED to the physical, but perfects and elevates it!

We ended up taking chances a few times, always praying before and placing ourselves in God’s hands. It was a good thing. It helps you to live with your choices!

There is so much uncertainty in life. We conceived unexpectedly while I was still in school, which would have meant difficulty completing. I lost that baby. We conceived again in a more timely manner. So many people took that as a sign that the first one “wasn’t meant to be.” (I know, how horrid.) The point is that God’s ways are higher than ours.

Many graces to you in this new sacramental life!

 

[RSD]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. Honestly, I feel a little misrepresented, but good discussion was sparked nonetheless.

Be aware that when you start a thread, it takes on a life of its own, and many of the replies are not directed exactly at you or your precise question. Don’t take them all personally. People often say everything that can be said related to a general topic.

 

[ac_claire]

Congratulations dear! Praying for you and your honeymoon baby. What a great story you will have for her/him one day…

My grandmother got pregnant with their twin daughters on her honeymoon and they were born two months early according to grandma, people were counting the days, yet she knew the truth. It was so sweet of her to tell me that story when I found out that I was pregnant from the honeymoon.

Thank you! It’s funny you mention that because I was worried about the same thing when I put up my pregnancy ticker a couple days ago. I was thinking, people might try to do the math…“hmm, 7 weeks married and 8 weeks pregnant…?” LOL but then I decided I would trust that most people understand the way pregnancies are dated; you don’t go from the moment of actual conception, you have to add on a week or two so it’s dated from the beginning of your last cycle.

Ok back to topic!

 

[jilly4ski]

Thank you! It’s funny you mention that because I was worried about the same thing when I put up my pregnancy ticker a couple days ago. I was thinking, people might try to do the math…“hmm, 7 weeks married and 8 weeks pregnant…?” LOL but then I decided I would trust that most people understand the way pregnancies are dated; you don’t go from the moment of actual conception, you have to add on a week or two so it’s dated from the beginning of your last cycle.

Ok back to topic!

Hahahaha, I was worried about the same thing when I got pregnant. (Of course there was no possible way I could have been pregnant before my wedding because of my cycle, but try explaining that to people )

Anyways OP, I understand exactly what you are going through. I was starting Law school the fall after my wedding, and we were moving 1000 miles away, DH didn’t have a job, and we thought we had serious reasons to avoid. Anyways, I was fertile over our honeymoon, and we decided that we would trust God and we ended up pregnant. And now I have a beautiful baby boy, and I am half way through my law school career. I am so glad I trusted in the Lord. It was difficult, but we got through it. I would say that it strengthened our marriage. You might not have to worry about it at all as others have said. God Bless your upcomming marriage.

 

[Melissa66]

Have you taken NFP classes yet? The Couple to Couple League teaches the sympto-thermal method and it is very easy to learn. You can expect a lot of support from your teaching couple. You become a member of the league for a year after the classes and receive their magazine during that time. They always have an issue dedicated to weddings and this subject is often brought up in other issues as well. You could probably get the most recent wedding issue as a back issue on their website. You are not alone in struggling with this. I applaud your willingness to use NFP. This may seem like a great sacrifice right now but it has the potential to provide you with wonderful memories as well as the peace of a clear conscience on this matter. God bless you and your life together. Your first physical expression of your covenant with each other and with God will be no less beautiful and wonderful if it doesn’t occur on your honeymoon.

I have skimmed the thread so if my post is redundant please forgive!

 

[captaincatholic]

I think the OP is trying to address the emotional progress toward total and complete union, anticipating it, having that union confirmed and blessed by the Sacrament of Matrimony, and the disappointment of waiting further than just the ‘goal line’ of the wedding day. It’s not thinking of sex as the goal of marriage, but the union acheived therein. (Not to say that the conjugal act is the only way to acheive union, but it is the physical acting out of what marriage is.)

I won’t agree with other posters that “it’s not that great” or say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I think we all know that already. I will say that I really like to listen to Janet Smith in her “Contraception: Why Not” when she talks about a couple using NFP only to find out that their long-awaited anniversary weekend without the kids at a special bed and breakfast comes during the fertile time, and the reasons for avoiding are reevaluated. I think that this is REALLY a good way to think of this situation. Yes, we could all survive a few weeks of celibacy, but it’s the anticipation that builds and pulls us completely toward that union. Love draws us toward union, and the physical and biological forces are included in our emotional response, especially in the case of a natural good that has been looked forward to and is so emphasized by our society. I think this feeling is COMPLETELY NORMAL and good and healthy! You should be anticipating the moment when you and your spouse can be both spiritually and physically ONE! There are those theologians (I don;t have time to look up and cite properly) who believe that the marriage bed is an ALTAR where the spouses offer themselves and eachother to God, asking Him to continue to bless their union by His Grace.

I second all the advice to chart beforehand, but also will say that a very careful examination of reasons is called for. This might be God calling you to accept the blessing of a child in His time, rather than yours. Think of Abraham, called to offer Isaac, his only son. Instead of your son, he may be calling you to surrender yourself to Him, to trust Him in your life. I don’t know your situation, but I do know that prayer is universally helpful, and that our society pushes us to do some things that may not be part of God’s plan for our lives. He works in mysterious ways, see the stories of those other honeymoon babies, and unplanned babies in general. I wonder how many great saints and holy people throughout history came when their parents would not have really asked for them? Yet, God worked in the lives of their parents to bring them into the world.

For myself, I love the idea of not planning or avoiding pregnancies. It is exciting to know that on a given night, God chooses to bless US, my husband and myself, with a new life, created for ALL ETERNITY! An immortal soul, and how precious and fragile that life can be. The depth of this, on top of the long-awaited physical unity is truly overwhelming to me.

Just a side note, I will not re-read this before posting, but I feel my college self coming back… I had a reputation for being passionate about upholding the Church’s teachings about sex and enjoyed sharing the Good News (I think it was before Christopher West was really that available.)

Prayers going out for you and all those preparing for marriage!

 

[BrokenFortress]

Just wanted to say, I love your attitude! This is how me and my husband looked at our honeymoon too, just last month.

oh, well, Thanks! I went through this horrid time of just having a hard time trusting God in the timing of things, and I’ve learned that it doesn’t pay to worry about things, it’s much easier and happier to just trust.

My fiance and I had talked about this subject, and what about if I’m fertile on the wedding night and he said that we shouldn’t worry about it. I mean, we’ve been dating for 5 years, will be 6 years by the time we’re married, and I’ll be darned if we wait longer! haha. Being together for so long un-married does have it’s hardships if you know what I mean. And like others have said, wouldn’t a baby be the greatest wedding gift?

So congrats to you on your marriage and your little one!

 

[Stella_Matutina]

Yet, with more hindsight now, I can see that, even if it was great to be able to consummate on our wedding night, a few days would’nt have made such a difference : remember learning these things take MUCH time : by the end of your honeymoon, you still will be FAR from doing things perfectly. Far from being at ease with it. Thats’ normal, and in any case you’ll just end up like everyone: learning in your everyday life settings.

I agree with this quote from FrenchGwen. I don’t believe she is referring to it in a, “It’s not that great anyway,” type of way, either.

Last year, I also was worried about your same question. And I completely disagree with the people who said you will be too exhausted on your wedding night. The consummation of the marriage is the whole point that makes the marriage valid and exist and sacramental so I agree with the OP that abstaining would be a heavy burden. But a burden that with the Lord’s help you could carry.

Turns out, I had nothing to worry about and was not fertile during my honeymoon anyway. If we had to abstain for some reason during our honeymoon, I know we would have had a great time anyway!
My friend got married on the same day and conceived a honeymoon baby! God has a plan for each of us.

 

[opera]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I pray God will give you both a lifetime of happiness and children and grandchildren in your old age. You and your fiance are to be commended for actually waiting for marriage before having sex and for not living together beforehand as so many people do now.

As a single woman of 38, I bring a slightly different perspective on the sexless honeymoon. Having been alone for so much of my adult life, while at the same time doing what I could to find the right person, I have come to focus on marriage differently. I practice chastity for my state in life and thus sleep alone every night- not just for one week. Now don’t misunderstand me. I hear what you’re saying about having waited patiently to give yourselves to each other, resisting temptations along the way, and being in love. I have been in long term relationships that looked like they would lead to marriage, so I know how you feel. Still, not having been married and feeling the pressure that I do to marry soon and have children, I look on you with envy (not in the seven deadly sin kind of way). You will soon be united forever with a man who loves you. You are still young enough to have children, even many children. Still, as a Catholic I try to offer up the suffering I experience from the loneliness, anger, sadness, and hopelessness. I offer it up, in union with the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. I know you are Protestant and this is more of a Catholic spiritual practice, but you might try offering up the fact that you may have to wait several days to consummate your marriage. You could even offer it up for your husband. Thus you would be giving of yourself to your husband at least in a spiritual way, just as Christ gave of Himself for all of us.

On a more practical note, when I was in my twenties like you, I used to receive a magazine from the Couple to Couple League. I knew I was called to marriage and thought I should learn all about NFP. Obviously my knowledge of NFP and charting that I did is of no use to me now, but maybe it can help you. I remember that this organization also published a series of informational pamphlets, one of which I believe was called “Creative Continence”. It talked about how to handle the abstinence of Phase II. It also talked about what sexual behaviors were morally acceptable during the abstinence period. You might want to contact this group and see what they can do to help you. There is also the Paul VI Institute, of which I have heard wonderful things in regard to their teaching of NFP.

I hope this gives you some helpful ideas. I truly wish you and your fiance all the best. God bless you both.