Success stories about waiting for marriage

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Bri125

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Hello all. I posted a similar issue on here a couple of weeks ago. I made the decision awhile back to wait until marriage to have sex. Even though Im not a virgin (I have a daughter) I decided after all I had been through with toxic sexual experiences I wanted to turn back to my faith and values and wait. But here I am now, and it’s hard. So difficult. I’m losing relationships over it. This guy I have been dating for the past couple of months is hurt because of me. We have been disagreeing for weeks over my desire to wait and his desire (strong desire) to not. He claims to have been falling in love with me and made the very difficult decision to wait for me. Honorable and I so appreciate him doing that for me because I know he doesn’t see any value in waiting. But our fighting didn’t end there because I later that night revealed that even “everything but sex” made me feel guilty and wrong and I would prefer to wait on those other things as well. Now, I realize I made a mistake here. Because we have done other oral things in the past month. I felt guilty. I know it was so wrong of me as a catholic and I told him last night I would no longer be comfortable doing those things and feeling guilty. I know this relationship is not for him. He is very sexual and in his eyes I’m “tricking” him. He’s hurt because he has been falling in love with me and now I spring it on him that I want a totally non sexual relationship. I know it was wrong of me. I should have been honest with myself and honest with him from day 1 that no type of see was ok for me. I realize that by doing some things with him and then “changing my mind” about them is very confusing an hurtful to him and I am sorry I did that. I can see now this relationship is not meant to be and it’s sad to me. I feel like I met a decent albeit sexual man, and I have to turn him away because I want to wait. I’ve been praying for strength and courage for both of us. Even started saying a novena for him and me every night. Just losing hope that im never going to be able to hold on to any man or relationship because of my wildly conservative ideas on sex. I so so badly want to be married and have a family and its so hard to know many men will turn away from me because of this. Prayers and well wishes please, thank you all.
 
If a man will turn you away because you want to place all sexual activity within the context of marriage (where it is supposed to be), then that man is not worth your time.

All men are “sexual men” (or at least the vast majority :p). But a man shows his strength in his willingness to exercise self-control and put your interests above his own inclinations and desires.

If you’ve ever heard of the book “The Five Love Languages”, my love language is definitely “touch”. So – if morality were no consideration for me – it would have been quite easy for me to go down that road. But ever since I knew what sex was, I knew how important it was to wait. And so I exercised self-control. It was not always easy. But it is definitely possible. Now I’m married, but the need for self-control does not go away. With kids and illnesses and this, that, and the other thing, a guy cannot expect sex-on-demand. The ability to exercise self-control now will bear much fruit in marriage.

I know how difficult this must be for you, but stay strong. Do not allow pleadings of “If you love me, you’ll do it” sway you into acting against your own conscience. The fact is, if he loved you, he would not pressure you to violate your conscience. If that’s what he’s doing, he does not love you, he only loves the way your body makes him feel. He may put a nice face on it. It may sound quite convincing. It may even be partially true. But fundamentally, it is selfishness on his part to ask such things of you prior to the commitment of marriage.

You are in my prayers. Pray for me, too.
 
I’m sorry your faith has caused men to walk away. But you’re doing the right thing. You are a Catholic and you are a mother. You want a good, solid, Christian man in your life as your husband. And a good, solid, Christian man will understand your desire to wait and will not hold it against you.

Not to mention that sex causes our brains to become awash in happy bonding chemicals and hormones that can cloud our judgement about the person we have had sex with. As a Catholic and a mother you want to choose a husband based on real compatibility, not based on hormones.

In the future, when you begin a dating relationship, it would probably be best to be up front as soon as you can about your decision to wait for sex until marriage, why you have made that decision, and let the gentleman know that you won’t be doing “everything but sex” either.
 
You have made a wise decision.

I recall a woman in her mid-20s, a very lively, cute, engaging, wonderful girl. . . who was not at all troubled about telling people she was a virgin.

She pretty much the apple of everybody’s eye, and she could pick and chose whoever she liked. Ended up with an engineer and a large family.

As a man, the virginity stuff wasn’t off-putting to me at all. If anything I respected her sense of personal integrity and self-awareness.
 
It is very hard to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, but it is possible. You are fighting two battles here, one with yourself and one with our sex-saturated culture.

You made a big mistake doing “everything but” with this man, and now you see how that is playing out. Chastity is so much more than abstaining from the marital act. Chastity is required within marriage, too. Suppose for the sake of argument he does accept your terms now, but on the expectation he will get everything he wants whenever he wants it once you are married? Would he be willing to accept the discipline of NFP if you needed to avoid pregnancy for a time? I’m sure he is a decent man, but unless he really understands what it is you are trying to do (be holy and chaste), he is not going to help you achieve it! Even Catholics can have a lot of trouble with chastity, and to the average secular Joe out there your behavior is somewhat inexplicable and may even appear manipulative (although I know you did not intend it that way).

Believe me, I know how hard it is to be alone and think no man is ever going to be willing to have a chaste relationship. I spent a lot of years believing that, but I chose chastity because I wanted more than to just not be alone. I had pretty much resigned myself to single hood by the time I finally met a man who wanted the same things I did. It was absolutely worth the lonely years to be with someone who shares my faith.

I’m not going to say it was or is always easy, and I am not going to guarantee you will find Mr. Perfect. But there are far worse things than being alone, and one of them is being in a relationship where you are compromising your beliefs and endangering your soul.

Pray, pray, pray for the courage and strength to be holy and chaste. I will pray for you, too.
 
fontgoddess said:
It is very hard to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, but it is possible. You are fighting two battles here, one with yourself and one with our sex-saturated culture.

You made a big mistake doing “everything but” with this man, and now you see how that is playing out. Chastity is so much more than abstaining from the marital act. Chastity is required within marriage, too. Suppose for the sake of argument he does accept your terms now, but on the expectation he will get everything he wants whenever he wants it once you are married? Would he be willing to accept the discipline of NFP if you needed to avoid pregnancy for a time? I’m sure he is a decent man, but unless he really understands what it is you are trying to do (be holy and chaste), he is not going to help you achieve it! Even Catholics can have a lot of trouble with chastity, and to the average secular Joe out there your behavior is somewhat inexplicable and may even appear manipulative (although I know you did not intend it that way).

Believe me, I know how hard it is to be alone and think no man is ever going to be willing to have a chaste relationship. I spent a lot of years believing that, but I chose chastity because I wanted more than to just not be alone. I had pretty much resigned myself to single hood by the time I finally met a man who wanted the same things I did. It was absolutely worth the lonely years to be with someone who shares my faith.

I’m not going to say it was or is always easy, and I am not going to guarantee you will find Mr. Perfect. But there are far worse things than being alone, and one of them is being in a relationship where you are compromising your beliefs and endangering your soul.

Pray, pray, pray for the courage and strength to be holy and chaste. I will pray for you, too.
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This!! To the OP, also keep in mind that whoever you marry will be the father of your child and have a great influence on that child. You are correct to move on from this Mr. Wrong. You have no need to apologize for wanting to set a good example for your sweet little girl and to show your love and devotion to Christ and His teachings on premarital/marital sex.
 
Sweetheart, I feel you. After a disastrous relationship in my early twenties, I made the decision to wait, too, and I was 28 when my now-fiance proposed to me.

It’s difficult enough to wait even though both of us are committed to it, so trust me when I say that anybody who’s half-in, half-out, who could be swayed by a moment of weakness from you, or who could apply undue pressure during one of his moments of weakness… Well, that is not the kind of person who is going to respect your boundaries about anything, in or out of marriage.

Sex is awesome, but waiting for marriage, to me, is a declaration of more than just, “I’ll exercise the willpower so we can have a really special wedding night.” It says, “I cherish you.” It says, “I want to belong to you, and I want you to belong to me.” It says, “What we will have will be holy and sacramental.” It says, “I am not going to use you.” It says, “I love you,” more than a passionate night together as singles ever could.

And sex shouldn’t ever make you feel guilty or sad or dirty or bad about yourself or your partner, and the only way to make sure that’s as far from reality as possible is to wait. You’ve got it right there, and your determination to do the right thing is just beautiful. It may take a long time to find the right person (it took me seven years after I decided not to have sex again), but he will be worth it.

Also, bonus: my fiance is my Best Friend. The foundation we’ve built (he also had sex in the past, by the way) far surpasses anything we’ve ever had with other people. We kiss and cuddle and are sweet on each other, but our interactions are innocent. We talk about sex allll the tiiiiiime. I mean, ALLLLL THEEEE TIIIIIIME, so I know we’re both eager and anxious for our wedding night, but at the end of the day, if something happened and we could never have sex (God forbid), I still have so much to look forward to in my life with this man.

I’d say that’s a waiting success story, and I’m not even done waiting yet. 🙂 (I will be in July 2014, though.)

God bless you, sweetheart, and your daughter. You’re in my prayers.
 
Bri125 said:
Hello all. I posted a similar issue on here a couple of weeks ago. I made the decision awhile back to wait until marriage to have sex. Even though Im not a virgin (I have a daughter) I decided after all I had been through with toxic sexual experiences I wanted to turn back to my faith and values and wait. But here I am now, and it’s hard. So difficult. I’m losing relationships over it. …

I feel like I met a decent albeit sexual man, and I have to turn him away because I want to wait. I’ve been praying for strength and courage for both of us. Even started saying a novena for him and me every night. Just losing hope that im never going to be able to hold on to any man or relationship because of my wildly conservative ideas on sex. I so so badly want to be married and have a family and its so hard to know many men will turn away from me because of this. Prayers and well wishes please, thank you all.
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You owe sexuality only to your future spouse; any man “hurt” by not getting it before the vows is just a spoiled brat!

While finding a man who has not had sex is likely very difficult, you should at least focus on men who value the effort involved in waiting for a future marriage, even if both of you have fallen in the past. This man does not value your choice; as “decent” as he may be, he obviously does not share your strong desire for a family now, and may never do so…
 
I thought I was going to read about “success stories about waiting for marriage” :confused:
 
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