Thank You!!! There is a a major difference. Probably vast majority of FR posters(as well as most people) have had premarital sex in a strong, committed relationship, don't regret it and are still happily married and premarital sex does not lead to the higher divorce rates.
Several weeks back on "19 Kids and Counting" one of the Duggars friends were getting married. Young, early 20's couple had only known each other for 6 months, had never kissed(waiting for the marriage day) and they had never been alone together w/o others being present. How do they even get to know each other on a truly close, personal level in 6 months under these conditions?? My gut feeling was the couple was going into the marriage very naieve. I truly wonder how many of these marriages are really happy down the road behind the "facede"? And yes, Christians cheat/get divorced at the same percentage as the rest of the general population as another poster pointed out (sorry Uncle Slayton)
On another site I post on, a similar thread was made and one of the women posters mentioned while she was not a virgin, (she had a couple previous relationships), her husband was and she decided to remain abstinent in this relationship until marriage because that is what her husband wanted(religious reasons). Well after 3 years of marriage she finally divorced him..cited the lack of no real passion from him.."mechanical sex' on his part, just no spark.. just nothing there. She regretted not knowing him before marriage on a more personal level and she did everything in her power to make it work. Of course not all no sex before marriage relationships are like this but how many are. Life is too short to go through life in a unhappy marriage or find yourself in a unaffectionate marriage.
Being abstinent until marriage is not for me but I do not condemn or make fun of the people who want to remain abstinent until marriage...good for you if that is the route you have taken. I have a long term GF, and we were very best friends, incredibly close, way before we fell for each other and became lovers...and that did not happen overnight trust me and neither of us regret becoming intimate..it has made our relationship much stronger.
Lots of words.
You lost me when I saw 19 kids . . .
Statistically, by the way, premarital relations leads to a higher divorce rate, just to set the record straight. Check your sources.
The problem here wasn't the husband's pre-marital abstinence, it was his wife's lack of it (she'd had previous non-marital relationships which included sex). She'd brought all of that previous non-marital sexual experience into the marriage bed with her and it became a wedge in their relationship. It put her abstinent husband at a disadvantage. To her, sex was about technique and not about a relationship.
I suppose it makes you feel good to wax philosophic on something you've never done.
Talk to me after 20 years of marriage and sending a couple kids off to college.
Regarding the “19 Kids and Counting” episode I’d like to point out that any scenario you see on TV is either a) an artificial creation of a team of writers or b) in the case of reality shows an extreme situation and not at all a typical representative. The commonplace just doesn’t entertain people as much as the bizarre. I might also add that marriage after only 6 months of knowing each other, regardless of how far the couple goes or doesn’t go during that 6 months, is generally regarded as an unwise decision by most people.
As for the other couple you mentioned I agree with the poster who said that the wife’s previous premarital experiences raised her expectations for sex that the husband just couldn’t compete with. Marriage shouldn’t involve having to compete with all your spouses’s exes on a sexual basis. And if sexual technique is really an issue perhaps the spouse that feels shortchanged could suggest improvements. It’s also possible the husband was asexual or close to it. I imagine some asexual men out there do get involved with women they are not attracted to because they fear being falsely perceived as gay and the stigma that our culture attaches to homosexuality.
Premarital sex actually does increase the probability the couple will divorce. I’ll send you a link to the study I read as soon as I can find it again. I don’t have premarital sex because I’ve been in relationships where I got screwed over in the figurative sense and I don’t want to get screwed over in the literal sense too. Would my last relationship have lasted longer if I’d had sex with the guy? Probably but he would still have broken up with me or I with him because, as he himself told me, he had never had a relationship that lasted longer than 6 months. And when the inevitable breakup happened it would have been 10x more traumatic for me than it already was because the female body produces oxytocin during sex, which chemically bonds her to her sexual partner. Oxytocin can really wreak havoc on a woman’s emotions when her sexual partner breaks off the relationship especially if it’s a long-term one. I hope you and your girlfriend have a happy and successful relationship but if you ever break up prepare for some emotional drama.