kamikaze virgin bride
sometimes I think about how much harder marriage seems because we “did the right thing,” and waited till marriage to have sex. I believed in saving sex till marriage. I thought that sex would work out well once we got married because we seemed to be “soul mates” seemed to understand and love each other and be committed to each other, want the best for each other, and we even seemed to really desire each other sexually. But now we are married and we have grown far apart, have hurt each other so much that we aren’t close and don’t really want to be.
The ideal of not living together and not sleeping together goes something like this: learn to love each other, learn to care for each other, learn to sort out the problems you have while dating, learn a bit about how to disagree and argue well, then decide to stay with this person forever, decide to start a sexual relationship, a shared living relationship, a shared money relationship, a shared sleeping relationship etc…. all at once after the wedding. You decide to be committed and then face all the difficulties of adjusting to your husband’s snoring, his and your bad habits and untidy or differing views on housekeeping, the difficulty of adjusting to sex, the difficulty of sharing your money. It all happens at once, and the theory is that you can sort it all out suddenly because you have decided on a lifelong commitment.
The theory of living together/having sex before marriage goes something like this: You meet someone, go out a while, like them more, decide to have sex, somewhere further down the track decide to live together, decide to share money, decide maybe to commit to each other for the rest of your lives, if you have been able to sort out all these adjustments well.
I think both models are not very realistic. I think if we hadn’t have been married, we would have broken up when we tried to have sex and found we had so many problems. If we didn’t break up then, we would have broken up over sharing our money, or all the problems of trying to adjust to each other’s ways of living and expectations of housekeeping etc. Because we were committed we had to try to work through these things. But we haven’t really worked them out. We never have sex. We have problems with money. I find it hard to sleep in the same bed as him because he snores and talks and yells in his sleep. I find it hard to live with my husband’s quirks and he finds it hard to live with my quirks.
We committed to love each other, but I feel like we haven’t been able to live up to the challenges thrown at us by trying to adapt to so many life changes all at once. If we had have had these changes slowly, I think we would have broken up because we wouldn’t have adapted, and wouldn’t have had the commitment to stay together through all the problems.
I saved myself for marriage because I thought that within this kind of commitment, we would be able to grow the kind of love we need to get through the kinds of problems we are having. But I think I was wrong. I feel so disheartened. I feel like saving myself for marriage has led me to choose a partner who I am not compatible with.
I am sorry you have had such a hard time. Is it any better yet? It is not easy at the beginning… but there is the unique bond you have with your husband that you do not have with anyone else. In years to come… when things are not easy and your mind starts wondering… it will be to your benefit not to have had a large amount of experiences… because when you only have this one experience that you shared, that is the norm for you two. That is where you start from and that is where you build from. Hang in there. It isn’t all easy but it is valuable.
Life will throw alot of things at you both that you need to deal with together. I would suggest that you get some couple counselling now, whilst the issues you are facing are between the two of you and you both have that strong commmitment to sorting them out.
One thing that I have come to accept recently – if I were to give up and move on, the problems I have in my relationship would probably all happen again in another relationship as I am just as much to blame as my wife.
Get outside help now, deal with your current problems together and you will come out the other end much, much stronger and ready to deal with life in a positive way together.
I look at the 4 years my wife and I were together as a “lease with an option to buy” fo the both of us. Would you buy a car without a test drive first?
When the pixie dust was long gone, money was shared, and lives were fully intertwined, and we were still there day in and day out. Then it was time to get married. If it didnt work out all we would have invested was time and effort.
So, 9 year together, 5 of them married..things worked out ok. Granted there are tons of issues, but there are going to be with anyone.