Hi,I have some issues with my girlfriend that I am clueless about what to do. This is her 1st real relationship and she has been with one guy before me only. They had sex only a few times. Now we have been together for over 9 months and we are really serious about our relationship and the future. Now we have been sexually active for about 7 months.Anyways, she was always a little church girl and she believed in waiting until marriage and all that stuff and doing it on the honeymoon. She has been telling me this since we met that she will never forgive herself for doing it the 1st time with this other guy and she would do anything to change that.So lately she has been feeling guilty about not waiting until our honeymoon and last night she even started crying. We had a long conversation and she asked me how would I feel if we would stop having sex until our honeymoon.At first I thought she was joking but was I wrong. She is serious. She asked if I would be OK with it and would I support her. Also she said I fulfill her life with joy and happiness but there is that one empty spot that she misses God and going to church and forgiving herself for what she did before.She asked me to support her with all this but I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about this and what to do about it, and what I am supposed to do? Do you have any ideas or anything.I’ve talked to many of my friends they all told me I was on my own on this one they have no idea. So if you could please give me some ideas that would be great.Thanks.
I understand your bewilderment. What you’re dealing with is a girl who was raised with a strict religious background, and whose conscience is now haunting her for having premarital sex. You don’t share her religious values, so it’s got to be hard for you to understand what she’s going through.As I explain in my book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First) values are nonnegotiable. They make up the core of an individual and can’t be changed or modified. So, what we have here is a value conflict between her strict religious values and your more liberal values. Since values can’t be changed, you can’t expect her to modify her views any more than you can be expected to modify yours.So the real question becomes how can you both coexist together, given your differing values. You need to ask yourselves what accommodation can we arrive at that respects her wish to wait and also respects your bottom line–no pun intended–that is your wish to get laid.If I were you, I would talk with her and tell her that you do respect her values and ask her to come up with ideas for how you can meet your sexual needs while respecting her wish to wait. Would she find it acceptable if she were to pleasure you in non-intercourse ways by giving you oral or manual sex? Would she be willing to hold you while you pleasure yourself, so that you can maintain a physical connection while not having her engage in an act that she isn’t comfortable performing? Would she be all right with hugging and necking while naked, so long as intercourse was off the program? Talk until you find an acceptable compromise for you both.As for her missing God and church, I wonder why she isn’t worshipping anymore. Is the fact that she feels guilty over having had premarital sex keeping her from returning to her church? If this is so, then I think that going back to church and obtaining absolution (or forgiveness or whatever her particular religion calls it) would help her to be less ravaged by guilt.I am sure that you both can come up with a solution that respects her wish to wait as well as your wish to continue having an active sex life. Keep in mind that your different religious values may also give you problems after you’re married. Make sure that you both agree on how you both will worship after marriage, and how you will raise your children when it comes to religion and religious education.Don’t pull the wool over your eyes on this score. You don’t want to wait until after you’re married to find out, God forbid, that you can’t come up with a plan that ‘s acceptable to you both. I’m sure this won’t be the case, but we want to make sure.I want to hear how you both resolve this issue.