I’m so excited to answer this question asked by one of my readers. Especially because in this day and age it’s just the norm to have sex before marriage.
I personally find that shocking. Especially when people say the words, “it just sorta happened!”, In reference to a one night stand. My first time having sex on my wedding night took a lot more effort than anything “just happening”.
All that aside, I’d love to give my honest answers on how we did it. Because in all honesty it is NOT easy.
My husband and I are human beings that found each other irresistible. So it takes more than just will power to stay virgins before marriage. So here are some tips:
1. Make your intentions clear from the very beginning!
This one surprises me. People go on dates to just “see where it goes”, as many guys have said to me when asking me on a date.
I had a sure fire way of getting rid of them. I would respond, “oh, are you interested in marrying me?”
That’s all it took for them to run like the wind. See, it’s in these instances you find out what guys are really just interested in getting alone with you for. It often time isn’t simply for a deep conversation.
When I noticed my husband was interested in me, (he wouldn’t stop following me around), I asked the same question and he said yes!
I was completely blown away by this answer but then followed with a long list of requirements for my future husband.
Oh gosh, my list was intended to scare him. But instead it brought out determination in him. I told him, “my future husband will be on fire for God, willing to die for Christ, prepared not to kiss me or have sex before marriage!”.
His exact words were, “Sweet! I’m an option!”
2. Make a plan.
Jesiah and I sent emails for a year as close friends before we started going out on dates. This time spent sending emails helped us to determine some ground rules in order to not get into a sticky situation.
The Bible talks about not giving the devil a foothold. And that was exactly what we didn’t want to do. We did not want to give ourselves any opportunities to be tempted to have sex or any other type of sexual relations.
So we set boundaries like, we can’t be alone in each other’s homes. There always needed to be someone around to check on us. And we let these family members know that this was what we expected of them.
Another boundary was to not get horizontal. Yes it’s nice to cuddle, but let’s be honest… We want each other.
We also did not set foot in each other’s bedrooms or beds unless it was us and family or friends hanging out all together in a bedroom. In which case we still did not get into bed together.
We were honest! We were honest with each other and honest with my mom. In moments when we got too close and we started kissing and kissed too much (yeah cause that “no kissing” rule was really tricky).
Or we touched each other inappropriately, (grabbed body parts only reserved for marriage); in the heat of the moment, we would openly admit to each other that we needed to stop and that this was too much.
We would then talk to my mom about it and make a plan with her on what we can do to prevent another moment like this. We would admit to each other that what we did was wrong. We would ask God for forgiveness and adjust our routine accordingly. There’s no shame in this!
We literally had time periods we hung out in the hallway of my apartment building because we just couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And it was guaranteed that someone would pass by within minutes.
Often time the security guard would pass by. He happened to be a close friend of ours and he would choose that opportunity to hang out with us and chat for hours. And I mean literally hours. He was chatty by nature like me… my poor husband, he’s not very chatty. He had to put up with us for so long.
Anyway, standing in the hallway made it very hard to be intimate. We counted on people awkwardly bumping into us as we were making out. It stopped us in our tracks and it made things awkward enough for us to clear our heads and get back to just talking.
3. Be realistic!!!
For those of you out there that managed to “date” for years without having sex… Bravo!
But for Jesiah and I, we got to a point where we sat down with our parents and the pastors of our church and said, “We want to maintain our purity and not have sex before marriage. We knew we wanted to be married to each other before we started dating. So we want to do this right away!”
Unfortunately there were many people not on board for this. I mean at this point we had only been “dating” for six months. However, we had been best friends for over a year.
We had to deal with many unhappy people when we stood our ground to honor God and get married right away.
I don’t understand why people like to act like they’re strong enough to maintain their purity. What’s wrong with admitting you are physically attracted to one another? It’s a good thing!
So that’s how we stayed from having sex before marriage. And oh man our wedding night… Well we didn’t get any sleep that night.
If you’re hoping to get married one day and remain a virgin till then, the number one thing to do is pray. Even if you haven’t met the right guy yet, pray for your future husband. Pray that you both save yourselves for each other.
And if you’ve already lost your virginity and want to start over, it’s never too late in God’s eyes. He’s such a gracious God! Ask him for forgiveness and for restoration of your virginity. I mean he created us all so he can do it!
