Sure, Maud Dib. I’ll give you my age and sex, you just give me your credit card number, its expiration date and your mother’s maiden name, OK?
Seriously, whether you wait for marriage to have sex or not, there’s no guarantee either way that you will turn out to have a satisfying relationship several months or several years down the line. But I think it’s fair to say it’s an important INDICATOR. And generaly it is better to know as much as you can about your prospective spouse before yo marry her.
I have a question for all you “waiters” out there – what are you afraid of? Why is it so important to you that you NOT know how your partner is in bed before marriage? And that they not know about you?
If you’re waiting for strictly religious reasons, I understand, but if so there’s no reason to try to justify it with a rational reason as well.
I also have what I think is a pretty good reason for the higher divorce rate among “doers.” It’s that waiters are more likely to endure bad marriages for the same religious reasons that led them to wait in the first place. So in the case of waiters we have, not a larger percentage enjoying wedded bliss unto the end of their days, but a greater percentage of people trapped in a living hell of being with someone they can’t get along with. I mean, it’s widely acknowledged that staying in a bad marriage is harder on everyone concerned (including the kids) than divorce, however painful divorce is, and everything I know from talking with divorced people both online and IRL is that divorce is INCREDIBLY painful, and the pain and bitterness last a long time. Imagine what a bad marriage must be like, to be worse than that.
Well, my own reasons were primarily religious, but also practical. I have always found the ‘why not sleep around?’’ attitude to be downright irrational in the world we live in. For example, I heard on NPR the other day (Wednesday, I think) that 10% of sexually active women in the UK have chlamydia, an STD which often has no symptoms in women and leads to sterility. Levels were similar in the urban area I lived in a few years ago. And 50 years ago, herpes (incurable!) was a rare disease. Not to mention that pregnancy is always a possiblity, and I wasn’t willing to risk that until I was ready to have kids. I simply do not like the risks involved. Yes, protection helps, but we call it ‘safer sex’ these days, because it’s still not really safe. So my question is, why would you not wait until you’re really sure? What are you so reckless about? (I can see waiting until, say, an engagement for the non-religious, but even so, lots of people ‘get engaged’ without intending to actually marry.)
As for my own husband, we wanted to wait, and we did. It turns out that you can tell quite a bit about your future sex life chemistry by dating for a year first, even if you don’t do anything serious. We’re very happy about our decision, thank you. In fact, I can’t even express how happy we are with our lives, so I"m not going to try.
Are you sure? Many things are ‘widely acknowledged’ without actually being true, so I’ll need a citation. Not that I have a real citation for my counter-argument, which is that the last study I read found that of couples surveyed who reported equal levels of unhappiness in their marriages, some divorced and some did not. Of those that stayed married, when re-surveyed 5 years later, many couples reported being happy–having worked out their problems or gotten over their rough spot. Yes, it’s sometimes a good idea to divorce in cases of abuse or incredible misery, but it’s entirely possible that divorce can be more painful than staying. Once again, we run into that problem of people being different and not all the same.
No, I couldn’t marry somebody without living/sleeping with them first. While sex isn’t the most important thing in a marriage, it’s the one thing you usually can’t get from somebody else when you are married.( Yes, I know there are exceptions). My wife and I don’t like the same foods, so whoever is cooking makes sure both of us like something in the meal. We don’t like the same TV shows, so we have two TVs. But short of having an open marriage*, there is nothing we could do if one of us wanted sex six times a week and the other wanted it once a month. (Oh, Muad’Dib, I’m a 35 year old male married to 26 year old female - we’ve been together seven years, married five)
Peace-DESK
*Generally speaking, I can’t see two people who waited until after the wedding to be the type to have an open marriage. And I view masturbation as the same as urination - something you have to do sometimes, but no replacement for physical intimacy with the person you love. YMMV
I will wait until marriage (early 20’s male, religious).
It’s interesting to me how many people in this thread expect marriage to be easy. I infer this expectation from them saying they have to have sex and/or live together to make sure there aren’t any annoying habits (hobbits?) the other person has. From my experience, I have yet to find anybody (as a friend or otherwise) who DOESN’T have habits that are annoying to me. No matter who I marry, I expect that there will be a lot of work needed on my part to get over the other’s annoying habits, and even more work on my part to get rid of my annoying habits.
I will discuss this with any future Mrs. Bug thoroughly, but I will spend a lot more time discussing child rearing ideals than sexual habits/desires/etc.
Call me inexperienced if you wish (well, I am, anyway).
LtningBug, I only speak for myself, but I didn’t expect marriage to be easy. The fact is, I’m a pretty anti-social person. I love my wife as much as you can possibly love somebody, but I didn’t know if being married to anybody was the right thing for me. I’ve been in enough long term relationships to know that, in my real world, love is not all you need. My wife will be the first to tell you that the small things that you don’t learn about until you live together are the most annoying.
Sorry if that last post seemed a bit curt, please ignore it. MSN decided to lose my connection and when I returned my unfinished post was posted.
Anyway, I certainly respect the choice of those who do wait and would never disparage them for it. Of course we were trying to make it as easy as possible. I don’t know anybody who would purposely get into a difficult marriage. It was for both our sakes that we decided to have sex and live together before marriage. If that isn’t your choice, fine. I’m not posting to try to convert you, I just want you to know that marriage should usually be pretty easy. While there will always be disagreements, but any marriage you have to constantly work at is, IMHO, one with problems. Of course, this is just my view, YMMV.
