Chastity/Morality – Some questions

As someone who lives in a sexless marriage that was not happy for many years, and is a lot of work to keep afloat, I hear you.

Short dating periods, no sexual experience or knowledge before marriage, the pressure for the single man to get married from the general membership, and very weak advice on how to prepare for marriage — these things do contribute to unhappy marriages.

I am torn about chastity before marrriage, and co-habitation. But I suppose I still believe in the church plan, minus the guilt and shame if you mess up before marriage.

I do think there are things you can do to reduce the risk.

1. Spend a lot of time together — like two or three weeks with the parent’s house living together as a family. Wait until people’s true personality percolates to the top and you can get to know them for who they really are.

2. Use leading indicators — how they talk to their family members, how they resolve conflict, the family culture, and the roles of the father and mother and kids in the family. Most prospective spouses will adopt those values and behaviors without even thinking about it.

3. Look at how they keep their room and their car. This is often an indication of how they will keep their personal space in your eventual living situation. So you can decide if you can live with it.

4. In my situation, my wife was incapable of intercourse from day 1. And the cause — vaginismus — is apparently more common in situations where people have strict religious upbringing than in situations where they do not. I think that could be figured out with a medical exam. After we found she had it, we went to a doctor and she was able to diagnose it visually. it’s kind of awkward to put a potential spouse through that,

5. I don’t think it’s all bad if they had sex before marriage — at least you know they are capable of it and you can find out their attitudes toward it beforehand. Everyone seems to want to marry a virgin — I know I did — but now I understand the risks.

Anyway, we sure do make marriage a high risk, high stakes phenomenon in our religion. And then we stigmatized divorce.

Just a few quick things:

1) The idea that sexual sin is next to murder is a bad reading of the Book of Mormon passage from which it is taken. I would say some sexual sins are okay being classified that way, like sexual abuse of children and rape, but as a comprehensive description – nope.

If you are interested, the following posts on my personal blog are about that passage and the idea of ranking sins:

“Sexual Sin Is NOT Next to Murder” (http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/06/sexual-sins-are-not-next-to-murder.html)

“. . . More on Alma 39.5” (http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2013/07/why-its-important-to-rank-sins-and.html)

Thanks for the links. They were good reads and makes more sense than what I heard growing up.

SD – I think those are all good things to do. Maybe it was just my family but I feel like even though marriage was talked about, it was never really mentioned what to look for to make a marriage successful or how to do that. I know that is largely dependent on each individual person but there are general guidelines that would apply to everyone. I just wish I would have had more of a path to follow in a sense instead of trying to figure it out on my own which didn’t work out so well. I guess I thought I knew what to look for but looking back I think I was very naive still. If I ever have kids it’s one thing I want to make sure I stress to them. Maybe most just don’t think about teaching that specifically to your kids (and I never experienced divorce in my family whether it be grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc to make me really question it) but when your own marriage falls apart it suddenly becomes a priority, at least for me.

After having been married for awhile I always told myself I don’t think I could get married again without living with the other person first because after getting married without living with my wife I don’t think I ever would have gotten married to her had we lived together. I know that sounds bad but it’s the truth. As much as you think you know someone it’s still different living together. I know my family would think I’m probably destined for hell if I live with someone before I get married but I just don’t think I could do it otherwise. I’m not saying you even need to have a sexual relationship with them (I realize the odds of not having one and living with them are highly unlikely). I think sexual compatibility is just as important as anything else in a relationship. Women might disagree with me here. I guess I’m just curious what some peoples stance on this topic here is…Maybe I’m just looking for some confirmation that I’m not totally out at left field here…They say mormon divorce rate isn’t really any better than the general population. That’s not terribly surprising to me given that we face all the same challenges normal couples do. Throw in ridiculously short dating periods for lots of these people (it works for some), the young age, never having lived with the other person, having no idea if you’re even remotely sexually compatible, etc and it gets that much harder, IMO.

If I ever get divorced then I would definitely want to live with someone a few months before ever getting married again simply to have a better idea what I’m really signing up for and to avoid leaving quite so much to chance if I don’t have to. And not only for my own sake but also for the sake of any potential future wife as well so that they would know what I am really like and have some time to decide if they can live with that and accept me the way I am up front or if they think they can realistically do better looking elsewhere.

That way if it doesn’t work out it would be easier to simply go our separate ways without having too much invested in the relationship right from the very beginning. To be honest I actually like being married, strongly believe in monogamy, etc. so I’m a fairly traditional and conservative guy that way but I just think living together first would typically be a much less risky approach to finding a long-term stable relationship that both partners are happy with than jumping in head first and hoping for the best based mostly on infatuation and what little you will generally know about someone after the typical quick and relatively superficial LDS-style courtship.

Anyway, we sure do make marriage a high risk, high stakes phenomenon in our religion. And then we stigmatized divorce.

So true.

And yet, in just about every survey I’ve seen, fully active LDS members are at least as happy in their marriages as any other Christian group.

As with so many things, this is not as simple an issue as people on both sides of the discussion tend to try to make it.

Unsure wrote: I think sexual compatibility is just as important as anything else in a relationship. Women might disagree with me here.”

Why in HELL would women disagree with you on this????

The last thing a woman would want is to spend the rest of her life with a guy who is lousy in bed.

Give a girl a horny guy who has an excellent skill set. That combination makes a wife very happy and can cover for a lot of deficiencies in other areas.

If a couple isn’t immediately compatible, maybe an honest attitude and discusssion about what could be different ..combined with some practice. Read some books, look up anatomy, practice some more.

Too often, people assume that their partner is broken. They want a new partner. Sometimes, it is the partner, but usually it is not. It is a lack of overall experience and communication by both partners. Combine that with a feeling of shame by the culture and that is set up for a trifecta of failure.

Sex is a participatory sport between two individuals. Both are supposed to reach their goal during the sport. If one player is winning evey time, and the other player is merely participating, that would get old really fast. Make sure your partner is enjoying the game. If they are not, change how you play the sport.

I don’t think it is necessary to have sex before marriage to find a compatible partner. Your best sexual partner might not be your best life partner.

There was an amazing column I read a few years ago. A man wrote in. He was trying to decide if he should marry a girl who was right for him in every way, but was not his absolute best partner in bed. The girl who was the “best ever” was not compatible in any other aspect. She was good at sex but was irresponsible and lacking in every other way. The columnist discussed the importance of finding someone who was an excellent life fit, then work on the intimacy issues — like you would any other skill set.

I do think it is important to have some very open and frank discussions about sex and expectations. Does your partner think one position is the only one allowed? Shaving? Does your partner believe lingerie is allowed? Toys? Play acting? Skinny Dipping? Beliefs/Attitudes about birth control? Learn how to say the word orgasm. There seems to be a cultural taboo about that word. People get so embarrassed about sex that they avoid the conversations that would be most therapeutic in their lives.

Start the conversation.

Unsure wrote: I think sexual compatibility is just as important as anything else in a relationship. Women might disagree with me here.”

Why in HELL would women disagree with you on this????

The last thing a woman would want is to spend the rest of her life with a guy who is lousy in bed.

Give a girl a horny guy who has an excellent skill set. That combination makes a wife very happy and can cover for a lot of deficiencies in other areas.

If a couple isn’t immediately compatible, maybe an honest attitude and discusssion about what could be different ..combined with some practice. Read some books, look up anatomy, practice some more.

Too often, people assume that their partner is broken. They want a new partner. Sometimes, it is the partner, but usually it is not. It is a lack of overall experience and communication by both partners. Combine that with a feeling of shame by the culture and that is set up for a trifecta of failure.

Sex is a participatory sport between two individuals. Both are supposed to reach their goal during the sport. If one player is winning evey time, and the other player is merely participating, that would get old really fast. Make sure your partner is enjoying the game. If they are not, change how you play the sport.

I don’t think it is necessary to have sex before marriage to find a compatible partner. Your best sexual partner might not be your best life partner.

There was an amazing column I read a few years ago. A man wrote in. He was trying to decide if he should marry a girl who was right for him in every way, but was not his absolute best partner in bed. The girl who was the “best ever” was not compatible in any other aspect. She was good at sex but was irresponsible and lacking in every other way. The columnist discussed the importance of finding someone who was an excellent life fit, then work on the intimacy issues — like you would any other skill set.

I do think it is important to have some very open and frank discussions about sex and expectations. Does your partner think one position is the only one allowed? Shaving? Does your partner believe lingerie is allowed? Toys? Play acting? Skinny Dipping? Beliefs/Attitudes about birth control? Learn how to say the word orgasm. There seems to be a cultural taboo about that word. People get so embarrassed about sex that they avoid the conversations that would be most therapeutic in their lives.

Start the conversation.

Not trying to start an argument but sex or being sexually compatible is not a high priority for most women. It’s probably in the top one or two for guys but maybe 5 or 6 down on the list for women. It’s no secret that most women are the low drive spouse in a relationship, that’s just reality. Some women would be completely happy in a sexless marriage and while there might be guys out there that fit the mold too, the numbers are far fewer. We are wired differently.

I bolded that 3rd sentence of yours and I do not think I agree with it at all. If that were the case then it wouldn’t be such an issue. In fact I think that’s part of the problem. If a guy is interested in sex it’s because he’s just horny and wants his wife for her body, not because he loves her or wants to share an emotional connection with her. I’m surely not a selfish lover and I have a hard time believing that most men are, especially if being ‘good’ at it was all it took to bring your spouse up to an acceptable level of desire.

I’m not even saying you should sleep around trying to find someone good in bed. Compatibility is more important than being good in bed (which can always be improved). It’s when one spouse thinks a couple times a year is perfectly ok and the other spouse is at the opposite end of the spectrum, regardless of which is which. That’s hard to fix and often times the HD spouse will start to feel resentment towards the LD spouse. It’s not always as easy as just starting a conversation although that can be all that is needed in a good many cases.

I do agree with your last paragraph. I wish I had had those discussions with my wife before getting married. I think that’s something everyone should discuss in depth before they get married.

It looks like I was wrong about the mormon divorce rate. I know I’ve heard that before but I stand corrected.