The “No Sex Before The Wedding Day” Rule Destroyed Our Marriage

We thought abstaining from sex would bring us closer, but what actually followed was one nightmare after another. It didn’t work out.

Seven years. That’s the answer to your question.

Before we tied that knot, we had seven years of celibacy. We weren’t intimate in that way for seven years. It’s crazy, I know, but we loved each other.

We made promises. Sacrifices were made!

It started out fine. The sexual separation enriched our relationship.

We became good conversationalists, enjoyed meals with friends and worked on projects together. After all, love isn’t all about sex, right?

On paper, that sounds like a perfect plan. Talking and project planning are romantic pastimes. So what happened that made it go so wrong, you ask?

We’d trained ourselves to be celibate. Celibacy had become a habit. Celibacy was or normal.

We maintained a facade for others and looked the part. To everyone else, we were the perfect married couple. At home, things were perfectly different.

By the time we got married and were ready for sex, it’d become strangely foreign ground. Not only that, it was a painful, anxious experience.

Seven years of practising celibacy quickly led to practising a sexless marriage. We went right back to what we knew well soon after the wedding.

We took our problem to a doctor, but nothing was found. She suggested a counsellor.

For four more years, we struggled to broach a topic we learned to avoid. There were tears. Hearts were broken. After eleven years of marriage, it was time to make a choice.

We never had children.

You can see why.

Post-divorce.

Now that the time has passed, I believe it’s important to share the knowledge I gained from practising long-term celibacy.

Sex isn’t supposed to be a big deal… like food isn’t a big deal. But when you haven’t eaten for a while, it becomes one. Hunger turns to desperation.

Soon, you crave food, obsess over it. Abstaining from food doesn’t make the meal more nourishing. Starvation only warps hunger and distorts expectations.

It’s not right to abstain from sex for long periods. Holding back only twists perception. It ruins life’s natural order. It breaks hearts.

I’m not suggesting that we jump into bed and feast on flesh right away.

What I’m saying is celibacy can create new problems of its own. It’s not the spiritual answer it promises to be. It’s more important to unpack our sexual offerings to our opposite than to conceal them, thinking we’re doing each other favours in the long term.

Life is long, and the wedding night isn’t the time to find out that our sexual meal isn’t compatible with our partner’s.

Celibacy can destroy what could’ve been a beautiful thing without it.

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)