{"id":22145,"date":"2014-07-24T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=22145"},"modified":"2014-07-19T11:24:22","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T15:24:22","slug":"premarital-sex-and-marital-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2014\/07\/premarital-sex-and-marital-problems.html","title":{"rendered":"Premarital Sex and Marital Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve written a lot about my parents decision to have us children court rather than date. From time to time I\u2019ve seen readers express confusion as to why parents would reject for their children a process that worked for them. The truth is that my parents turned to courtship for my siblings and I because they believed that dating hadn\u2019t<\/em> worked for them.<\/p>\n

I recently mentioned that I was conceived before my parents married. In other words, when my parents taught my siblings and I abstinence before marriage, they were teaching us something they had not themselves practiced. Reader Angela saw this as hypocritical<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of surprising to me that your parents could have embraced some of the beliefs that they did seeing as they did not follow courtship guidelines themselves and that you were conceived out of wedlock. I mean, did they consider their own relationship inferior? Did they feel that your dad was never able to respect your mom? Or did they think that they were the exception? Either way it seems more than a little hypocritical to force a lifestyle on your children that you have never practiced yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s actually more common than not that parents turn to courtship et al for their children because<\/em> they feel their own dating experiences damaged them. They want to help their children avoid their mistakes. This is actually true for a lot of homeschooling culture, and especially Christian homeschooling culture. Parents often turn to homeschooling because they want something different\u2014something better\u2014for their children than what they themselves had.<\/p>\n

My mother was raised in a fundamentalist home and my father converted as a teen. They were both swept up in the evangelical fervor of the early 1980s. They both believed that sex before marriage was wrong and against God\u2019s plan, but they\u2019d never heard of alternatives to dating. When they reached adulthood, each left home for college and the workforce, moving across the country from their childhood homes.<\/p>\n

Both of my parents dated other people seriously before they met each other. When they met and began dating, they planned to wait until marriage to have sex, but that didn\u2019t work out. I was conceived while my parents were engaged. My mother told me about all of this when I reached my teenage years. She warned me, knowingly, of the dangers of unchaperoned visits.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of this comes down to expectations. If you don\u2019t expect sex to be saved for marriage, you won\u2019t feel betrayed when it\u2019s not. But if you do expect it to be saved for marriage and it\u2019s not, you will experience betrayal.<\/p>\n

From here on out, we\u2019re going on my perceptions of my parents\u2019 relationship, and on things they\u2019ve mentioned in passing over the years. A lot of this is me thinking through the belief system and trying to understand what happened to my parents. When my parents had premarital sex, they betrayed their principles in a profound way. This created a trust problem. Neither could trust the other to stand on principle and say \u201cno\u201d to grievous sin.<\/p>\n

My father looked at my mother and saw a woman who hadn\u2019t had the self-control to say \u201cno\u201d to premarital sex. My mother looked at my father and saw a man who didn\u2019t have the fortitude or character to say \u201cno\u201d to premarital sex. In other words, that my parents did not wait for marriage to have sex\u2014even sex with each other\u2014had a profound effect on how they viewed each other and created longterm challenges for their marriage. In fact, that each gave in and had premarital sex even affected my parents\u2019 perceptions of themselves<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My parents hoped to help my siblings and I avoid these same pitfalls. They believed that if we could wait for marriage before having sex, our marriages would start out on a much firmer foundation. They hoped that practicing courtship rather than dating would help us avoid their mistakes. The emphasis on chaperones and short engagements, parental control and the fast-track to marriage\u2014these things would help ensure that we did not have sin of premarital sex.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where I bring things back to expectations\u2014if my parents had not expected to save sex for marriage, they would not have experienced betrayal and a breach of trust when they did not. Having had premarital sex created challenges for their relationship only because they placed such value on not<\/em> having premarital sex.<\/p>\n

My husband Sean and I had sex in the months leading up to our marriage. Because of my upbringing, we waited six months to even kiss and another six months before we had sex, but as my thought through and reevaluated my entire belief system my ideas about premarital sex changed. I no longer saw it as sin. I no longer saw it as wrong. So when I had premarital sex, I wasn\u2019t doing something I believed was wrong, and nor was Sean. We didn\u2019t violate our consciences or our convictions\u2014and we have suffered no negative repercussions. I don\u2019t think less of Sean for it, and he doesn\u2019t think less of me.<\/p>\n

Having premarital sex does not in and of itself lead to breaches of trust and marital challenges. But having premarital sex when you believe premarital sex is wrong<\/em> can<\/strong> lead to breaches of trust and marital challenges.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written a lot about my parents decision to have us children court rather than date. From time to time I’ve seen readers express confusion as to why parents would reject for their children a process that worked for them. The truth is that my parents turned to courtship for my siblings and I because they believed that dating hadn’t worked for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,12],"tags":[106,105],"class_list":["post-22145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-purity","tag-marriage-2","tag-sex-2"],"yoast_head":"\nPremarital Sex and Marital Problems<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've written a lot about my parents decision to have us children court rather than date. 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