The Goal: Every Moment(.) On Purpose

Josh here. My wife, Lydia, typed out her experience with sex. She wrote it with the intention of sharing with women only in a private Facebook group, but she was willing to share it here, too, since the articles here were already talking about sex. I think this helps show our candidness- how serious we are about being open to (especially) teens. After the song and image is Lydia’s story.

Warm regards,
Josh

Julie Doiron - Tonight is No Night (Lyrics)

I’m going to tell you a little about myself. Please tell us your story if you would like to.

My story has a happy ending, an idyllic beginning, and cloudy middle.

I was always taught that sex was meant for married couples. I learned this from my parents, in church, and through societal expectations.

I took on this moral standard of saving sex for marriage very seriously. I used to think that I would curl up and die of shame if I ever had sex before marriage.

But, at the same time, when I was a teenager, I wanted to have sex. There were times where I didn’t know if I could keep my commitment to purity. I did though. I almost gave in during a shady relationship in high school, but I kept my promise to remain pure for my future husband.

When I started a romantic relationship with Josh, who shared my goal of saving sex for marriage, we set boundaries. We led an upright relationship (not just figuratively but literally-*snicker*). I look back today and really feel like we were blameless.

We both entered into our marriage as virgins. On our wedding day I was nervous about starting our sexual relationship. It was something that I had waited for all my life, and here I was about to experience it.

We didn’t expect sex to be perfect at first, but we did expect it to be rewarding on our honeymoon for all of our waiting.

We never thought that sex would be a point of contention in our marriage. We had such chemistry and love for each other, and knew that sex was supposed to be good!

It ended up being one of the most difficult things to deal with in our marriage.

We had read books before we got married, and I had talked to a doctor about it, and a couple of my girlfriends were so kind to volunteer some advice. All of that helped but didn’t quite prepare me for the experience.

I just wanted our first experience with intercourse to be full of love making and passion. It wasn’t. It didn’t feel magical or special. And that was very disappointing. It felt like experimentation. It didn’t feel full of love for months.

Our first night of marriage was actually a really good memory. We didn’t have sex but spent a romantic and fun night together in bed at our apartment.

On the second night we arrived late at our honeymoon beach house. I wanted to have sex that night but Josh told me on the way there that he was too exhausted from the drive and didn’t want to try it that night. I was a little disappointed but fine with it.

Then in the middle of the night he changed his mind. *smirk* By then, I was too tired. I went along with his advances for a little while because I wanted to satisfy him and I didn’t want to deny him. But that was a mistake because soon he could see that I was not into it, and he was deeply hurt that I had been so unresponsive towards his first try to have sex with me.

We were successful at the act the next morning, but it was not pleasurable to me, and it was nothing special.

From Josh’s first attempts at sex he was kind of turned off to the idea of having sex with me. He was still wounded. He remained that way for about a month. We had sex but not as much as I thought we should have. I couldn’t believe that I wanted to have sex more than he did. It was a horrible feeling to be a woman who couldn’t get her sexual desires met by her husband. I felt lonely.

We talked to each other about what was going on with our sex life. Josh eventually got over his bad experience with sex.

Our next difficulty was that when he wanted to have sex, I wasn’t in the mood. And wen I wanted to have sex he wasn’t in the mood. We were constantly missing each other in this way. It took a while to balance out. But meanwhile it was hard to a have patience with each other. I think I had that hardest time accepting it when he didn’t want to have sex with me.

We were also having other difficulties in our relationship. The first year of marriage was full of pain and disappointment. But At the mark of the the first year we felt accomplished. We had overcome many challenges together and we were feeling all the better for it.

[Josh speaking: I wrote the following few paragraphs to include in Lydia's story:]

Whenever sex didn’t work out, it was deeply hurtful to me- more hurtful than what makes sense. There’s something about sex that’s tied to my heart and my manhood, and when I experienced failure it rattled me to the core. It was traumatic, actually, and therefore each sex experience would affect future sex attempts (bad experiences could induce a downward spiral. Lucky for us, good experiences eventually created an upward spiral). Most of our sex failures had to do with missing each other’s moods.

Lydia had a belief that she needed to try to have sex with me when I wanted it, even if she didn’t. So we’d start making love, but I received mixed signals. She’d make advances, but I could sense something was wrong. Her lack of passion would make me nervous and hesitant, dooming our experience. It definitely would have been better if she had turned me down before we tried- it wouldn’t have created as many negative associations. Not that I’m blaming it on her. I was often withdrawn emotionally (more or less in the first year of marriage, but exceedingly so in the first few months) because of the shock of being married. When Lydia wanted sex, I would be withdrawn and incapable of joining with her at any level. In this way I communicated that I didn’t want her (or that I didn’t think she was beautiful, or whatever), and each of those events also affected future experiences.

So that’s a description of us missing each other’s moods. But my main point is that it was traumatic, and each experience affected the next. Even when everything was going smoothly, the memory of failure could turn up and ruin the moment. It was bleak sometimes, and very lonely.

[End Josh, start Lydia:]

We’ve been married for three and a half years now. We are doing better than ever. It’s been an upward all the way. There are always challenges that we have to face together and there always will be.

We enjoy meaningful and pleasurable sex together now. We are still working on it!

Take what you may from my story, but here is one thing that I will point out to you. At times I have looked back on my life of sexual purity and I have doubted whether or not all that waiting was worth it. Was it worth it to wait for a disappointing night and a relational trial? Then I remember how much my husband and I have bonded through learning about sex together. I’m glad that I saved this experience to share with him. In our situation, waiting until marriage helped us to be in a position where we could trust each other to be committed to work out our problems together.

One of the things that I regret is having so much fear to learn about sex. I wish that it wouldn’t have been an embarrassing thing to talk about with my mother. I wish that I would have talked to more friends about it. I wish that I would have known more about my body before I entered into a sexual relationship with my husband.

Also, I didn’t allow myself to learn about sex and contraception until sometime into my engagement due to my embarrassment of the topic and fear that it would fill me full of lust. I wish that I would have known earlier about sex and contraception.

Please take note: My story is not everyone’s story. There are many versions of the “first sex story”. Some people have it more difficult than I did, and for some people it really wasn’t that difficult.

Posted by Lydia