premarital sex is hurting my marriage

[peppercloud9]

It may sound ridiculous to some of you but sometimes I feel really guilty for not waiting until marriage. I was curious when I was younger and had sex with people I didn't really want to because I didn't think it was my place to say "no" or whatever my 13 year old mind was (or wasn't) thinking.

After the first time I figured I'd already ruined what could have been something special so why did it matter who I had sex with since it would never truly mean anything to me. Well eventually I met someone I actually had respect for and we fell in love and we've been married for almost two years now. He, too, had previous sexual partners.

Every aspect of our relationship (other than sex) is unique because neither of us had ever been in love before. Now we're bringing a child into the world and sometimes I feel that's the only reason sex exists and that maybe we should stop having it until we want more children, but I don't feel that would be fair to my husband.

I had never had an orgasm before my husband, but with how much easier it is for men I imagine that he probably had one with every girl that he slept with before me. I tried to promise myself I would wait until marriage and succeeded for about three years before I slipped up again. Then after I had sex with my husband for the first time I wanted to stop and wait, but I didn't think it really mattered.

Would it be an unreasonable request to ask him to quit for a while so I can figure out how I can overcome all my insecurities? The only times I've been really happy in the past 8 years have been the times when I'm not having sex. I just feel so dirty sometimes (yet I have a higher sex drive than my husband). Could it be that I only ever used sex as a way to raise my self-esteem, but it had the opposite effect? I could probably benefit from counseling but with a baby on the way and no mental health insurance that just isn't an option (I don't necessarily trust therapists anyway). I'd like to just "forget about it" but for whatever reason I can't. I used to cry a lot about all the thoughts going through my head, but it was hurting him too much. Now I just keep it to myself and pretend nothing's wrong. What do I do?

[pinkflower]

Hm you know I have thought about what it must be like for those who have not experienced other lovers and I think that it can be a very good and bad thing. On the good side, with only one partner ever, it is all you know and therefore it is the best to you. Having many partners can open you up to different techniques and really teach you what you want, but on the bad side, you can find yourself wanting to try "other flavors". I have had 3 partners and though they all had good qualities, only one ever brought me to an orgasm through intercourse.

I don't believe your husband necessarily had an orgasm with all the girls before. I have had sex many times without the guy coming to orgasm, either it started to hurt me so I said to stop, or he couldn't keep it up, or I started laughing and ruined the mood, stuff like that. I also have felt really disgusting when having sex and I find the best sex is when I am not entirely conscious, like when you wake up in the middle of the night horny and just grab the man next to you (husband in this case!!!) maybe you have experienced this before?

You can also suggest going on a hiatus, or perhaps giving each other massages instead - which can be much better than sex when you are stressed, and much less messy.
DON'T keep it to yourself and pretend nothing is wrong. It would only get worse!

[Browser]

Communicate.

[Beans518]

First, I think you should talk to your husband about how you feel. I know first hand that keeping secrets like that to yourself only helps to make you feel worse. Plus, I was wondering that maybe by you having sex so early and often that maybe sex just seems trying to you now? It seems like you don't want to stop having sex altogather, just slow it down some. You also said that you have a higher sex drive than your husband so if you talk to him maybe he wouldn't mind as much as you think. Also you're about to have a baby. With some women they are not that open for sex due to hormones and stuff like that.

[ua322]

Don't cut him off. That will ruin your marriage at this juncture. That would be punishing him for your guilt, thus making you both a wreck.

Where does your guilt come from? Religious issues or self esteem or what?

[mattw2411]

You might want to check out my thread "Girlfriends Sexual History". It may give you some insight on the males side of this situation...but I am not your husband obviously so i might be reacting differently/having different thoughts on this situation. Anyway thought I would throw it out there. I know that keeping things inside eat you up and can make things hard, but telling him (depending on the person) may in fact cause things to be very problematic.

[Sugarplum]

As I see it peppercloud, you were young, you didnt know what you were doing and you didnt know who you were back then. You still searched for who you wanted to be, what ideas of life (and sex) you had... You were develloping your personality.
At that point of in life, you may have made a few bad choices, true, but punishing yourself now for that because you feel bad about how you behaved back then, is not a solution!

At that time, you werent who you are now, you didnt know what love was and you didnt know it could ever be this way. So... you cant actually blame yourself for it... When you would have known about life at that point, what you know now, would you still have done it?
THAT is the question you should ask yourself... Cause nothing you try doing now about it, will improve your situation. It might be very difficult for you to "burry that inside you", but you cant punish yourself now for what you did when you were unknowing and still (in a mental way of speaking then) a child.

What you need to realise is that you cant change anything what you did in the past. You had sex with someone (or more people) you didnt love, but you love someone now!!!
Dont associate sex with a way to improve your self-esteem, like you used to, but see it as a way to show how much you really love your partner, how close you can be together in a loving way...
Dont see it as a bad thing... and leave those bad memories and guilty feelings behind...
Ask your husband to help you with this. Be honest with him, tell him what bothers you, how you feel about yourself. Do NOT ask him to cut back on sex if you dont tell him the reason. It might be extremely hard for you, to let someone you love know how you think about yourself, especially because you feel "dirty" and might feel like not worth being this happy and loved. But dont think he will stop loving you for it and lose his respect in you... When he loves you, he wont...

You say that in the past 8 years, the only times when you felt happy (about yourself) is when you were not having sex (for a longer period of time?). This is, as I look at it, because you feel guilty about having had sex before you thought you "were worth it".
Now is the time to look at the past, realise what was going wrong, feel guilty.. yes! But denying yourself (and your husband) sex because of it is not a right way to deal with your guiltfeelings...

Prove to yourself that now, sex is not just sex, but that it has that extra dimension in it... being love.

I really hope this helped you out a bit, and make things see a bit more in proportion. When you love someone, sex is a wonderful thing, dont let it go to waste...!

[WallyLlama]

It actually sounds like you are quite determined to make yourself miserable, perhaps in an effort to punish yourself for what you perceive to be mistakes you have made. Of course in the process of punishing yourself, you're apparently willing to punish your husband and your future child as well.

Harsh...? Yes, because what you're not seeing is that you're being very self-centered about this -- not to mention the fact that your using some fairly twisted logic to reach conclusions that simply "don't make sense."

I do understand that how people feel is not always logical, but at the same time people sometimes spend a lot of energy justifying twisted logic and the resulting twisted feelings. That energy would be better spent changing the thinking and changing the feelings. Let's look at a few "facts."

One reality you haven't accepted... you say that every aspect of your relationship is unique except sex... and yet you say that you never had an orgasm until your husband. I'd call that unique.

You say you feel that the only purpose of sex is to make babies? When you did you adopt that belief, why, what is the basis for it? There's nothing (short of some misguided religious belief system) I'm aware of that suggests that's true.

You feel dirty but have a higher sex drive than your husband??? Does that mean you are "dirtier" than he?

Is he also to be punished for what he did before you were married? Does he get punished for what he did with you or what he did with others?

You seem to be so wrapped up in some weird need for guilt and punishment that you are not even listening to yourself.

What do you do? You get help, you get counseling. You may get some support here. You'll definitely get some opinions. But the situation you are describing requires intervention. There are plenty of options. Start with your MD. Tell him/her what's going on and ask for help finding low cost/no cost counseling. Get hubby involved as well.

It's not necessarily a bad thing that you don't trust therapists... but here again, think about how you thinking. You're going to have to trust one at least enough to allow him/her to help you fix things.

Your request to stop having sex would be unreasonable UNLESS you are taking very specific action (such as doctor/counseling) to get your head on straight. Since this has apparently been an issue for you since you were 13 and you haven't resolved it yet there's really no basis to believe you can will resolve it now if you stop having sex.

Get some help.

[bruins76]

So many things to comment on here.

First I too regret having sex before marriage, I started at the age of 12 and I regret it (I turn 30 tomorrow). I've had a lot of different partners and I regret almost all of them cause I had sex not b/c I was in love or they loved me, I did it cause I wanted them to love me, I wanted the attention that I was lacking in my home life. I have been on my own (living from couch to couch & on the street pretty much) since I was 14. I never met my bio dad and my mother had me at 14 so she also abandoned me (another story all together).
But he main thing is that I used sex to fill a void that I had in my heart for many years.

I now have 2 kids, 1 w/ a guy who I am not with anymore and he is married etc., and 1 w/ a man who this is his 2nd marriage and 2nd child w/ me. So I've never gotten to experience anything for the first time w/ anyone in a healthy situation/relationship.

I once had a boyfriend that realized that I wasn't wanting sex for the feel but more to be justified and wanted from him. He said "we aren't having sex for a while until you can come to terms w/ stuff"... long story short we had sex that weekend (I was 19 at the time, he was 26) and we forgot that converstation ever happened.

I do still remember that conversation & I deal w/ "the issue" of sex being used for validation etc w/ my personal therapist whom I see weekly. It's a work in progress since I have many other issues that are being dealt w/ but it does help to "talk". As far as w/holding sex, since you are married to this man, you pretty much owe him "something"....it's not fair for you to w/hold all sexual needs on his end, if you do, be prepared for him to search for his need's to be met elsewhere (not necessarily cheating w/ a person but perhaps porn, online porn, magazines)...which I can say hurts just about as much as knowing that your man would be cheating on you knowing that he's wacking off to another image other than you. Do you want that? Are you prepared for that?

I think you need personal therapy, in the mean time tell your husband how you feel b/c I am sure he senses something is wrong and he may distort those "vibes" as something totally off course and that's not fair to him. You took vows to love, honor, etc., you owe him an explanation on how you feel. But for the love of God, don't tell him you are w/holding sex, cause that's just not right. You are gonna hurt his ego and your marriage, period.

Again, we all have regrets, but you can't live in the past for them. You made a mistake, move on and realize that there isn't anything you can do about that. In counseling I don't say how I should w/hold sex so I can feel "whole" again, I want to work on why I had sex at such a young age when I didn't want it or have to have it, why I felt that it was important to lose something like my virginity at such a young age, what was it that made me do that? Do you see what I mean? Keeping sex from your husband isn't the answer, finding out what made you do it w/ other guys is what you need to work on, how you were feeling at the time, what void you were trying to fill etc.

I hope this helped...and remember, keep the windows of communication open w/ your husband about your guilt from your past. I know that me and my DH don't talk about our "past" (like how many people we were w/) cause it hurts us, make's us jealous, the thought of each other w/ other people. We obviously know we weren't virigins when we met, cause we had other children w/ other people, but that's okay, but that's enough to know about. Otherwise the wheels start to turn... I'd like to think that me and my DH adopted our first borns and got together for the first time and that's how special we are to one another. It just doesn't make sense to torcher ourselves w/ guilt from one another's past. KWIM???

HIH & GL
~C

[Jaysey]

You cannot change the past. Not even God can change the past. All you can do is change your future. Have you considered counseling to help you deal with your issues with sex?