**TL;DR:** My girlfriend has gone back and forth between a strong desire to be physically intimate now and keeping our relationship pure until marriage. While at one point, I was open to physical intimacy, I no longer have any physical attraction towards her. How do we work this out?
I have known my girlfriend for two years now. While we have had feelings for each other since almost the beginning, we didn’t start dating until about one and a half years in. While the relationship as a whole has been both incredibly challenging and rewarding, we have had issues with “physical intimacy”.
For some background, my upbringing has caused me to develop severe social anxiety, so simple things like giving hugs and holding hands have proven challenging for me. I am improving, however! My girlfriend, on the other hand, has had more experience with relationships, but she has also experienced a lot of trauma and abuse. Until me, her relationships have all included “physical” aspects. Now, she is determined to keep things “pure” and “biblical”.
There was a time a little bit before we started dating and about a month into it that she and I both expressed a desire to be more physically intimate. She mentioned how much she wanted to kiss me, and I told her that I eventually would. It was then that I actually developed the desire to kiss her, which I had never experienced. She also suddenly asked me about my thoughts on sex before marriage, and after I told her I was okay with it, she agreed, saying, “Why torture ourselves?” It was around that time that I began to feel physically attracted to her.
Soon, however, she began to revert her positions, saying that there would be absolutely nothing sexual, even kissing, before marriage. Although it was a bit of a shock at the time, I agreed to it and stopped allowing myself to think of her sexually.
Just recently, however, she confessed to me that she had been struggling with a strong desire to kiss me, saying that “kissing” was an understatement, but it would have to wait until marriage. This worries me because I simply don’t have any “physical” feelings for her now. I tried deliberately fantasizing about me and her, but I found it impossible. It didn’t interest me and, in fact, made me feel physically sick.
I love her, and we are still working on our relationship, hoping to eventually get married. I have my reservations, of course, but she wants to get engaged and married relatively soon. I’m concerned about a couple of things, though.
She moved to another state recently, so we are in a long-distance relationship. I am visiting her in a couple months, and I am concerned by what may happen. I am concerned that one of us *will* experience physical feelings and end up doing something we will regret, or that she will experience those feelings and find out that I don’t have them. She has told me in the past that she’s not concerned about me, but she’s afraid she won’t be able to control herself.
I’m assuming that things will work out in marriage, and with good communication we can actually begin working on our issues with physical intimacy after we are married. However, it’s the time between then and now that is proving difficult. Should I bring this issue up to her, or is it something I’m blowing out of proportion?
2 comments
If you have lost physical attraction for her, you need to either see if you can get it back, break up, or discuss the idea of an asexual marriage. You could try therapy, since you clearly have a lot of issues around physical affection. But you may simply have burned out your attraction for your girlfriend, and you two may no longer be compatible for any long-term sexual relationship. I know for me personally, once I lose sexual attraction for someone, that is it – it never comes back.
It’s a really bad idea to marry someone when you not only do not know if you are sexually compatible, but you have significant reason to think you are sexually incompatible. Lots of marriages break apart due to sexual incompatibility. If you want to wait til marriage, that’s one thing, but you should still have sexual attraction and you should discuss sex with each other in advance to try to ensure as much sexual compatibility as possible before you get married – things like desired frequency, desired types of sex, what sorts of things make you sexually excited, what is a turn off, etc.
Never assume anything will work out in marriage if it’s not working before marriage. Being sexually attracted to your spouse is very important. Understandably you’ve turned these feelings off and on and off and on and now you don’t know what to feel. Now it’s been 2 years and you guys missed out on the exciting “honeymoon” phase of the relationship because y’all never let yourselves have it. As to if you can get that back I’m not really sure.
Definitely do some pre marriage counseling.