My BF (27M) and I (26F) have been together for about 3 years. Both of us have a somewhat religious past. I would say for me, I had a really traditional stint during my formative years and then had an existential crisis about if I really believed in all of that stuff – settled on I don’t f***ing know lol. And then he moreso still believes in Catholicism, but doesn’t really go to Mass/confession or anything. He’s told me before that he knows having sex outside of marriage is wrong, but he doesn’t want to not do it, so he’s going to wait until right before he gets married to go to confession and then boom all the sudden sex will not be against the rules anymore anyway.
But this kind of guilt/shame has kind of extended into more parts of our relationship as well where he’s afraid of even flirting with me because to him, he always saw flirting as a means to getting into a girl’s pants. To me, even if that was the only end goal (which it’s obviously not), I’d hope he’d want to get into my pants bc we’ve been together for a while lol! The actual sex is great, but the emotional intimacy kind of suffers if that makes sense. So the physical part rocks but the chemistry suffers bc he’s not so good with flirting/foreplay/confidence. Or like, we’re in a long distance relationship rn and he’s like almost no sexting, he says he thinks about sex every day, but he never tries to tell me about it. If he gets horny, he like watches car and truck youtube videos until it goes away instead of like us having flirty times over the phone or something. 🙈🙈🙈
Other than this he is extremely wonderful but yea, I’ve had to come a long way myself getting more comfortable in the bedroom too, seeing as how I suppressed any sexual feelings for years to avoid sin and then suddenly decided I didn’t want to do that anymore. But now I feel like I’m almost ahead of him in actively trying to get rid of this guilt. Any tips on how I can help him????
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Also raised catholic 27M. Embrace your biology & have a good (consensual) time while your here. Don’t deprive fun times bc life is to short. Don’t be guilty for your instincts
You’ve got to stop letting made up rules prevent you from being human.
If someone can’t get past it on their own, therapy can help.
You’re insightful about the sexual dimension of a romance, while he’s the opposite. He seems either phony or timid, I can’t tell which. (Timid towards defying Catholic dogmas in the privacy of his own mind.) You’ve outgrown your religious upbringing, and you’ve quit the church, or at least are closer to quitting it than he is. Essentially, he agrees (with the Church) that what you and he do is wrong. Essentially, he wants to stay in the Church. You want him to catch up to your abandonment of your upbringing, while he doesn’t want to catch up. Absence makes the heart grow fonder — the LDR may be dulling you to serious incompatibilities.
It’s a shame he has been brainwashed by that stuff. It is not the middle ages anymore. He needs to step into the present. Those ideas and thoughts belong in the remote past. It’s unbelievable they still go on telling people those horrible lies.
This is on him. Not much you can do about it. Unless you call him out on buying into a system that he won’t actually respect by following the rules.
Because your rational/ non religious mind will recognize that sex outside of marriage is not wrong. It’s a beautiful thing especially if you like each other.
Why does marriage change anything? That’s just society pressuring you to conform to old school ideas. That in my mind is wrong. The religious ideals are wrong because they make you feel bad for natural and loving ways of humans.
So you have to overcome those thoughts and make your own responsible choices in life.
Just be responsible. Use birth control of some kind
He’s goong to have to either stick to the rules, or renounce them entirely. As someone who did the “couldn’t wait but felt guilty about it” dance there’s not much that can prevent it from coloring the whole experience.
Well, Catholic priests seem to have no guilt over raping children so I don’t think you have anything to worry about!
You’re not going to be able to overcome the feelings of guilt that easy. If you like each other enough, maybe have a religious marriage with a priest? It’s a lot more positive vibe than a confession. You can get married later when you’re ready