She was reasonably affectionate before marriage even though there was no sex. She never seemed to enjoy intimacy that much and had no desire to deviate from a very limited perspective (trying to keep this clean
. We were both virgins (she said she was and I know I was) and so I had a natural curiosity to try some different things but all well within what is very normal and typical. She quickly shot down anything that was not the one way she was ok with. She didn't care much for foreplay and wanted it to go quickly then move on with her evening. I never sensed she enjoyed it. She did want to have children though. Each time she got pregnant, all forms of intimacy stopped until weeks after the child was born. There was no apparent reason for this. She had relatively routine pregnancies with no morning sickness or other ailments that sometimes affect pregnant women. She simply had no incentive since you can't get pregnant once you are pregnant... After our third child, she could no longer get pregnant and then had a full hysterectomy at age 39.
Her whole personality changed about 2 years into our marriage. She became friends with some women at church who were part of a group of families that were full-quiver, anti-birth control, pro-homeschooling, patriarchal, etc. That quickly became her identity. I was not hardcore about those things. I understood their reasons and respected them but did not see them as black-and-white as they did. While we did not fight over these things, the fact that I was not as convinced as she became a source of frustration for her and then judgment. I was soon labeled as carnal and unbiblical. I was neither but such was the extremes of her thinking. I was once accused of showing our children inappropriate contentography for watching the movie Spiderman with them. She told a counselor I was a drug addict because I drank caffeine during the day and took a mild med at night to treat restless leg syndrome. In her words, I was taking uppers during the day and downers to sleep. My caffeine intake was nothing out of the ordinary and the restless leg med was very mild. To call that drug addiction was crazy. I could go on but you get the idea. This all started once she fell in with that group although the dislike for sex was from the beginning.
I don't see the lesson learned is having sex before marriage to "be sure." The sex issues were the least of our problems and if that had been the only problem I could have lived with that. I don't know how I could have anticipated any of this ahead of time. We knew each other for over two years before marriage and even worked together. While you can never know everything there is to know about someone prior to marriage, I think I knew enough and just did not see any of this coming. I am still glad I waited until marriage to have sex. I did the right thing and will never second guess myself for that. If I had it to do over again, I still would have waited but probably never married. I have learned to be content single and celibate. I have no desire to remarry. I have lived alone for nearly 15 years now and am not lonely. I have no problem being celibate. My takeaway is that God is faithful. He can work all things together for good. The trials of my life have made me stronger and given me a depth of compassion. A good marriage is indeed a blessing but God is with us whether we are married or single and like Paul we can learn to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.
