Before being married, what were your physical boundaries?

[sampa]

It was suggested in the singles ministry thread I post this question in this forum so I might get more responses from married couples. Thanks so much.

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Boundaries in dating: The Physical


This is my first post to the singles ministry and I'm sure I'll be posting more. I'm curious about those who are dating over the age of 25 years old (not that those under don't have valid experience, but I jus think I can relate closer to my age)....ok I'm wondering if you might discuss your physical boundaries in a dating relationship.

Examples: not kissing till the alter, not kissing till 2nd or 3rd date, cuddling, holding hands in public or private places, watching movies at home, or maybe just what you do to prevent getting too physical. Bible verses or guidance you use? since it's pretty gray, esp. the song of songs doesn't seem clear if it's courting or marriage.

2nd question, how do you communicate your physical boundaries without talking about it in depth on the 1st couple of dates?

Lastly if there's anyone married here if holding out/limiting your physical affected your marriage and made it harder for you to enjoy each other since you got so used to a pattern of withholding? sorry all didn't mean to write an essay.

 

[Assisi]

Obviously I married a bit younger than the people you were originally hoping to get responses from - but I'll start the ball rolling.

I'll answer your last question first and I say a big fat no. Holding back before marriage hasn't made any difficulties for us upon entering married life. Married intimacy certainly was new and exciting and we noticed it (if you know what I mean), but we never felt guilty, or felt like we should be withholding, or felt like we might be doing something wrong. Refraining from sex before we were married has certainly been a positive in our married life though. I think we learnt a lot about how to put the good of the other ahead of our immediate wants, and about how to give ourselves to each other in sex - not to simply take what we want from sex. I should say that we were courting/engaged for over four years before we married, so it's not just that we weren't together long enough to form a habit of withholding.

How do you communicate your boundaries? Hmmm. Well, one of the things I noticed (and loved) about my husband was that he didn't seem to assume that taking me on one date entitled him to a kiss. A lot of guys I went out with would try to kiss me all the time and always be pushing the limit. I noticed that while my husband was very affectionate and caring, he had a different attitude. So my advice is just go with the flow and if he makes a move to try to go beyond your boundaries then tell him no. If you don't want to kiss him, you don't have to. In the first few dates, the boundaries are your own boundaries - not yours as a couple. Tell him if he tries to overstep the mark, otherwise leave it to later. (I'm assuming this is a date between two people who do not intend to have sex before marriage though).

Our boundaries? When we began to date, a kiss at the end of the night on the doorstep was a sweet way to authentically express our relationship. I let him know when it was alright to kiss me by kissing him on the cheek at the end of a date one night. It worked! Next date, he kissed me. After we had decided to marry (three months later) our boundaries became ours and were more a set in stone thing which we had decided together. There were things which we thought were obviously too far, like oral sex, manual stimulation etc., how to stay away from those things and make sure our actions were only ever loving and never sinful, was an individual thing. If something would turn one or both of us on so that we desired more, then we would not do that thing again. Some basic boundaries which I think it would be wise for any couple to employ are not to make out for ages, not to be on each others beds, never to stay the night alone together, and certainly never to share a bed, certain types of touching are always going to be a turn on - so I'd leave them out. My husband and I had the advantage of both living at home when we were courting (we were teenagers), so we could watch a movie together into the wee hours of the morning on the couch and that would be ok because we were not really alone. I'm not sure what I would do on that front if we had been older and living outside of home. Most of our dates were not alone (ie we were with family or friends or in public), when we were alone it wasn't for long.

I hope this has helped!

 

[hope4today]

Assisi, sounds like you and your husband made some very wise choices that are applicable for all ages.

As for me, I am divorced and have two different experiences in this one.

First time around I was a teenager and although I was christian and wanted to wait until marriage, we never actually worked out in advance where the boundaries actually were. This was a big mistake for us. We did wait till marriage for actual intercourse but we basically did everything else but!! We made the mistakes Assisi consciously avoided. We were alone often, would lie on my bed together when my parents weren't home and spent long periods 'making out'. All a recipe for trouble.

This time around it is different. I have only dated one man since my divorce. He is a lovely godly man (we are not seeing each other any more) and we made definite boundaries from the start. And yes we discussed them.
As Assisi said, you may not want to discuss this on a first date but I would recommend at least knowing where your boundaries are and stick to them. If you continue to see the person, then I would recommend discussing this in advance. If he is a christian man this should not bother him but should actually make things easier. It certainly did for us.

Our boundaries were:
Holding hands and hugging ok
Kissing ok
Hands are not to wander and all 'personal' body parts are kept till marriage.
We also discussed things that could make it difficult like
extended periods alone
no overnight stays (even in separate rooms)
massage (we decided feet and shoulders were ok for us. I have a friend who finds massage so stimulating that it is out of the question for her till marriage as it is just too tempting for her).

These are all personal decisions but I do recommend being open about discussing them with anyone you are seeing on a regular basis. Not only does it make it clear for both of you, but it also means you are more aware of when you are tempted to go over them. It helps overcome the tendency to think "Oh this is ok" etc etc and get carried away in the moment.

I suggest making your decisions before you are in the heat of the moment. But of course, that is obviously what you are endeavouring to do by starting this thread.

As for how it might affect marriage, I would think that would depend on a person's mindset about it. I am not refraining because I think that sex is bad but because it is so beautiful and precious and far more than a physical act. I want it to be reserved for the spiritual act of oneness. That if I one day marry and make love again, it will be an act of becoming one in the sacred covenant of marriage. It is not so much an event I am avoiding now but one I am anticipating with joy. I hope that makes sense.

Bless you as you seek God and work this one through.

Hope

 

[Butterfly]

Yeah, I know I'm young and unmarried but I just wanted to ditto both of the above posters. My fiance and I do kiss but we don't make out. Usuallly a quick peck here and there, and all is well. I get a slightly longer kiss on reallly special occasions but that's it. Holding hands, hugging, sitting next to eachother closely is all ok. Because we have the mindset that we have, neither of us even thinks about going any farther. We do rub eachother's feet and shoulders once in a while because we are both on our feet a TON and a simple foot rub for us does not indicate anything sexual, it just feels awful good...and shoulders is just something I do to him to make his day a little brighter, and it's something he does to me when I ask because I have a bad neck and shoulders. Again all non sexual. We don't do anything remotely close to sex or anything sexual except for kissing but I don't consider that sexual, just another way to express affection.

On a side note, if I didn't receive and be able to give the affection by hugging, kissing, touch, rubbing, etc I would probably not be as confident and trusting in the relationship and upcoming marriage as I am. I am completely fearless thinking about the marriage, first time sex, etc. It took a lot for me to open up and to trust his touch because of abuse but now that he has won my trust, I have opened up and started to heal from the lack of good touch as a child.

Set obvious boundaries and then talk about everything in between and set boundaries from there. If you feel guilty about it then it's probably a good sign that it's wrong. God wants us to express affection, so there's nothing wrong with it, as long as it's not taken too far. A lack of affection could result in disaster later, so I can't say to just back off all the way. Each to his own, go with what God gives you a good conscience about.

 

[MikeK]

Before being married, what were your physical boundaries?

Whatever felt right at the time.

 

[gracepaints]

No french kissing, no groping of anything covered by an undergarment.

Did we keep our boundaries? NO. Do I wish we did? You betcha. Those were good lines and would have stopped us from doing a whole lot of other things if we had stopped there.

 

[fuzzymel]

No boundaries and ended up doing far more than we should have.

I do think boundaries are important and would recommend couples discuss them.

 

[bluebug83]

The first real "boundary" we set was that my husband told me very early on that he didn't want us to kiss (on the lips) until we had both told each other "I love you", and meant it. I was very shy, and it took me a little over a year to say The Big Three Words, so yes, we didn't kiss for the first year of our dating relationship. In retrospect, although I thought it was a very conservative boundary carried on for longer than necessary, it really helped us set the standard of good communication in our relationship, and based our relationship on us enjoying being around each other instead of being physical with each other. And once we did kiss, it stayed new and fresh for a very long time, not to mention it was meaningful

As far as sex goes...we were both virgins who had "wait until you're married" ingrained deeply into us. What really helped me was that I'm very logically minded; nobody can EVER talk me into doing anything and I never slip up into doing something if I really, really don't want to do it. Couple that mentailty with "wait until you're married" (along with a strong fear of getting pregnant on accident and having to explain that to our conservative families!), and slipping up wasn't that big a risk. And I can't say we ever came close to it.

A couple of months before our wedding, we sat down and talked about and researched what the Bible said about sex before marriage. We came to the conclusion that once you "do the deed", you are married in the eyes of God - so premarital sex is permissible if you're willing to consider yourselves married at that point, which means a much, much stronger commitment to the relationship, and much tougher standards for breaking it off. Even though we felt that level of commitment at the time, we still decided to wait until the big day because it was so close, and we had waited so long, and wanted our spiritual "marriage" to coincide with our wedding ceremony.

Needless to say, our standards did loosen up a bit in the later part of our engagement, and we did some stuff that I would have felt wrong doing in a new relationship...though we still abstained from obviously sexual stuff like seeing each other naked and touching/stimulating the obvious private parts. But it didn't feel like it was "wrong" for the above reasons: we already felt like we were committed enough to have intercourse should we have chosen to. We also "lived together" (separate rooms) in our newly purchased house for the last three weeks before our wedding, largely for practical reasons, and because we were strong enough to resist temptation. It worked out fine and didn't add any more temptation than if we had been living separately, so it wasn't a boundary we needed to set.

Now that I've written that novel...the last question. I think we did have some temporary difficulties that resulted from us having waited, though it wasn't due to a "pattern of withholding" (I think that only happens when you "do everything but" for an extended period of time, and that was not us). It had more to do with the confusion of "it once was bad, but now is OK". What I would advise single people to do is to think about sex as not something dirty or bad that you can't do, but to think of it as something good that you will someday do, that is just not appropriate at the moment.

 

[Heaven81]

Thanks for that bluebug83. I realize now how important it is to have boundaries because if there are none than you give yourselves an open opportunity to do whatever comes to mind.

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Fingers and mouths only.

 

[hope4today]

Fingers and mouths only.

Now that's one way of putting it......

 

[Sign Of The Fish Burger]

Well we started out with very strict boundaries.......

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Now that's one way of putting it......

But never nostrils or ears.