Hello, I'm 21 years old and my significant other is 22 and we plan on getting married in a couple of years. We would love to get married sooner but considering our financial situation, it just doesn't seem possible...leading up to the problem of sex. We are both Christians striving to be as good as we can, but I find we often times slip. We have engaged in foreplay and intercourse a few times, but sometimes it turns out great and sometimes it doesn't. We are both also trying to discern whether this is part of what God wants for us but I feel damned if I do and damned if I don't. If we end up stopping and waiting 2 years, will this problem of feeling guilty during sex come back or will it 'magically' get better? I've heard of instances where sex is great after marriage and some instances where it just plain stinks. Have I ruined everything? I just wonder if I have no patience and making love to my future husband will be the way God intended it to be after we do get married. It's such a suffocating thing to think about, please help!

First off, you might be interested to know that by the standards in place thousands of years ago at the time the Old Testament was written, you and your S.O. would already be considered “married.”

Marriage then was the same as betrothal, or engagement; if you read the Bible, you see that there weren’t religious ceremonies akin to what you’d see in a synagogue or a church today. Even the "wedding at Cana," famous to many Christians as the scene of Jesus’ first miracle, was probably simply a party celebrating the payment of the dowry from the bride’s family to the groom’s. There was no walking down the aisle! What made a couple married – and thus legally able to have sex – was the public nature of their betrothal, even if some time elapsed before the actual payment of the dowry.

But the people in your church may not find that argument from history to be convincing. Fair enough.

You are struggling with guilt, and that’s the real problem for you right now. You’ve already guessed that getting married doesn’t make the guilt instantly go away. Humans are complicated creatures. It doesn’t work psychologically or spiritually to say “Don’t have sex, don’t have sex, don’t have sex” for years and years – and then, on the wedding night, say “Okay, go! Have sex now! And love every minute of it!”

Even if you neither of you had had any kind of sex before your wedding night, you might still struggle with guilt, as the testimony of countless religious couples make clear. I can assure you that marriage doesn’t magically make things better, and if you hope that it will, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

As I wrote to you last year, God cares less about whether or not you stood in front of a pastor or priest and more about what kind of commitment and care you and your partner show for each other. To quote from that older post:

I know a great many happily married people (my wife and I are two of them) who had great sex while they were dating – and great sex after they were wed. God isn’t in the business of punishing people for pre-marital sex by making the sex they have as husband and wife tedious and unfulfilling! What makes sex in any long-term relationship seem stale is a lack of communication and the habit of taking one’s partner for granted – and that can happen just as easily to folks who were virgins on their wedding night as it can to those who weren’t.
Good, just, and spiritual sex can happen both inside and outside of marriage. And I’m certain that God cares more about the care and concern that you and your boyfriend share together than he does about the fact that you’re not married.

Focus on the way you treat each other – the content of your relationship – and give thanks for the pleasure you both give and receive. Your friends may quote to you Hebrews 13:4, the chapter which is often mistakenly used to condemn pre-marital sex. (It only condemns infidelity and sex with underage prostitutes if you read the Greek closely). Focus instead on Hebrews 13:15, from the very same chapter. It says that the best sacrifice is the “sacrifice of praise.” You know, even atheists sometimes cry out “Oh God!” when they orgasm; that’s giving thanks for the gift of receiving and sharing pleasure. God made our bodies to give and receive intense joy. When you make love with your boyfriend, thank God for giving you that power and that possibility.

You may read this and worry that the guilt you’re feeling is robbing you of that kind of joy and pleasure. It sounds as if you’re afraid God will punish you for having premarital sex by making you two sexually incompatible after marriage.

The God I know doesn’t work that way. Just as those of us who are Christians grow in our relationship with Jesus over the course of our lifetime, so you and your partner (who will perhaps be your husband) will grow together.

Sometimes, you’re going to have awkward sex. Sometimes, you’re going to have ecstatic, intensely pleasurable sex. Sometimes one of you will want it more than the other. And if you are honest and open and willing to keep working, you’ll get through every one of these issues, growing together as lovers and as partners and as best friends.

One word of warning: sometimes couples in your position make promises to each other to be abstinent, and then, after a week or two, they “relapse”. Often, each person ends up feeling resentful of the other for not having been stronger, or each feels guilty for not having set a better boundary.

So another pledge to “be good” is made, and it lasts a little while, and then you “fall” again together. When you keep making pledges together and breaking them, that does take a toll on the relationship, as guilt or resentment are sure to follow. The key, I’d suggest gently, is to remember that God cares more about how well you two care for each other and how well your relationship inspires you to serve the world than God does about what you’re doing together sexually.

Here are a few other links that might help you out:

• I'm becoming a Christian: How can I reconcile my faith with my sex life?
• Sexual Negotiation for the Long Haul
• Safer Sex...for Your Heart
• Magical Cups & Bloody Brides: Virginity in Context
• Hello, Sailor! How to Build, Board and Navigate a Healthy Relationship
• Be a Blabbermouth! The Whats, Whys and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner
• An Immodest Proposal