As with all conflicts in relationships, the best way to work through this issue with your boyfriend is to talk it through. The more clear you are about your desire to wait for marriage and how his pressuring you makes you feel the easier it will be for him to understand and put his passions under control.

I hope you don’t mind me asking these questions. It is rare to find a person who has remained in a marriage as you describe it. What has led you to keep your commitment to your husband for so many years?

Doris Beck,
Interactive Director,
TruthMedia a division of Power to Change

Thank you for understanding, I feel a lot better that you guys have read what the mentor said and see what I am talking about. I was raised in church since a child. In Pentecostal Church, God is an amazing God and I know he forgives. But I just wanted to talk as well as express my feelings. But thank you so much for making me feel better. I know it is a sin, I will bring it up to him about continuing the path of marriage. I have five more classes to go to receive my Associates Degree. I will start planning after school. I have everything put away from when I started to plan the little ceremony we wanted to have. But it is time we should get it done. He is on the same page of wanting to get married, thank god. But I will bring it up during dinner. He knows I have wanted to start going to church again. But as a child raised in church I was taught not to make a sinner feel bad in the way Jude did. But to explain with the bible and scripture of God. what is correct and what is not. You have to be with open arms and love to a person who either does not understand what is wrong or who does. Either way we all have a soul. And if we make a person rear of the path of God that is a sin also. Thank you Claire for telling me about Sheila Wray Gregoire. I did tell Jude my mother never really explained the topic of sex. She was too embarrassed. what mother isn’t hahaha. If I had a child I would probably be kinda scared also. Thank you MGG for being so wonderful I do pray for you and your husband as well. You sound like a wonderful person. : )

God Bless everyone of you,
Susan

I am sorry to hear that you were hurt by the response you got from the mentor. I was quite surprised when I read it myself and will be having a discussion with our mentoring co-ordinator. Power to Change is a Christian website and as such we do believe that God designed sex to be kept between marriage partners. However, and this is a big however, it is not our usual practice to shame people or to shun them. You came here for help and it is my sincere hope that all who do that will get helped. Do I genuinely believe that life is better with God? Yes I do. But you do not have to agree with me on that in order to get help here.

You said that you wished your mentor had explained why marriage is important, I think that is an excellent question. Sex, as you know, is designed to bond people as well as to be pleasurable for its own reasons. There is a level of intimacy involved in sex that simply does not exist anywhere else. The Bible says that that level of intimacy is reserved for people who have made a lifetime commitment to each other — that if you’re going to open yourself up to someone that much it should be the person who is going to stick around forever. If you’ve ever been in a relationship where you were sleeping together and then the relationship ended, then you know how much pain is involved when that intimate bond is broken. If sex stays within marriage then you’re spared from all that hurt. Sheila Wray Gregoire has written more about this topic here and she explains it better than I can.

Is it never our intention to shame someone, to add to their stress or to make them feel worse about their situation. The mentoring program exists because we genuinely want to help and I am sorry that that is not what happened for you.

Sincerely,

Claire Colvin
Sr. Ed., Power to Change

I am so sorry you were treated this way. I was too treated this way on this site. I too have been in a relationship and have had the same issues with my BF not wanting to have sex but once a week sometimes longer and not even wanted to hold me, cuddle, kiss me or just hold hands, unless he is in the mood. This feels very lonely. I was also shunned by a so called MENTOR. I felt like I was being judge just cause I was not married, but have been in my relationship with my BF for a while now. We actually live together and have at times presented ourselves as husband and wife. I am in the legal field and I know that in fact we are now considered as common law married. Nevertheless I was judge, and yes the bible does talk above fornication, however the bible also talks about JUDGING others which is what has been done to you and myself. I have not returned to this site because of this judging. I needed consoling at a difficult time and instead I was judged. In fact, I was basically told that I needed to have God in my life and needed to be saved. Well we all sin. We are human not saying we should sin, but NO ONE has the right to tell me or anyone else that I/we don’t have God in our hearts. I pray for you and your husband Susan that all well get better. Everything in God’s time. God bless.

I just needed to talk to someone not be Judged the way I was. I am sorry if I have offended anyone,that is not my intention. I know now this is for married people. I guess I was looked down at in this place.