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I feel perverted.
Hey everyone, 18/f here
Background:
So, the cliche "best friend is in love with me" story happened to me. He's been my bestie for about two years, almost three. He's heard me out when I ranted about other guys, when I cried over getting cheated on, when I was stressed because I had to keep my grades up, and everything else. These past two months we talked more than usual, and I ended up catching feelings for him. I thought he just saw me as a friend but he confessed to having feelings for me for about a year. All our mutual friends knew except me, go figure. So we're dating and it's been great.
There's just one little problem. He's such a gentleman in so many ways and I love that. He wants to get married, buy a house, settle down. He believes that sex should only occur after marriage and while I think it's amazing that there's still men who think this way, I'm not sure I agree with him. He's catholic, not extremely religious but his beliefs are very old-fashioned. I am atheist, and I don't believe in marriage. While we're just teenagers, it seems like that could bring problems in the future. He knows what I am, and he's never said anything negative. The point is, I can't stop thinking about him in "unpure ways". It makes me feel silly to put it that way, but I keep having weird dreams and daydreams about him a in sensual/sexual way. It's starting to become a little obssesive. I mean, he doesn't even touch me other than holding my hand sometimes but that still makes me get all hot and bothered. We're both virgins, but I've had sexual contact with my ex. Could this be way I can't stop thinking about my boyfriend this way?
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It's totally natural to feel these emotions inside of you, you're hormonal, you're 18. I find it sweet that you guys are dating and that you two are connecting in ways that don't have to involve sex. it makes sense that you would feel that way especially about your boyfriend, don't put yourself down.
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Thats not perversity, that's normal. There is such as thing as deal breakers in a relationship, one being one wants kids the other says never, spiritual beliefs/or lack of extremely important to each, neither will change (and all the ways that affects ones life), one having a high libido, the other a low one.
In your case Theres conflict already on beliefs and sex and its related.
Once you hit puberty, the hormones in your body that have the ability to make you respond in sexual excitement at the sight of someone appealing, or their nearness is what happens first, and if seeing the person day in and day out with the same sexual responses, they are only going to grow. You didn't even mention kissing.
I used to attend church and knew of two couples who married and anulled marriage shortly after as they never had sex. One was so bad that the bride fainted when the priest said it was time to kiss the bride cus it would've been their first kiss ever. All they'd done is hold hands. While it is important for teens to understand how to be responsible and use condoms and birthcontrol if they are going to have sex, our culture has changed much and women don't need to remain a virgin so a man can know if the child she gives birth to is his or not, we have paternity testing that is very accurate. Other than than theres no reason to abstain from sex. I married as a virgin only to discover than other than the first couple times of excitement to experience with him, for both of us, that New Relationship energy wore off and neither of us in the long run were ever sexually aroused by the other because of lack of chemistry. I discoverd he also had a low libido, could get along with very little, and even if I never orgasmed, i wanted it often. THIS is a bad area to have no clue about each other in. So if you're happy dating him now as a teen, do so, but when you become an adult, you may want to talk again and see if he really believes what he says he believes, a very active Catholic who isn't just doing and practicing it simply cus thats how he was raised, thats not a strong enough conviction. With my experience, I am all for young people having sexual experience during their late teens through their 20s before marriage to learn enough about themselves.You can at your age know for certain what your 'religious' status is, then its just a matter of learning about the other things that might be a deal breaker. Some Christians can have deeply held emotional responses of guilt or remorse even when married and having sex. I know many adults who were messed up that way and confided in me as the husband and i were one of the couples who ran a weekly fellowship meeting in our home. I guess they felt safer confessing to us than a pastor.
Good healthy relationships are built on two things, being each others best friend, and being each others sexual equal. An old fashioned custom of handfasting was a way for couples to experience marriage and domestic partnership in a way that was formal and binding for only a year. Once the year had passed, they then decided to renew the contract for another year or had learned in that time that there were irreconcilable differences between them and they split up and moved on to seeing others. This year included having sex and any children that resulted from it. I highly doubt he'd go for that either, but in my opinion, it's one of the best things that ever was as far as couples are concerned.
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There's nothing perverse about your desires, they are completely normal for someone your age, regardless of your experience. I've known plenty of sex-obsessed virgins with NO experience whatsoever.
I would personally hit pause, however. If he can ask you to wait for sex, you can ask him to wait for marriage, which is a MUCH bigger deal, in my opinion, with legal and financial ramifications. Consider doing some pre-marital counseling before you get too serious to see whether you have the skills to work through the many obstacles marriage can bring.
Do you and he have a way to support yourselves? What were your good grades for? Weren't you thinking of going to college? Would you marry him first and then go? If he's Catholic on this issue, he very well may be tied to the idea of no birth control, and from experience, I can tell you having a child while going to school is extremely difficult, and more difficult if you don't have solid finances, which would be unusual for 18 year olds.
What's more, although I respect adviceman greatly, his great experience isn't the norm. Coming from different religious worldviews and marrying at earlier ages are both correlated with a greater incidence of divorce. Picture what your vows to be together mean to each of you. For you, they end at death, for him, he probably expects you to be part of his afterlife. If your boyfriend becomes worried for your soul, will you go through the motions for him, otherwise, how will he feel when you reject his life-or-death concern as a superstitious fairytale?
You're probably right that there could be problems in the future. This sounds like a fantastic love story, with fantastic lessons you're learning about kindness and respect, but not all love stories end with the couple staying together for good. There are serious areas where you'll either need to grow together, talk about, or even possibly ignore and suppress.
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I can't tell exactly you why you feel this way other than it is natural for someone in true love to want to be intimate with the person they love. This is the way it is suppose to be, the way we procreate as a species, out of love not just for recreation.
Since he wants to wait until marriage and if this is the guy you wish to marry. Then the only thing I can tell you to do about this feeling is to masturbate and fantasize about him when doing so. This will at the very least release the sexual frustration you are feeling.
As for you being an atheist and him being a Catholic there can be a compromise her if indeed you wish to live together as couple. You can give a little on marriage and he can give a bit on the sanctity of marriage within the church by having a civil ceremony officiated by a member of the clergy if he wants. A civil ceremony is the only type of ceremony that a priest could perform for you two as you are not a member of the religion.
My wife and I are of two different religions. We were married by a Criminal Courts Judge who told us it was a life sentence he was giving us. It will be 43 years come this June and we are still serving that sentence.
You have no reason to feel perverted, your very normal especially for your age. You have several years ahead of you before you should even consider getting married. You need to finish High school and you booth should finish College before marriage is even considered. A lot can happen between now and then. For now just enjoy each others company. Enjoy the fact that he is a gentleman and treats you as the lady you are.
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