We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us what their first time having sex with their partner was like if they waited until marriage. Here are their most insightful stories:
1. "Both my husband and I waited until our wedding night to have sex for the first time ever due to religious reasons. It was uncomfortable, and we ended up not going through with it, and I cried afterward. Our first time was technically a few days into our honeymoon. I don’t regret waiting at all. I think about my experience and how I felt when it didn’t work or wasn’t like how the media portrayed it to be. If I would have done that with some random high school guy I was dating or someone who wasn’t mature enough to care about me and my needs, it probably would have wrecked me."
"My husband was patient and understanding, and together we figured it out, and now we have a great and enjoyable sex life. I’m happy that he’s the only man I’ve ever been with, and I have no regrets that I waited until marriage for it."
—Anonymous
2. "Not me, but my mom. She didn't have sex until she married with my dad and told me that it was a very special experience and worth the wait, which made me, for a while, want to wait until marriage too. She decided to wait because she's a Catholic and has conservative values. But later, when I confessed to her that I had had sex with a former boyfriend, she told me that sometimes she wondered what could've been if she had had sex with someone else other than my dad. So mostly she doesn't regret it, but kinda wishes she had been a bit more adventurous before committing for life."
3. "My husband and I decided about eight months into our relationship that we would not have sex anymore until we were married. We got married about two years later. It made us closer, and we are able to be emotionally intimate without sex, but it has taken us a long time to come back together sexually since marriage because we are comfortable without it. It can be frustrating at times, but I’m glad we did it."
"I was a person who only knew sex as intimacy in my past relationships. Sex was confusing emotionally for me. I only felt valuable to men if I was having sex with them. Not having sex and having to open up with the right person put a mirror to a lot of things I needed to work on in myself. It had the same effect with my husband. It brought us closer, and I don’t regret it."
—Anonymous
4. "I do regret waiting. We met quite young, at 21 or so, got married at 28, and by then stamina, horniness, and ERECTIONS didn't quite work the same as they would have before. Honestly, just enjoy your youth, and enjoy the gifts your body gives you to excel at sex WHILE YOU CAN. It only gets worse from here."
5. "This is so complicated for me. I was (and still am) a practicing Catholic, and so was he. We were fine with waiting. Making out was hot and heavy, and I thought I'd love sex with him. Then came the cruel twist that I have vaginismus (meaning vaginal penetration was excruciatingly painful). I made an appointment with a sex therapist while on our honeymoon. I gave my all in my therapy and was ready for sex after four months of using dilators, but even then, he was very hesitant to have sex with me. He never initiated it."
"When we did have sex, I sometimes got a strange feeling that I was taking advantage of him. I was devastated, convinced myself that he was gay, and was using me as a cover for his conservative parents. I divorced him. In retrospect, not waiting would have meant encountering vaginismus while still on my parents' insurance, and there's no way they would have supported me in seeing a sex therapist. But waiting also meant that I didn't realize how sexually incompatible my ex and I were. I'm now happily married to a man who communicates about sex very well."
—Anonymous
6. "I was raised in a very religious family, and it was always emphasized to me that sex was for marriage only. I fell in love when I was 18 and got married when I was 20. I was probably in a little too much of a rush on our wedding night, and it did hurt some, but it wasn’t terrible. One problem that arose pretty soon though was the fact that I turned out to have a much higher sex drive than my new husband did. It was just one of many problems in our marriage, and we split up after just two and a half years. I had a lot of guilt for a long time about getting divorced and the idea that I would not only have one sexual partner in my life. I got past all that eventually and remarried a number of years later. We did not wait until marriage for sex!"
7. "I do and don't regret it. I found out after marriage that I’m asexual. I wished my spouse knew what they were getting into, but it’s not a dealbreaker, so I don’t think doing things differently would have changed anything. We just have to be creative regarding each other’s needs."
—Anonymous
8. "I waited. It turned out I had a severe sexual dysfunction. I finally found a doctor that figured out what was going on two years into my marriage. The physical and mental trauma is truly unexplainable. I wish I hadn’t waited though. I could have found enjoyment in other forms of sex with my partner instead of hyping up vaginal sex, only to be so traumatized by it that I didn’t even want to be touched sexually at all. We are good now. It has strengthened our marriage. But it was a bitch."
9. "I waited to have sex until marriage. While it was primarily for religious reasons, I also wanted it to be a symbol of commitment to my spouse. I don't regret waiting to have sex until my partner and I were married, but I do regret the way sex was talked about in my family and the messaging I received about sex. Going from 'sex is bad and makes you impure' to 'sex is a healthy part of married life, and if you’re not doing it something is wrong' was a huge pivot. HUGE. As it stands, sex can still sometimes be physically uncomfortable for me. It’s something I’m working on with my gynecologist and in therapy, but I doubt my hang-ups and anxiety regarding sex would be extreme enough to cause discomfort if I hadn’t been raised the way I was."
—Anonymous
10. "My husband and I waited to have sex for religious reasons. It wasn't terribly awkward, but it wasn't comfortable either. I don't regret waiting, and I definitely don't care that I have a super low body count, but I do regret the shame and guilt around sex that I had from my upbringing. Even though we had done things 'right,' I still felt like I was doing something wrong anytime we had sex for years. Perhaps, the most upsetting thing was that our wedding was rushed as a result, and we inadvertently offended a lot of people in trying to get the event put together in time."
"I wanted us to elope, and we really should have just done that. Planning that wedding is still the most stressful thing I've ever done, and I don't feel happy when I think back on my wedding day. I just feel this overwhelming sense of anxiety and sadness over all of the unnecessary drama that it caused."
11. "My husband and I were both virgins when we got married two years ago. Premarital sex is very taboo in our religion, but I definitely made the decision for myself and no one else. I like to think my husband made his choice for the same reasons I did. Because of the taboo and underwhelming sex education, my husband knew very little about how nuanced consent can be. We had frequent conversations and reminders about it in the first few months of our marriage. He’s very respectful of me and my boundaries, but it was frustrating for a while. I felt like I had taken on the role of his mom in order to educate him that one yes doesn’t mean he never has to ask again. We’ve moved past that and have a good balance now."
"I really enjoy sex, but penetrative sex is difficult for me in certain ways. I have a vagina and experience pain, but I usually won’t say anything or request that we keep going anyway. I also have never experienced an orgasm. We’ve worked with professionals a little bit, and I believe that the issue is with my body and not our lack of experience. But it sure would have been nice to know sooner!"
—Anonymous
12. "I waited, and I regret it. Not because it wasn’t good sex, but because our sex drives are so different, and we didn’t know. Before marriage, we would only mess around, and it was constant, which was closer to my high sex drive, but it turned out he has a much lower sex drive. Once we started actually having sex, I learned his idea of regularly was like once a month or less, and mine was more like daily. It has caused a lot of stress, and now we don’t have sex at all."
—Anonymous
13. "I regret waiting. I grew up Catholic, but told myself waiting wasn’t just about religion. I believed that waiting was the 'right' and 'safe' thing to do. My husband and I were together for about five years before we got married, so it’s not like we rushed into marriage just to have sex. He was not a virgin, and the two of us had done plenty of sex acts before marriage except penetrative sex. Penetrative sex ended up being VERY physically painful for me. Our wedding night was not as good as either of us hoped, because I was in pain, and he was worried about hurting me. It took about two years before I could have sex without pain."
—Anonymous
14. "My husband and I were together three years before we got married and had sex for the first time. I was pretty nervous, but our bond made our first time fun and actually really comfortable. Our decision to wait was rooted in our personal values, and staying true to that is something I'll never regret. I think it all really depends if the decision is coming from you or not."
—Anonymous
15. "I regret waiting!! One of us was a preacher's kid, and the other was a missionary kid who just wanted to have sex and was still involved enough in our parent's religion that we felt pressured to get married as virgins. We're still together 20 years later (and we're now atheists), but it took SO long for us to get over our religious hang-ups and inexperience and get really good at it. We both wish we'd had some sexual experience before each other and that we had 'lived in sin' for a few years without feeling like we had to get married. It made our early life so much harder than it had to be."
16. "We got married young because we were religious and wanted to be respectful. We're still married 15 years later, but there is some regret for me personally because I let sex dictate when I wanted to get married. Marriage should be about wanting to be with someone in all aspects, not just sex. We got lucky that we actually were very compatible and have a fantastic marriage, but I have so many other friends who followed the same path and aren’t happy now as a result. Always be with someone for the right reasons…plural."
17. "I would've liked to experience having sex with somebody else. All I know is what I have with my husband, and although that's beautiful in its own way, it doesn't take away from the curiosity of wanting to know what it's like with other guys."
—Anonymous
18. "I don’t regret waiting at all. My husband and I both waited until marriage but had educated ourselves (and my degree is in counseling and human development), so we had low expectations for our wedding night, but we were excited to be together anyway and felt confident that we would figure it out over time. It turned out…it was very intuitive for both of us, and we had a FANTASTIC first time. It was so much more comfortable, thrilling, romantic, and pleasurable than I ever thought sex could be. We weren’t nervous, just so happy to finally be married and start our new life together."
—Anonymous
19. "I got married at 26. My husband was 36. He was definitely not a virgin. I wanted to wait because it was important to me to only have sex with my husband. It was a religious thing but one that I really wanted. My parents and church were supportive, but it was not the norm for either and was driven 100% by me. I also really didn’t want to be a single parent. It was super hard at times, and it was way harder for my husband than it was for me. 10 years into our marriage, and we are both glad we waited. For us, it forced us to create a really strong relationship that was based on a super firm foundation, not just the glow of lust. It also caused us to have very deep conversations pretty early on."
"The thing is that you age. And as you do, I think at some point sex becomes less important or not possible. If you wait for marriage, you know you can handle the times in your relationship that sex isn’t possible or super important. Yes, sex is important, and we are lucky we are compatible in that way, but it’s not the only factor. Do I think waiting is right for everyone? Nope. Was it right for me? Yes!"
—Anonymous
20. And "I didn't have sex until marriage because of religious reasons. And while I am glad that I waited, my only regret was sex not being an open topic growing up, and so I felt ashamed after our wedding night. I 'knew' about sex but not all of the factors (i.e. that pleasure is normal and natural, that sex can feel good and relaxing, and that it can be fun). It wasn't until after our sixth wedding anniversary that the 'lightbulb came on,' and I felt comfortable, enjoyed myself, and initiated sex because I just wanted to get down and dirty. My husband has been so patient and kind throughout our sex journey."
"He also grew up in a religious household but chose to have sex before marriage. While he regrets it, for the most part, I believe it helped him in being patient and supporting me. Because of both of our regrets, we have decided to raise our kids with all factors of sex being an open topic. The good, the bad, and the ugly: that sex is awesome when you are ready and to teach them everything we can so that they can make that decision for themselves when they feel the time is right for them."
—Anonymous
