Intimacy and Fidelity

This week, we have focused on marital intimacy or just intimacy in general. It can be a sensitive topic, so hopefully, I can share my thoughts respectfully.

I know that the best time to be intimate is after you are married. I have seen from friends the consequences of them having sex with someone prior to them being married. You may not end up with that person or that person could turn around and only use you for sexual satisfaction. One thing I told my husband after we were married for a few months is that I was so happy that I hadn’t had sex with anyone else. (I think he was happy about that, too.) My reason for saying that is I didn’t have anything or anyone to compare our sex to. I have heard so many people on social media say the reason they have sex before marriage is because they need to know if they will have good sex or if they are sexually compatible. Or they got married and now they think about how their sex was with their past partners. I am so grateful that I don’t have anything to compare with my sexual relationship with my husband. I just wanted to start by sharing that experience because maybe it will help those who are deciding what they should do. I don’t want to force anyone to believe that I believe, but from personal experience waiting is so much better.

Sex can cause a lot of issues for couples, especially couples that are new to the experience. Women and men have different experiences. It takes more time for women than men to become aroused. It takes women longer to reach climax or have an orgasm. Men have a period of waiting before they can reach climax again. Women don’t have that. Women need to feel warm, safe, and close before they want to have sex. Having sex, for men, helps them feel warm, safe, and close. Both men and women get a big burst of dopamine (exciting hormone), and serotonin (the happy hormone). Only women get a big burst of oxytocin or the bonding hormone. So for women, when they have sex they feel like they belong with that person. Women, just biologically, get more attached to their sexual partners than men do. Being intimate is an important part of a marriage. It brings you together as one and helps you express your love for each other. The most important thing I have learned about intimacy from this class and personal experience is that it’s always better if you are focusing on pleasing the other person rather than yourself being pleased.

Another important topic to cover when you are talking about intimacy is infidelity. It causes so much damage to the marriage and to the family. One statistic I found really interesting is that 70% of women who had affairs did so with a person from work. So everyone, be careful with your relationships at work. One of the most important things to remember is that your spouse should be your number one best friend. No one should come before them. You shouldn’t talk bad about your spouse to friends or family. They will choose your side and not be on the side of your marriage. If you and your spouse are struggling, don’t confide in friends or coworkers. That is how emotional affairs start and then those can turn physical. If you are having issues and want someone to talk to, go see a marriage therapist or counselor. They will be on the side of your marriage and can actually help so you don’t have to complain about your spouse. Along with not having any friend above your spouse, you should not (I would say cannot) have a friend of the opposite sex as a married person. It is not going to go well. Feelings will develop and that will lead to an affair. Oftentimes, affairs are fatal to marriages. Not always, but a lot of the time. Even with couple friends, you need to be careful and have good boundaries. A lot of people now, especially people my age, think it’s okay to have friends of the opposite sex. My husband had two girls that he was really good friends with before we were exclusive. After we decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend, he stopped talking to them and hanging out with them. He respected that guys and girls can’t really be just friends.

I am grateful for my marriage and want to do everything I can to nurture that relationship. I hope that I have been able to express my feelings on intimacy and fidelity. Both are very important things for marriages.