I come from a culture where physical intimacy before marriage is still considered taboo. In my life, I’ve only had two serious relationships (both more than 1.5 years long ) where, after believing the person genuinely loved me and saw a future with me, I became physically intimate with them. Unfortunately, both relationships ended, and I later realized I was the one who saw them as life partners, while they didn’t share the same level of commitment.
Now that I’m starting to date again, I feel a bit anxious. I want to wait until the relationship is serious something like we both see a future together, marriage, and maybe a family before becoming physically intimate. I know myself: once I get physically close, I become emotionally attached and more vulnerable. I start overthinking things like, “Are we truly committed? Will he leave? Is he seeing someone else?”
I’ve also stayed quiet in past relationships about things that bothered me like disrespectful comments about other women because I feared speaking up might push them away.
This time, I want to build a relationship based on respect, emotional safety, and shared values. I see so many Reddit posts from women saying after 1-3 beautiful months and physical intimacy, the guy lost interest. That really scares me. I don’t want to go through something like that again.
So, my honest question to men is:
How do you feel when a woman says she wants to wait for intimacy until you’re both serious about a long-term future?
Would that make you lose interest, or would you respect it if you genuinely liked her?
I’m looking for honest answers so I can approach dating with clearer expectations. Thank you.
Comments
Extremely. Physical intimacy is a core part of a romantic relationship for me. It’s a base level compatibility. Not determining physical compatibility early on is wasting everyone’s time.
I also don’t view it as some magical holy sacred ceremony. Someone viewing it as something that should be withheld for personal goals or whatever has an incompatible view of sex for me. I want someone who can’t keep their hands off me and who I can’t keep my hands off of lol.
If they can wait until marriage to have sex with me, they don’t have nearly high enough sex drive for me xD If things go well making it to the third date before going there is gonna be a challenge for us both 🙂
Not saying people are wrong for viewing it differently. To each their own. Just for me I want a partner to have a compatible view sex to my own.
I am in a long-term relationship for about 5 years now. I don’t think it is important in the early stage of relationship. I do think it important to figure out physical intimacy before marriage. Nothing is worse than to end in a marriage with an unsatisfying bedroom life. There is nothing wrong about feeling more emotional attach after sex. What you need to determine is are they good partner during sex. is it fun? is it fulfilling? is it safe to be vulnerable? That last one is the most important one to consider. Having sex before marriage without finding that is a bit a shot in the dark. What if it turns out the intimacy is horrible, or it feels like a chore after a while? Or worst you don’t feel like its space to be vulnerable with your partner?
If that is her consistent expectation and culture, it wouldn’t bother me. I think sexual compatibility is important long term, so I personally wouldn’t get to the stage of marriage before sleeping with someone, but I am ok with waiting awhile. Sexual compatibility can also be misleading and cover up other incompatibilities, so being somewhat platonic for awhile is a nice way to figure out if the relationship has potential. I have seen many people stay in dead-end relationships because the sex was good.
I don’t know, I’d wait 6 months maybe? I haven’t been there to really say for certain. I had known my wife via work for years, but we slept together almost immediately upon dating. My current gf of 1.5 years we slept together on our first date, although I had known her in a friend capacity for a few months.
Depends on how intimate is intimate. If we haven’t kissed by the second date it’s probably over. On the other hand, it was over a year before I slept with the girl I lost my virginity to. I probably wouldn’t be willing to wait that long again.
My wife and I dated for nearly three years and didn’t have sex until we got married. Sex is great, but it isn’t everything. We have a great sex life now in marriage and I wouldn’t do a thing differently.
It’s vitally important. Enthusiastic sex is the best indicator of mutual sexual interest/attraction, and I’m not investing my time into a relationship where that isn’t vigorously established. If you want to wait, people should respect your wishes, but you should respect that that would be a dealbreaker for many men. Do you think that your previous serious relationships would not have ended if you didn’t have sex with those men? I get that you were disappointed by the outcome, but I would posit that sex likely wasn’t the relevant reason for those relationships ending.
Think about it like this: intimacy is very important in a long term relationship, why would you risk investing time, effort, money, and possibly feelings in a relationship only to realize that you are not compatible (for whatever reason) in bed??
If you try physical compatibility first and that is good then you can go ahead and get to know the other person and if you are not a good match then you did not really wasted time.
As a 40 year-old widower dating guys around my own age… honestly if we’re not hooking up within the first couple dates, we probably don’t have compatible sex drives. I doubt I’ll ever get remarried, I certainly wouldn’t want to wait for a second wedding to find out if we’re truly a good fit or not.
I’m a gay guy… but SOME physical intimacy would have to happen within the first few dates. And real sexual intimacy would have to happen LONG before I’m even THINKING about anything like marriage lol.
My sex drive isn’t even that high but I mean… the idea of getting into a committed relationship or marriage before you’re regularly having sex and having established that you’re sexually compatible seems absolutely insane to me.
Waiting for a reasonable amount of time is okay. But it’s up to each person what a reasonable amount of time is.
The amount of time it is reasonable to expect someone to wait is directly correlated to your age and prior number of sexual partners.
Very very few men would be okay with waiting several months to have sex with a woman who is in her thirties and had several previous sexual partners…