fell before marriage...still fallen
I think I really blew it! Okay, I went across the world to meet a man that I fell in love with on the internet. The first night we were together, we fell, and then we were married. The problem was in the country we were in you can't just marry in the church, so we had to have two ceremonies. The church marriage came first, and sex.. then the legal civil. I can't justify it and I know I was in the wrong for not waiting for the civil ceremony. The problem is my husband doesn't agree, he thinks we were married the first time.. but now I look back I am so disappointed.
I didn't even kiss or date anyone for four years before I met him. Then I lost it a week before we married.. then after we married I found out he has an issue with masturbating... and it bothers me a whole lot. I had to come back to the States and wait for him to come here...but the seed planted in my heart about my husband is that he has major issues with
masturbation and I have issues of my own that are the exact opposite of his...so now we are apart... and the enemy is attacking non stop..
we need prayer
Figuring that you are not properly married, and therefore cannot morally engage in sex until you receive sanction from the state strikes me as way too legalistic. You do not indicate what country you got married in, but it is a pretty good guess that the state neither knows nor cares who you sleep with, so why do you think you need the sanction of the state to have sex with your husband, to whom you are already married in the sight of God?
This seems to me to be the type of argument that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for. And I think it is instructive to look at how marriages took place in Jesus's time. All those stories and parables about wedding feasts are there because weddings were a really big deal at the time of Jesus, lasted for several days, and took years to prepare and pay for. So most couples started living together and often raising families long before they ever got married. They had to, since life expectancies were short, and if they had had to wait until they could afford a wedding, they would often die first, would not get around to having children, and the nation would die out. This is why when Joseph believes Mary to have been unfaithful to him, he intends to quietly divorce her, even though they are only betrothed, and not married. For religious purposes, that was close enough, and he would have had to obtain a divorce. The civil authorities probably were not concerned what he did.
I am hardly an expert, but your post suggests some serious issues and fear about sexuality, and you suggest as much in your last line. It also suggests that you and your husband are not on the same page regarding sexuality. If you are not, it is pretty unlikely that your marriage is going to hold together. If you want to stay married, the two of you need to work out your issues in this regard. Go get counselling, fast.
