Dear Friends,
I believe we can learn a lot from each other’s difficulties and accomplishments. I created the Ask Dr. Michelle column to share my advice with many people at the same time, who although they don’t know it, are often facing some of the same challenges. I hope that my comments provide you with some insight into situations that you are facing in your life. If you have a question that you want me to answer, submit it below. I wish you all the best. (I try to answer as many questions as possible, but please understand that due to the number of questions that I receive I am not able to answer every question.)
I regret having sex with my boyfriend
-
Recently, my boyfriend of one year and I had sex for the first time. We had talked about it a while before, and both had beliefs of waiting until marriage, but unfortunately that isn’t possible now. Even though it takes two people, I still feel hurt that my views were made clear and well known, and he couldn’t respect that. I, of course, could have stopped it from happening just as easy as him, but I did not. Am I wrong to feel upset at him? Or should I just except that we made a mistake? We talked afterward about it and agreed it shouldn’t have happened, and are still together continuing a strong relationship. I guess part of why I’m upset is I wanted my first time to be special, and definitely not something to look back on as a mistake. Any tips on dealing with this?
-
Everyone makes mistakes. You have to accept that you both made a mistake. If you still strongly believe that you should wait to have sex until you are married then don’t focus on the fact that you made this one mistake. You can decide from this day forward that you won’t make that mistake again, and you don’t have to become sexually active until you are married. I know once you are married, it won’t be the “first” time, you won’t ever get the first time back again. But, if you think that sex should be saved for marriage, continue to save it.
You may feel that your boyfriend pressured you to have sex, but as you said, you could have also stopped things from going forward. If you feel that he pressures you into many other things you don’t want to do, then you should talk to him about it. But, you can’t expect other people to respect your wishes if you aren’t respecting them yourself. Even more than he owes you the respect of backing off, you owe yourself the respect of standing your ground and sticking to your word about waiting to have sex. You are expressing your anger toward him but deep down inside you are probably actually mad at yourself because you know you compromised on something that you didn’t want to give in to. You simply have to forgive yourself and your boyfriend if you expect to continue to try to have a happy and healthy relationship.
You can still have a “special” first time, it can be the first time you have sex after you are married. Don’t beat yourself up too badly about this. You can’t take it back, all you can do now is plan that in the future, you will stand up for what you believe in and not be pressured into doing something that you don’t want to do. Everyday is a chance to start over, so start over today.
Wishing you all the best!
Dr. Michelle
Leave a Reply