Last updated on October 31, 2020
Question:
Hi,
I have been dating for almost a year. Both of us are Christians, but since my boyfriend has not always been a Christian, his sexual behavior was never right. He is not a virgin like me, and that makes me sad. Even though I know he’s a believer now, it still hurts me that I am not the first woman he had sex with if we get married. I get jealous, feel hurt, get angry at him, and blame him for his past life. I don’t want to feel like that, but I can’t help it. I know that my behavior is not very Christian-like, but I feel like we’re not on the same level: he had sex and I didn’t. Apart from that, even if he now understands that even foreplay is not very appropriate, he lacks self-control and has a problem with masturbation. He’s a good man and a good Christian, but sometimes I think that I deserve a virgin man who really fights for purity.
Let me know what you think about all of this. Thank you in advance.
Answer:
Your boyfriend is honest about his past. His sins were against himself. “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body” (I Corinthians 6:18). Yet, you make-believe that they were about you. Notice also that you are jealous that he nearly destroyed himself with sin instead of rejoicing that he was freed from the bondage of sin. That tells me that while you technically understand that fornication and the things that lead up to it are wrong, you don’t really accept that they are harmful.
When a person becomes a Christian, his past sins are removed. “Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16). But you are holding his past against him. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:14-15). If you cannot accept him as he is, then you don’t deserve him in your life. He needs a woman who can love him despite his past.
You state that you can’t help the way you feel, but that is not true. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13). You both have always had a choice and you always have the ability to make the right choice. When you don’t, the best thing to do is to own up to your responsibility.
You didn’t specify what he lacks self-control about. However, self-control is something we all grow in (II Peter 1:5-8).
By “masturbation” I would assume that he actually has a problem with pornography, which is a sin. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). Unfortunately, pornography is wide-spread today and since he once was not a Christian, he would have been an easy victim. Pornography can be overcome, but it takes effort.