I expected to kiss when I got engaged. I saw value in making a kiss meaningful, but I had no intention of saving my first kiss until marriage, that is until my boyfriend, now husband, told me that was his intention. Since I also held to the value of the man being the leader in the relationship, I went with it.
A dear friend asked me sometime around our engagement if I thought that marriage would be overwhelming. She expressed concern after hearing how little (physical or otherwise) my fiance and I shared. (In addition to sharing little physical intimacy, I held to strong beliefs about not sharing details of my finances before marriage, for example.) I told her that I was, and I wasn't. I saw marriage as a commitment, and I figured that might be the safest place to expose some of that stuff. It was, and it wasn't.
Because of my strong boundaries, marriage brought with it a lot of firsts: first kiss, first intimacy, first sharing of finances, first house buying etc. Some of that was challenging. I had to faith the truth, and untruth of some of my assumptions. Some things required some figuring out. Still, by God's grace, I don't regret those decisions. There is a sacredness about having all of those things with my husband. There is a bonding factor that engaging in those firsts with him brought to our marriage. Now, when I look back on the firsts, I see him. I see us. There is no comparison. There is no, "That other guy." There is only us.
I am not here to impose my values on others, but I would like to commend saving "firsts" for marriage, not in an ascetic "I kissed dating goodbye," way, or a legalistic, "we can't." Rather, out of respect and reverence for marriage and the sacredness of that covenant, I suggest waiting for things. Firsts are special. They only came once. One-hundred percent, waiting it is worth it, because the sacredness of the future marriage is worth it!
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