Will I be unhappy marrying a girl who is not a virgin?

Question:

Dear Sir,

I would like to ask a question about what I should do regarding my relationship. I am having difficulty deciding on a solution. Also, please consider our culture and community's point of view.

I have a girlfriend. We are both in our mid-twenties. We have been together for about a month. Before we met, I wanted to marry a woman who truly loved me.

Recently, I heard from her former boyfriend that she is not a virgin. According to him, she had sex many times with him, and he is truly in love with her, but she told him that she does not love him. They are also childhood friends and they ended their relationship two months ago. At that time, I was very angry with her and want to end the relationship. When I asked her, she said she never act like that. She did not tell me that she had a boyfriend before her former boyfriend told me. I do not feel that I can believe whatever she says now. But I cannot leave her because every man in our country does not want to marry a woman who has had sex with someone. It is our culture. I pity her, so I have to marry her. I am worried that I will be unhappy in the future. I don't know what to do. Please help me decide what to do.

I have no chance to openly talk with someone about things like this, so I kept quiet because this is regarding my life. Please advise me. I will wait for your reply. Thank you so much.

Answer:

I am uncertain why you feel obligated to marry this woman. I understand that in your culture a woman who has had sex with another man is not likely to find a man who is willing to marry her. But to marry a woman solely because you feel pity for her situation is not the foundation for a good marriage. Are you implying that you and she also have had sex?

I suspect that she wasn't open about having had a boyfriend before you because she doesn't trust you to remain with her if you knew. It is also possible that since the subject had not come up yet, she preferred not to think about her recent break-up. After all, one month is not much time to really get to know a person. If fear of you breaking up with her was her motive, then she would also be motivated to lie about having had sex for the same reason.

At the same time, her former boyfriend claims that he loves her. He would be motivated to break up her current relationship so that she will return to him.

Thus, I cannot say with certainty where the truth resides.

People do make mistakes. For all I know, she broke up with her former boyfriend because he pressured her into sex and would not stop. However, if you and she have had sex already, then that tells me that she uses sex as a way of holding onto a man. If you are wanting to be a Christian, then this is not the woman for you.

If you and she have not been sexual, then you need to take time to get to know and understand her. You need to find out if there are other reasons to marry her than just that you pity her past.

Question:

Dear Sir,

Thank you so much for your advice. This is very helpful to me in my life.

I am sorry to say, sir, that we have been in a sexual relationship because I love her so much and she also loves me, I think. She is a very kind woman. If she had not had sex before we met, she would be 100% perfect for me. I don't want to be a selfish man, so I have to marry her, sir. I will give my life to her because I was at fault.

Thank you for everything, sir, because I have nobody to trust when I want advice from someone. I definitely don't want to talk about our situation with people who know us. Thank you, sir.

I do not understand, sir, the following sentences from your note:

"It is also possible that since the subject had not come up yet, she preferred not to think about her recent break-up." 

"If fear of you breaking up with her was her motive, then she would also be motivated to lie about having had sex for the same reason."

Please teach me in simple words, sir. I am not good at English.

Answer:

You told me that your culture and community disapproves of marrying a girl who has had sex with someone else prior to marriage. But you are not being consistent. You quickly started having sex with a girl you had only been dating for a month. You went to bed with her before you decided that you would marry her. How is that honoring women? "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things" (Romans 2:1). I am glad you are wanting to make things right, but you both are guilty of fornication. Holding her past fornication against her while you are also using her for your pleasure is not right.

I had said,

"It is also possible that since the subject had not come up yet, she preferred not to think about her recent break-up."

You had mentioned that she did not tell you that she had a boyfriend before you until you confronted her with the information you got from her former boyfriend. She recently left her old boyfriend just two months before becoming your girlfriend. Most people don't want to talk about or think about a failed relationship for a while. She would be in an emotional turmoil, so I'm not surprised that she didn't say anything at first. In addition, you already mentioned that you would not marry a girl who had sex with another man. She would avoid mentioning her past boyfriend to avoid having you ask her questions about whether she had sex with him.

Your girlfriend and her former boyfriend have stated two different things about the past. I had said,

"If fear of you breaking up with her was her motive, then she would also be motivated to lie about having had sex for the same reason."

Either your girlfriend or her former boyfriend is lying about what happened between them. Both of them have reasons to tell a lie. Her former boyfriend might want to brag to make you jealous or to make you feel hatred toward your girlfriend since she left him. He would be wanting to hurt her through you. She also has reasons to lie since she doesn't want you to leave her. Thus, I cannot tell you who is speaking the truth or if they are both lying.

However, in this case, it doesn't matter who is lying. You have chosen to sin with her and you decided that it would be best to marry her. If it is possible for you to stop sinning for a while, I would strongly suggest that you wait a while before getting married because one month is not enough time to know another person. However, if you can't resist having sex, the apostle Paul said, "But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (I Corinthians 7:9).

If you do decide to get married, you must not hold her past against her since you share the same sin.

Response:

Dear Sir,

I can accept what you suggested. I am very happy to meet you because I received so much knowledge from you and I trust you. In fact, I have had no other chance to talk openly with someone. But you gave me a chance to talk about everything that I have kept to myself. I hope I can continue to openly talk with someone via email whenever I have a few things to talk over.

I suspect you are very busy, sir, and are helping the people in the world. I am proud of you. Thank you so much, sir.

Question:

Dear Sir,

I would like to ask a question regarding the previous situation. As you suggested, I did all of these things.  I decided to marry her even though she has had bad moral in the past, so have I. We are very comfortable with each other, we love each other. We plan to save a lot of money for our future,  and studied a lot together.

But I received new information about her yesterday. She had another boyfriend, who also had sex with her before we met. I'm certain it is true. At that time, I was very angry with her and did not talk about what I knew. I am very confused now. I love her, but I also want to break up with her. I don't know why I still love her. I thought that I would feel very sad if I broke up her because of my love. I am afraid that she may continue doing bad things as she has in the past. Currently, she is very kind to me, and she did all the things that I wanted. My only complaint is that she had sex with her two former boyfriends. Otherwise, her behavior is very good. She is a very kind girl to everybody, helping all people. Whether I t break up or not, I will feel very bad.

Please kindly advise me, sir. I need help. I promise to you, I will help all the people if I have a change in my life. I will be waiting for your advice. Thank you so much, Sir.

Answer:

Whether your girlfriend would continue to sin is something you cannot control. But the fact that you think she would have sex with other men tells me that you don't think she has changed her mind about whether having sex without being married is wrong. That would give support to the concern that she might not be faithful to her marriage vows in the future -- but this is something that can't be predicted.

While hiding the fact that she had sex with her last boyfriend was wrong but understandable, continuing to hide that she had sex with multiple men shows a pattern of lying and will make it hard to trust her in the future.

Of course, I'm assuming that you are applying the same requirements to yourself as you are applying to her. I don't know your background, and I don't know if you have been honest with her about your sexual past or not.

In the end, whether you marry her is up to you. I will just repeat the same advice: take your time to learn as much as you can about her, don't have sex with her while you are not married, and if you do marry her, you cannot hold her past against her since you are guilty of the same sins.

Response:

Dear sir,

Thank you again, sir. Your suggestions are very good. I have to take the time to know about her current situation. Thank you, sir.
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