Feeling sinful about girlfriend

In my culture, it's a custom to stay within your own community and focus on spirituality. We have to remain celibate and only do stuff if we want within marriage. I myself am very religious and strong with my beliefs.

However, for years, my family have always asked why I don't get a girlfriend. They said even if I get one, as long as I don't forget my value and beliefs it's fine....

So...long story short, I fell in love with this woman at work. We've been going out for 3 weeks now. We've hugged and kissed, etc. She is aware of my beliefs and there are hard limits on the level of intimacy we can have.

Recently she asked if I would be okay getting skin on skin contact whilst hugging and kissing. I thought that was fine since we're not doing anything. So we agreed. Yesterday we had full on skin contact (upper body only). It resulted in me feeling her and kissing her entire upper body. I also ended up sucking on her breasts which resulted in her having a couple of orgasms.

Intitally in the moment I hought this was all ok since we weren't excatly doing anything....but now I'm really feeling bad and worried and stressing out. If my family knew of this, they would be shocked that I carried out such an act. Even I'm shocked myself that I did something like this.

My girlfriend said that if I don't feel comfortable with anything, we don't have to do it. But I'm really stressing over what's happened.

Anyone have any advice?

Reply 1

the bear

20

Christians are only allowed to engage in sexual contact within marriage. It can be a huge challenge for us, but that is what God wants.

It is too easy to try and find "loopholes" around your faith when it comes to intimacy. This is a trap a lot of people fall into. If you are going to commit to celibacy, you should stick by that fully.

Reply 3

anosmianAcrimony

20

It's for you to decide which parts of your faith are useful and uplifting for you. For me, I consider an act sinful if it harms a person or an entity that's capable of suffering. I don't consider premarital sexual activity sinful, because it's not harmful in and of itself.

You may interpret your faith differently and conceptualise sin differently to me, and that's okay. But I'd encourage you to think critically about your faith, particularly about why any given act is sinful, and about whether it seems reasonable to you.

To me, "because God says so" is not good enough. Maybe it is for you, and that's okay. Still, if that's how you want to live your life and relate to the divine, you'll have to get used to this kind of senseless, restrictive moral quandary; it'll happen a lot.

Reply 4

Justvisited

19

Original post by anosmianAcrimony

It's for you to decide which parts of your faith are useful and uplifting for you. For me, I consider an act sinful if it harms a person or an entity that's capable of suffering. I don't consider premarital sexual activity sinful, because it's not harmful in and of itself.

You could say that about a modest act of shoplifting as well. Who's the "victim" there?

Both fail the scalability test, a.k.a. tragedy of the commons.

In one case, if enough people do it the shop will go bankrupt.

In the other case, among other things, one predictable result of a situation where "everybody's doing it" is that in no very great number of years you'll get quite a bit of incest happening without the actors realising it.

Reply 5

BTS first

1

Original post by the bear

Christians are only allowed to engage in sexual contact within marriage. It can be a huge challenge for us, but that is what God wants.

Maybe American Christians get married in their early 20s or legal age but European and UK Christians definitely have sex outside of marriage

Reply 6

anosmianAcrimony

20

Original post by Justvisited

You could say that about a modest act of shoplifting as well. Who's the "victim" there?

Both fail the scalability test, a.k.a. tragedy of the commons.

In one case, if enough people do it the shop will go bankrupt.

In the other case, among other things, one predictable result of a situation where "everybody's doing it" is that in no very great number of years you'll get quite a bit of incest happening without the actors realising it.

Well I don't have any idea how you get to what you just said from what I just said, but you do you I guess :yy:

Reply 7

Ten-Ten

19

Original post by BTS first

Maybe American Christians get married in their early 20s or legal age but European and UK Christians definitely have sex outside of marriage

I don’t have sex outside of marriage and I’m a uk Christian

Reply 8

rosy_posy

18

If you feel your religion (whichever one it is) is restrictive, you can leave ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reply 9

username5428282

21

Life is too short for unnecessary guilt.

Reply 10

j25_8

19

Wow people actually force themselves to live like this? I feel sorry for you

Reply 11

BTS first

1

Original post by Ten-Ten

I don’t have sex outside of marriage and I’m a uk Christian

You are probably in high school or sixth form because I don't think are many British people who have left university experienced freshers & smoking & drinking without getting laid too....

Reply 12

londonmyst

19

Always trust your gut instinct and listen to what your common sense is telling you. :smile:

It your choice to decide when you feel ready to have sex, who with, if you want to get married and when.
My mother & maternal grandmother believe in waiting until marriage, I don't.
Good luck!

Reply 13

Ten-Ten

19

Original post by BTS first

You are probably in high school or sixth form because I don't think are many British people who have left university experienced freshers & smoking & drinking without getting laid too....