How long until...?

View Quoted Comment I never said you had old fashioned views or made an assumption about the relevance of the advice to your own relationships, so I’m not sure why there’s some hostility in this reply. In any case, I wish you all the best and hope you have a good day/night/evening/whatever!

View Quoted Comment I replied to the wrong comment. I apologize.

View Quoted Comment Yeah I realized that as soon as I replied! All good!!

View Quoted Comment And I don't have "old fashion standards," that I try to apply on others. I do however, see the cons and pros of two peoole waiting and not waiting. I've had committed relationships that have lasted years and I did not wait 90 days for 2 out of 3 long term relations that I've had. Please seek clarification before making judgements. I suggested to Sally to wait 90 days because nothing she has done has worked for her, according to her in her own words and from what I've observed. Do I think her waiting will solve her dating issues entirely? No... But it is worth a try, if she chooses and she will DEFINITELY learn something from it. 90 days is not a long time and it certainly is not old fashion

View Quoted Comment Also if you don't want to be judge for what your post read (which reads as judgment of your friend's choice to bot wait) and then demand people seek clarification. Your post (in my opinion and clearly many others) comes off as toxic because your focus is on your friend needing to wait.


To me if a partner wanted to wait until marriage I would break up with them. Not because I'm not marriage material but, because sex is a huge part of compatibility. When you write about a woman waiting to see if a MAN is good material, it just reads like if a men's only focus is sex, their not respectful of you.

View Quoted Comment Whew, you obviously didnt read my previous comment. I'm disappointed in your hostility and I wish you the best. I will still be suggesting to any of my loved ones regardless of their gender/sex if they ask for my opinion and are in a similar situation as Sally's.


I won't be responding to you after this. Take care, ma'am.

View Quoted Comment The thing is that there is no secret to "finding a husband." You date until you find someone who you fall in love with and are compatible with in terms of things that are important to you (values, morals, goals for the future, etc.). Some people find that person in high school. Others find that person at 50. Other than just dating people and getting to know them, there isn't really a magic formula for finding a life partner. So I don't think your friend is doing any wrong that needs fixing just because she hasn't found her person yet.

View Quoted Comment Not being hostile. Just pointing out that her choice to have sex is on her. Now she shouldn't be complaining to you but, when she says that's too long you should respect her choice. I'm also not the only one pointing out the old fashioned/as one poster pointed out misogynistic way your post was reading, so I don't know why I'm the only one you're being hostile towards.

View Quoted Comment You're right. I should have clarified that she has expressed to me several times that she feels men use her for sex.

To take a different view on this, the idea of building a connection and relationship with someone before becoming intimate can be a good idea, for any gender. If Sally wants to find a husband, then giving herself time to get to know someone and separate out emotional feelings from passion is a solid recommendation as a friend. Will it potentially help filter out guys looking for just a fling? Yes. But it will also help guys looking for a relationship to see that she isn’t just looking for fun. The signaling goes both ways.
That said, she shouldn’t look at it as withholding something from a partner, that’s pretty much back to just playing games.

View Quoted Comment I never viewed it this way before. When I first dated my future spouse, I wanted to pounce on him lol, but I waited a couple of months. Not to play games, but to build a connection, study/observe his actions and have a clear, levelheaded judgement on whether we were good for eachother. Everyone is different but I think sex early on in dating someone CAN POSSIBLY cloud people's judgement.

FWIW I didn't read the post as misogynistic. I grew up in a very sex-positive environment, and I was always told that having sex early on in dating or casually doesn't hurt a relationship and can even help it along. Definitely went into my early dating years believing sex would help me find compatibility. I am religious now, but I wasn't then, and when I had really painful, negative experiences with casual sex, I felt like I couldn't share them with anybody (now I realize this is actually not that uncommon). I ended up looking to Christian and academic sources to try to understand this, and I came to the conclusion that waiting to have sex with someone until marriage would help me be secure and authentic in future relationships. This may not be the best path for everyone, but it is absolutely the best path for me, and I recommend it to friends who share that they are struggling with things similar to my past struggles.

Sex is a sensitive subject, so I feel like people do get defensive and make assumptions. My experience in my culture wasn't that female sex positivity was taboo, it was that chastity was taboo. I was never given the option to explore it because I was told nobody would date me and that my marriage would fail, things I know now not to be true. I have found the opposite, honestly.

Nobody really knows the special sauce that makes marriage work--we know sex is part of it, but lots of people believe different things about the role sex should play before marriage, with good cause. If we want to actually have a culture where women can embrace their sexuality, we need to let women choose their sexual boundaries, discuss that choice, be confident in that choice, without feeling like our own choice is being dismissed or criticized.

This post seems a bit weird. If your friend wants to get married and isn’t finding the right match, I think she might want to explore counseling. A “how long to wait before sex poll” doesn’t seem applicable. Unless she always has sex on the 1st date, I can’t imagine her issue is “not waiting long enough.” Every couple is different. Heck, I know a few couples who had sex pretty early in their relationship and got married... and are still married.

How long should a woman wait??? 🤔 Does gender even matter here? Are waiting timeframes supposed to be different for men and women? My view is that sex is decided by the adults involved. Whether it’s been 2 hours or 2 years, there’s no mathematical formula and no right or wrong amount of time. And there’s definitely no separate length of time for women.

I mean, I met DH on June 30, kissed him on July 8, he asked me to be his girlfriend on July 13, and by the next week... um.

It's not something you can put a hard number on.

It depends entirely on the two people involved, the level of trust (DH came pre-approved by guys I considered brothers), the communication (one of the reasons we moved so fast was because he was REALLY EXCELLENT on consent issues, which made me feel safe and listened to), and so on.

Can also depend on where she meets these guys. I met DH outside a theatre, where we were both working on shows. So we had a lot of shared interests, already.

But if she's going through guys like that... that's a her problem, not a guy problem. Either she likes the lifestyle and is paying lip service to wanting something else, or she's not willing to do the work to change herself.

View Quoted Comment Gender does NOT matter. I apologize, I should have clarified in my first post. I would recommend both sexes to wait until they absolutely know eachother's goals and intentions.

Not knowing whether your friend has had serious relationships in the past, I can only give you the advice I gave my friend (35). He always told me he wanted to marry and have a family, but he had never had a relationship of more than 6 months (very few that long). Same as your friend, he was a bit shallow. I told him to stop looking for a wife and concentrate on having a stable, happy relationship first. He started seeing a woman, happy, happy, argument, I'm breaking up with her blah blah. I suggested that maybe this time he actually communicates with her and works through the disagreement. They went on to date for awhile, maybe 9-10 months. He told me he learned a lot and realized that attraction wasn't the only factor of importance. A few months later he met his now Girlfriend. They've moved in together and are discussing marriage and a family. It has been a 1 1/2 years. Never seen him so happy. So what I'm trying to say is, maybe your friend needs to have an aha moment. If she has told you sex is a problem, maybe she needs to reevaluate why she is being intimate with these men. Sex is great, but she shouldn't be sleeping with them to feel valued, if that is what is happening. Again, from the little information in your post I can only make assumptions.

I had a thought before I decided to post, since this subject is very sensitive to me and a lot of people. I grew up in a hyper conservative household- yay Texas/the South! - and believed for a long time in waiting until you were married. I'd seen my parents' marriage dissolve due to infidelity, and I was nervous about things in general. But it was also important to me because I had that weird idea that a guy who really wanted me for everything else would wait. A few relationships I had dissolved because I was immovable on the subject, but I was fine with that. And then I met my husband. I was terrified that telling him about my big condition would scare him off, but he simply kissed me and said "You're worth the wait." And I realized THAT was what I wanted. To be seen, heard, and respected, understood on a deep level. To this day i remember that conversation, me shaking like a leaf, and he simply held me until I calmed down. It wasn't so much the subject as it was something very deep and personal that he simply understood me on, respected my wishes, and actually wanted to make sure I was ok. We worked through intimacy at my pace, and that was what sealed the deal for me. It's not about waiting or not. It's everyone being on the same page and respecting beliefs.

Like Shirley my FI and I are waiting for marriage. We kiss, make out, etc. but are not having sex before we get married (which has been difficult, especially with a postponement!). If she is having sex on the first or second date, it's possible she is suggesting to the guys she's with that she is only interested in having fun. However, I suspect the problem is with selection, not her decision to sleep with them or not...she isn't going to turn a guy into marriage material by "making him wait". She isn't ruining her chances by sleeping with them, she is picking the wrong people in the first place.

She needs to slow down and be more discerning about the men she dates.

I personally think that the right man will be serious about you and the relationship no matter when you get intimate with him. I waited a month or two before becoming intimate with my ex and he played me and never took me the least bit seriously. I became intimate with my now fiancé on the first date and he’s always been incredibly respectful of me.