Boundaries

    • Boundaries

      I am looking for advice and experience people have had establishing physical boundaries in a long term committed relationship.

      Background:

      My Girlfriend and I have been dating for over a year and have a very strong healthy relationship. We do not focus on physical interaction as a basis for this relationship, however as two people attracted to each other often find happening we do practice our limited version of physical intimacy relatively often.

      We have established that sex should wait for marriage, and limited our current boundaries to nothing below the clothing and no touching of the given sexual areas on our bodies respectively. We of course kiss and or make out as well as "dry Humping" (I apologize for the lack of a better term).

      Our boundaries are currently static and we intend to progress them along in a manner that will spread out sexual activity during our dating relationship or as we become ready.

      However we are having two difficulties.

      1. We frequently break our boundaries during intimacy.

      2. We have no system to determine when boundaries should be progressed.

      Each time we have broken our boundaries we have had a talk about the break and our boundaries and do a checkup essentially. We communicate often.

      However I am worried that without a way to establish dynamic boundaries that can evolve with our relationship we will simply fail to change them.

      That said I am very happy with our boundaries now but simply worried about our ability to change and evolve them smoothly without relying on breaking them in the first place as the mechanism that allows us to re-examine.

      We also have some minor difficulties confronting sexual issues directly. We are both aware of them but shy to frankly and openly discuss them.

      Most sites on the internet propose extremely rigid boundaries that would in my mind do more to stifle the relationship than allow a natural growth that checks hormones. Further no one discusses how to evolve which means they assume you go from only kissing with no tongue and your bodies 5 feet apart to your weeding night where you have sex which sounds absurd to me!


      So I am looking for anyone who is willing to offer advice on the issue or my specific situation, but more generally someone who has been through this or is going through it and has a system they use or suggestions to consider for establishing these boundaries and clearly evolving them.

      Thanks,

    • Re: Boundaries

      You have not stated your reasons for waiting until marriage to have sex; three possibilities are:


      1. Safety. Totally safe sex is impossible; even if you use a condom and your girlfriend is on birth control, she might still become pregnant.


      2. Religion. Nearly all Christian churches (of whatever denomination) recommend that sex should be reserved for marriage. I can explain the reasons in more detail if you wish.


      3. Parental expectations.


      These are just three possibilities that occur to me immediately; there may well be others. If you can clarify your reasons between you that could help.


      I suggest that you agree on an “absolute limit” that you will not exceed until your wedding night: for example, mutual masturbation can be very intimate but also safe; this sort of “everything but” limit might well be suitable in your situation. You might not reach that point for some while yet; but such an agreement would enable you to let nature take it's course, without needing to plan anything formally, and without either of you worrying about going too far.


      As you are (understandably) shy of discussing some sexual issues, you might find that reading together some of posts in the posts in the sexuality section of this forum would make things easier for you both. Some sensitive topics are easier to discuss in writing; email or text can be useful in such cases.


      You appear to want to use this stage of your relationship to become more comfortable with each other physically, without going too far sexually. Seeing each other in diminishing amounts of clothing could be a way of achieving this; not only in private, but in public situations such as swimming together.


      You are obviously a serious and thoughtful couple, but try to balance that with fun. Sharing jokes, teasing etc., is an important aspect of any relationship; and by preventing things getting too serious, can actually make it all safer.


      I'm sure a book could be written on this topic, but I hope some of the above may be helpful. Good luck to you both :)

    • Re: Boundaries

      To be honest, it's difficult to have boundaries like that and try and follow them. You'll do certain things when you're ready too. If you're going to do things like dry humping and kissing, it's going to progress. You're both teenagers and it's difficult to stop there if you care about each other and are that serious about your relationship. You're never going to "smoothly" transition while you're worried about breaking so many rules. Things will go smoothly if you just go with what feels right. If you both feel like you're ready something then it'll be a smooth transition. But that means you have to talk about things.

      Something you can do to talk about sexual things is to write them down and have that piece of paper with you when you talk to each other. The best way to experience each other is if you're both able to talk to each other about these things. If you can't talk about sex with your partner, you shouldn't be doing anything with them. And sometimes things don't need discussion. If you two are intimate and you start to do something, just ask her "is this okay?" She should say yes or no. That's something to talk about with her. The most important thing is that you both know you have the right to say no and not have an affect on the relationship.

      Overall, keep your boundaries for now, but don't worry about them and make them the holy bible of your sex life. You'll both get frustrated and you'll worry too much while kissing or whatever you're doing. Have your boundaries, but if you feel like you're ready, just ask if it's okay to try something new. It'll create less worry and make things a little more smooth.
      [LEFT][SIZE=2]"Adapt and Overcome"[/SIZE][/LEFT]
      [RIGHT]"Funny how the truth sounds so cliche"[/RIGHT]
      [RIGHT]~Jack Ingram[/RIGHT]
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    • Re: Boundaries

      You've been dating over a year and you're too shy to talk about sex? It doesn't sound like you're communicating very well to me. Why did you agree to wait until after marriage? Look, you don't have to have SEX to have FUN. There's always oral and stuff like that and I see nothing wrong with it, maybe IF you two would just sit down and open up with each other about this kind of stuff, if you two can't discuss frankly and openly about this then how do either of you know if you ARE or AREN'T ready for this? Talk to each other. Your relationship sounds too...strict. Ya'll should be having fun and not worrying about "boundaries" with each other. I'm not saying go and have sex, but, there's other things honey.