Honeymoon Candor

The view from our honeymoon suite - The Treehouse

So it’s almost a year since Mr. E and I have been married. And I’m so excited to go on a road trip to New York to celebrate… the city that never sleeps, the city of fashion… just a really big city that we’ve been talking about going to ever since we started dating. So if you know of any amazing hidden gems to visit in NYC please let me know!

The other thing is as a blogger I write way more posts than what I actually post. Sometimes the idea just isn’t complete and sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m ready to post to the public. Not nearly all posts I write are ripe for the publishing. As I was looking through my unpublished drafts, I came across the following one. One I wrote not too long after we were back from our honeymoon almost a year ago but never quite felt the go ahead to post it. 

As someone who is passionate about breaking sexual shame and learning how to have healthy relationships especially in young people and young adults, I feel it important to be open about these subjects in my blog as well. So this post was about my perspective on having an exceptional honeymoon. I edited it and I think now might be a good time to post it. It is rather long, so enjoy!

P.S Let me just say that this is my perspective. I'm sure many of you would have your own things to add on how you had an exceptional honeymoon and how some things that I say does not apply to everyone or in every situation. I acknowledge that. No need to get frazzled  or to "re-edit" my post in the comments if your views are different! But gladly let me know if this was helpful. Thank you!

As a girl raised in a Christian home where the value of waiting for sex till marriage was taught, I had no problem doing just that. So you can imagine the honeymoon can be a somewhat scary thought, especially for a girl. It can also seem like a  mysterious exciting thought. It’s kind of an unknown until you get there. I had heard so many honeymoon horror stories from girls… from extreme pain, to being homesick, to torn body parts to blood and tears to no enjoyment at all but rather paralysis in fear and timidity. Obviously I didn’t expect it to be that bad. But then again how could I know?

I think if you’ve been raised in a Christian community like me, you will know that the topic of sex is hush hush and possibly even given the impression that it’s a negative thing. 

I have talked to girls from many different backgrounds and it seems for women going into the honeymoon or whenever the first time is you were going to have sex was a fearful thing. And all I ever heard was how sex is awesome for the guy but not that great for the girl. It might take months or even years for her to enjoy it. 

Now for a girl who likes all things relationship and love, and who secretly was looking forward to having sex decided to look into this and see if us girls were actually automatically doomed to this bad experience for the first night or if there was actually a way to prepare to have the most amazing experience ever. Why not have an amazing start to an amazing sex life the rest of my life. I’m thinking if I’m going to have sex I might as well enjoy it.

So I talked to many different women, seasoned in sex and those who were new at it. I read a bunch of books. I did it all. I also came to the point where I didn’t want any more info or advice. I wanted to just go and experience it on my own. And eventually the day came. I had sex for the first time. And wouldn’t you love to hear the details of it all! I won’t go into that, but here is something I found out about the honeymoon.

1. Women can LOVE to have sex.
2. It’s possible to be confident on the first night.
3. It’s possible to have sex for the first time without great amounts of pain, blood, and fear. In fact you can completely be blown away by how good it is!

Here is what I did to prepare to have an amazing honeymoon. Now don’t come to my post for your sex ed. There are your parents and books for that! But I do want to kind of dissipate the lies and fears surrounding the honeymoon and sex especially for the girls. But hopefully this helps the guys as well.

Ready?
..................

Talk! There ya go! That’s it! 

Ok so maybe there’s more to it. But it is really simple. Let me elaborate.

Like I already said, the topic of sex is not talked about very much in the church community. You might be given DVD’s and books but no open honest talks from people who are mature and married for a quite a while. Now I’m not here to spend my time blaming the church or whatever, but I’m here to express the importance of talking openly. 

I find it has been the lack of talking openly about healthy sex that has brought upon perversion, shame, and heartache in relationships and even single men and women including young people… even children.

So if you have been missing this in your life, start talking to people who you respect and seem like they have flourishing relationships. Ask them the questions. The questions you’re embarrassed to ask because you might sound so naive. It might help to know where babies come from if you know what I mean. Ask your older married women what they would do different if they were to do their first night over. You might be surprised by their answers.

When I did this, what stuck out to me was how many women admitted that they wished they would have talked more openly about sex to their partner before they were married. Which brings me to the next point.

Girls, talk to your fiancé about your first night! “Omg, you mean I should talk about sex to the man I’m going to marry and hopefully have sex with for the rest of my life!?” Yes! Shockingly, yes! 

Now I’ve heard wait to talk about your first night till only a week before the wedding or maybe 3 weeks. Now I know what the heart behind this is to not talk about details of sex too soon as to not tempt you to fall into sin. I think. *grimace*

Honey, you’re engaged. And if you have waited to have sex this long, you’re not going to suddenly slip and have sex just from talking about it in preparation to have the best start to your sex life possible. I don’t understand how some couples decide to have a “hands off” relationship to suddenly “hey baby let’s get naked and be as intimate physically as it is possible.” I believe it needs to be a build up. Every beautiful song, every dance has a build up to the climax, the crescendo. Anyway, let’s stay on track here.

The point is, I had fears, I had questions when Mr. E and I knew that we were going to have a wedding, which meant first time sex after that. I was excited, but there were so many unknowns. If I would have waited to talk about birth control till the week before the wedding, oh my goodness I would have lived in stress and fear our whole time of engagement preparing for a wedding. Because the form of birth control we would use was a very important thing to me. But this was something that would affect us both. So I had to talk about it so I could relax and move on with other things. This engagement period is supposed to be joyful and hopefully as stress free as possible. I wanted to anticipate my honeymoon with confidence, not dread and fear. Because I heard that fear does not help with not having pain the first time you have sex. So birth control was something we talked about very early on. This is just an example. It could be anything else for you.

There are many things that come up when you realize what’s about to happen after the wedding. They might seem like embarrassing fears, but they are things that gnaw at you. Like does my partner want me to be completely shaved (guys or girls!), maybe you’re scared of being instantly naked, maybe you have a tattoo in a spot he’s never seen, what if your partner will be horrified. The list goes on. I think you get my point.

I do want to add as well that my husband had been married before. This is very common whether it is a death or divorce of a spouse that led them to get remarried. This can bring on a whole new set of insecurities. What if I don’t measure up to what he’s experienced before. What if I’ll be so awkward because I have no idea what I’m doing, and he does.

These fears were real for me but completely gone by talking to him and people I respect. Whatever was possibly on our mind that was relevant, we talked about - BEFORE a couple of weeks of the wedding. Heck, we even went to check out some hotel rooms just to get a feel of what we would want. Ladies it is so important that you be comfortable on your first night. If we wouldn’t have checked out the rooms we might have ended up in a room where it was so focused on romance and sex that for someone who has never slept with a man before it would have been so intimidating that I might have stayed in my big bathrobe in the bathroom all night!

Here's one more thing: What if you have done things sexually that you are ashamed of and would rather not even tell your significant other? This could be watching porn, masturbation or past relationships. And you are scared this will affect your ability to enjoy sex with your spouse? This is a very valid fear because there is truth in that. But let me tell you from experience that there is also grace for that. Keeping it from your partner will definitely hinder your relationship. But again, being open and talking about it can actually bring you closer. I'm not saying it won't be hard, but at least you know you can trust that you're not hiding anything from each other. Trust is a good place to start a relationship from. In fact don't even decide to spend the rest of your life with someone if you haven't talked about the things you're freaked out to talk about. We talked about issues like these way before we even were engaged. I can't express enough how in a relationship you really can't over communicate or be too open as long as there is respect for each other. DID YOU GET THAT? This is all done with respect for yourself and your partner.

So having said all this, I do want to acknowledge that you can talk too much at the wrong time for the wrong motives. But the point is that I’m assuming you know yourself and where you stand with your fiance. (In my mind a lot of people come from a place of hush hush and shame.) Most of you are stronger than you know. And let me tell you I talked way more with my fiancé then I ever imagined I would. I had believed somehow that talking too much about the details and fears and even what you’re looking forward to would somehow ruin the specialness of the night. Not so. It, in fact, helped me to prepare to look forward to that night with anticipation. I went from being so fearful and nervous to being so relaxed going to the hotel that first night, I thought something was wrong. Of course there is a healthy nervousness that is awesome that it's there.

That night probably went so differently than I would have planned in my head that the perfect honeymoon night should look like. But since we had laid all fears out there… we had talked about the fact that something could go wrong and we were completely ok with that. There was no pressure of everything being perfect. I said exactly what I felt comfortable with as the night went on. And everything unfolded naturally and it was wonderful. There was no pressure. Ladies whatever you can do to be at ease and look forward to the honeymoon, do it. If it means pigging out on a messy poutine in your wedding clothes before hand do it. If it means being in your comfy sweats and watching a movie first, do that! If it means first jumping on the bed together do that! We may have done some of these things. There’s not even the pressure of having sex the first night. The guy that pressures you to do that needs to talk to my husband! But it should feel amazing if he really wants to rip off your clothes and have sex! And guess what, in the moment of feeling relaxed and happy, ladies, you may find a boldness that you didn't think you would have, and have some fun with surprising your husband.

Believe me when I say that if we hadn't practiced being really open with each other long before the wedding, our engagement and honeymoon would have not been as amazing as it was. No not everything about the honeymoon was “perfect” the way I had thought in my head it should be. Unless you call being constipated romantic. But I loved sex. None of the fears I had came to pass. Again and again we were blown away at how wonderful the whole experience was. But I believe a big part was because we were completely open a long time before we got married. I mean if you’re too awkward to talk to your fiancé about sex and just the intimate things of your heart, then I’m wondering how you’re expecting to have great sex. It all works in the end, but why not have the best experience possible.

 I want to tell one last story. Mr E and I had both experienced trauma and hurts in our past.. some of it was recent and some was longer ago, but it affected both of our abilities to feel emotionally. Our dating year had not been easy. We were not in our highest point of our calling in life. Pretty far it felt, actually. In fact I was a sad person as I had lost a couple of family members through sickness. So I think our greatest desire for our honeymoon and marriage was just to be able to feel the moment and truly capture the “magic” of our love that goes way beyond sex. We just wanted to have fun and enjoy life without the need for everything to be perfect.

On the great verandah of our private honeymoon treehouse overlooking gorgeous mountains, lake and trees, my husband held me in his arms. I was looking over his shoulder and saw a gigantic eagle soaring through the trees. We were higher than the eagle flew. In that moment my heart clicked. My heart clicked with myself and suddenly I felt a release of feeling that I was alright with myself again. My heart clicked with my husband who was a love so very tangible. And the greatest miracle of all was when my heart clicked with Papa God's heart. And the tears started rolling. Never had I heard the story from a girl that she cried on the honeymoon for this reason! My heart was overwhelmed that God could really be this good to me. That He is really someone who wants to make dreams come true. That He led my life and Mr. E's life together in the time in our life when we needed each other the most. This really was a dream honeymoon where our spirit, soul, and body became one. It was perfect in spite of all our imperfections. Together we would face life no matter how long or short it will be. We might not be following the norm of what a relationship looks like. 

But even now almost a year later we are still trying to keep the goal of talking and understanding each other. And let me tell you it can be hard especially for an introvert like me, but we rather want to be open and talk even when it’s not all pretty. And every time it brings us closer together when we’re open with each other… and here’s a secret - sex is more fun every time as well!