I had been celibate since September 2008.
And while it wasn’t an easy road, I walked it. In 2014 along came a gentleman who was nothing I’d ever imagined and for some reason I got hooked. I knew we had opposite agendas. I knew he wasn’t pro-abstaining from sex, but there was just something about him. I felt like he needed me. I labeled what we were “a friendship” and even said that I was going to help him grow spiritually. We pretended to date for a while… I allowed him to treat me however he wanted with poor follow-thru, inconsistencies, inappropriate phone conversations about how the sex would be if we ever had it… And all the while, I’m calling myself a friend to him. I am the good girl he knows. I’m the exception to all the other females in his life. I would encourage him, send him scriptures to read, leave him voicemails of me praying for him because that’s what I should have been doing, right? I should have been praying for his spiritual growth, right?
When I was in high school I had a crush on a real-life “BAD BOY” and my mom once told me: “Krystal, you can’t save everybody [that’s not your job]”. I took her advice as my mother trying to keep me out of a bad situation with someone who had no long-term potential. As a teenager I didn’t value the extent of such good advice and surely it was only applicable to this one guy momma didn’t approve of.
13 years later, I found myself in a dark apartment (that I am still not sure was his), beneath a body that looked of strength and girth, but it didn’t make me feel stronger by being connected to it. I spent the first round of sex so caught in my own head at one point (somewhere between 2nd and 3rd base) he looked down at me and literally told me to “be quiet” because I kept repeating: “We should stop. This is wrong. This is so wrong”. All the while clothes were dropping; hands were caressing; mouths were everywhere. There was no turning back for either of us. But this moment, this act, it had not began in his apartment. This moment began the year before. The moment began in a phone conversation when he advised that he was raised a Christian, but….
When I think back on how it all played out, and the advice my mother gave years ago, somehow I knew. Somehow I had read the script, but just refused to admit the storyline starred me as the naïve, ever-positive female lead. In hindsight, I understand there was clearly no spiritual connection, but I wasn’t even connected emotionally. How could I be? There was no way for me to be vulnerable with him because he never understood my perspective as a believer. He never knew how difficult it was for me to sit close to him while we watched movies. He never understood why cuddling was a challenge and I always needed space. There is a limit on makeout sessions. There is a limit on how heavy the air can feel when the two of you are in the same room. You can only take so many deep breaths to try and to keep your physical nature under control. And all of our breaths catch when there are lips pressed against your breasts and your vision is blurry.
You see, once he and I began to walk the path of destruction it was hard to see the error 
and exit immediately. As a culture we have been taught that we should face our fears! Take on the challenges of this world! Overcome the difficulties! And to our demise, we began to fearlessly realize that threats of destruction are still only threats. They don’t cause pain until you’re at the point of no return; the moment you realize you’ve just self-destructed.
As Christian women, we sometimes get so concerned with trying to figure out how far down the road is too far. We question it constantly… can I do this and still be okay? We rationalize: As long as there is no penetration, I’m fine. As long as there is no oral sex I’m fine. We validate how far we’ve traveled by the fact that there are still miles to go before we get THERE (pun-intended!) But what’s more important is that we get off the highway all together. These roads never end well. Never. At least not in my experience.
Anyway, I played this game with him for 2 years. We had kept it PG-13 for two years. Two years of “us” not having sex ‘on the strength of me’ as he called it. And one random date-night, when nothing we scheduled actually went as planned, I ended up pulled over in the emergency lane of Highway 52, 2 am in the morning, emotionally shook, tears blinding my eyes, feeling like I didn’t know how to pray because I was too ashamed of what I had been doing for the last couple hours. Sex after almost 7years of celibacy and I’m too ashamed to even talk to God about where I was physically/ emotionally/spiritually. All I did was cry. No idea how long I sat there, but I did. In the quiet stillness of the early morning, a few cars whizzing past me, on the side of the highway alone, I cried my eyes out because I didn’t know what else to do.
It was weeks later before I could even answer his calls.
Truth be told, I should have been running from him since Day 1. And even though we currently do not communicate, I understand that truth more from a biblical perspective. The differences I saw the day we met should have been reason enough for me to walk in a different direction. We had always been opposing forces. And though we both made excuses to continue our faux-relationship—it had never been what it was supposed to be; it had never been appropriate.
“it had never been what it was supposed to be; it had never been appropriate.”
I had wanted it to be right. I prayed that it would be right somehow. But it wasn’t. And so after trying to be his friend, after trying to be his girlfriend, after having sex, and trying to be his girlfriend again, and ultimately failing in repeated attempts to just be friends. I had to just stop. I could no longer have healthy biblical discussions because emotionally I came across as judgemental. At one point I was trying, with great difficulty, to simply NOT hate him (because post-sex it seemed like everything he did wrong became WWIII for me). And this wasn’t by any fault of his… he was the same guy the entire time; he hadn’t changed a bit. It was me who was harboring all kinds of roller coaster feelings in this off-and-on fake relationship. It was tough to realize, but I had done it to myself. I became too caught up in this thing I had created.
In the end, I pulled a Matthew 5:29-30. I blocked his number. It remains blocked to this day. I have no idea what has been going on with him. I’m pretty sure he’s fine. At somepoint I had to realize that I was the one who was forcing the relationship to be what it was not. I wanted a relationship that would honor God, with a man that would honor God, but I was not honoring God. I was holding on to hope without realizing that I was getting in the way of progress happening. I had created an entity; I had created an “us” that didn’t not exist. And sex only magnified the lack of it’s existence. I resented the fact that I had given him my body but we weren’t what I desired.
Unfortunately, people who get emotionally caught up, we tend to do that often. We see what’s not really there. We project emotions/feelings into situations because we desire the good in those circumstances. We see the potential in those situations. But Matthew 5 directs us to let things go. It’s the best for all parties involved. Forcing compromised situations typically leads to turmoil. And instead of being upset at why things weren’t better or why things were challenging the entire time I’ve known him…Instead of focusing on the short-comings of my relationship with this gentleman, I asked God to help me re-build the one I have with Him.
So I gave this guy my body. Had him all wrapped up in my goodness. And then I blocked his number.
Not to be mean or spiteful, but to save us both from further destruction. Blocking him was necessary.
**This story goes on… and actually features a “good guy” in part 2… but my actions are pretty much the same.
Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get to that eventually…
Thanks for reading,
Eve Un-yoked
Eve Unyoked 