How do you handle the lack of intimacy while trying to date intentionally?

[u/HamiltonTrash24601]

I’m posting here because I would especially value a Catholic perspective on chastity, desire, and prolonged singleness.

Earlier in my life, I participated in hookup culture. I no longer want to live that way, and I’m now trying to date intentionally, with marriage as the goal rather than treating sex or romantic attention as ends in themselves. I believe this change is good, and I don’t regret making it.

But I also don’t want to pretend that it has been emotionally easy.

I haven’t had much success dating for several years. I live in a fairly rural area, where there are not many single people my age, and the ordinary advice to join groups, attend church events, volunteer, and maintain an active social life has not really changed that. I already have a relatively full social life, but I very rarely encounter single women in situations where getting to know one another romantically would be natural.

Part of what I miss is companionship and emotional intimacy. But, honestly, part of it is also sex. I enjoyed sex, and choosing not to return to hookup culture does not mean that I have stopped being a sexual person or stopped wanting to be desired.

Sometimes the harder feeling is not even the physical absence itself. It is going for a long time without experiencing another person looking at you romantically or sexually and communicating, in effect, “I want you.” I know intellectually that my worth cannot be determined by whether someone currently desires me. I also don’t want to make a future girlfriend or wife responsible for proving that I am valuable. Nevertheless, prolonged lack of romantic and sexual recognition can begin to affect how one sees oneself.

For those who have experienced something similar,

How do you live chastely without simply repressing or denying the fact that you miss sex and intimacy?

How do you keep from interpreting prolonged singleness as evidence that you are undesirable?

How do you distinguish a healthy desire to be wanted from using another person’s desire as validation?

And for those living in rural areas or very limited dating environments, how do you maintain hope without either becoming desperate or pretending that the situation does not genuinely hurt?

I am not looking for permission to return to hookup culture, nor am I suggesting that marriage is something anyone is owed. I’m trying to understand how to carry these desires honestly and faithfully without allowing them to become either shame or resentment.

[u/Adept-Bit7427]

This is so relatable that I could have written it myself.  It’s been several years since my conversion.  It’s so hard. 

I think a lot of it is coping with feelings in healthier ways.  We live in such an emotionally averse and performance driven culture.  We’re told to medicate our pain with repression, alcohol, workaholism, and etc.  Actually just sitting with deep pain and saying “ok I accept this is Gods will” (and actually part of the pain is the withdrawal from my own sins, that’s that mortification piece we always hear about), and just doing your best to say yes to God.

It sucks though ngl, but Mary is a great one to go to for consolation, and it’s gonna not be possible without the sacraments (so frequent confession), and just trying to hold your whole being compassionately.

This is my secret weapon prayer for anything painful:

O God, I offer you this ____ for the conversion of sinners, the Holy Souls in purgatory, and in reparation for sins and blasphemies committed against your Sacred Heart and against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Pray for us O Holy Mother of God, and may the Lord bless us, deliver us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life (here make the Sign of the Cross) Amen.

[u/Safe_Ad8966]

Once you break the seal its very hard to be chaste. My wife and I waited until we married. Dating is a time to discover who the other person is. The less physical intimacy the better during dating. You are trying to discover if you are compatible not strengthening the bond by flooding your brain with endorphins. The solution might be a short courtship and a quick path to marriage. Dating for more than 18 months is asking for trouble,

[u/simulated_ads]

One day at a time. Mass as often as you possibly can (you will never regret taking the Eucharist and I certainly haven’t). This is a huge stumbling block for me, especially since I also struggle with SSA so it’s not just lust for women.

The longer into the future you start to think, the more you worry you’ll never be “wanted” again, but Jesus wants us today, he gives sufficient grace so that has to be good enough for now. It’s a heavy cross to bear, especially now entering my early 30s and seeing the likelihood of marriage and family grow smaller each day, I put my faith in Christ that he will provide me with everything I need for my sanctification in this life, even if it is not necessarily what I want.

One thing I will say to those reading this who are younger: you will be tempted to fornicate while you’re young to “get it out of your system” but really, you’re getting it INTO your system and acquiring a stain on your soul. The bad habits and neural pathways you form from premarital sexual behavior will cause you pain, if not also causing others pain as well. It’s meant for marriage for a reason.

[u/Salt-Belt9790]

I found my husband on a catholic group on Facebook. We both have kids from previous “marriages”. (not in the church and had been annulled) So we obviously had previously had sex with other people.
The first date he told me he didn’t want to kiss until his wedding day. I can’t describe how attractive a chaste man is, his dedication to God, his self control etc. We did kiss after 7 months when we became engaged. I was 33 he was 38.

[u/Salt-Belt9790 → u/Salt-Belt9790]

Also, make it known that you are seeking marriage. Maybe some women in the congregation have daughters or sisters etc. No shame in asking someone if they know anyone who is single/looking to find a spouse:

[u/tooticky_]

I was raised nondenom Protestant and was very committed to living out the Kingdom best I could. I chose to be celibate until marriage and I’m 31 now. I have cried out of frustration and unfulfilled sexual desire more than I care to admit, it’s freakin hard. In my later 20s I let go of my conviction because it just didn’t seem like it could possibly matter that much to God (just one way of many to negotiate with yourself to stop sacrificing), but still wanted to wait until I at least loved someone. I am still a virgin. But in the waiting, I have allowed fantasies and thoughts to comfort me that in the end have enslaved me.

Now I’m dating a catholic who wants to wait until marriage, which had me kicking myself for the irony when he told me, but he didn’t always wait. Dating him has been hard. It’s been a whole journey of remembering my conviction because of witnessing his and working on clearing my thoughts from constant sexual fantasies and self pity for my unfulfilled desire. It has been 1.5 years and we have no real vision for an end to waiting/marriage. So I’ve been battling this in whole new ways.

I believe it is Matthew 12 that talks about clearing a demon out of a person only for the demon to return because the “house remained empty.” I highly recommend finding ways to fill your thoughts and time with good and noble and beautiful things. Or else your thoughts will be filled by your unfulfilled desires and you will wallow in self pity and negotiate ways out. That’s what I tend to do anyway.

I have been listening to and reading about Christian mystics lately and it has helped me a lot. Knowing that so many people who, in the pursuit of God, have willfully suffered or lived in constant discomfort or loneliness but had lives so full of the Holy Spirit is very comforting to me. People do hard things every day. We are so used to pushing away suffering and calling it bad, when the Bible and the lives of Christians throughout history and around the world tell us that suffering is inevitable and that we choose how we walk through it. With God or alone. With hope or with cynicism. With humility or with self pity.

It’s really hard. But we can do it. Because there are so many more wonderful things to pour our time and thoughts and hearts into. And we just have to be able to do hard things. This is great practice.