Engaged couples discussing intimacy - PUBLIC THREAD

do you have a rav you can ask this question to? So much depends on the particular circumstance - (background of engaged couple, age..)

As Ruchel said men need to be aware that pregnancy is hard on the woman, that she may act very different from her normal self and that she may need a lot of help because it is a taxing thing.
My DH was told this by his chassan teacher but his friend was not. His wife got pregnanat on their wedding night and was very hormonal the entire 9 months. The husband was positive his wife was crazy and was considering a divorce!
Bh someone set him straight but it could have all been avoided if the guy knew about hormons and pregnancy.

it's ok and maybe a good idea to talk about relations before the wedding. it will in a way bridge them closer and make things less scary and awkward eventually.
obviously they should talk about birth control/how many children they want etc
hopefully there will be an attraction and feeling of being in love, because that makes everything more exciting and magical as opposed to scary and uncomfortable

Gold Member Joined: Dec 06 2007 Posts: 1389

In my community, no way to all questions!!
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Mothers of little boys....
work from SON up to SON down.

Platinum Member Joined: Apr 12 2010 Posts: 5876

I think it depends on the couple, their background, their community. I mean you might have a couple like dh and I who are extremely open minded and talk about these things often (duh we are married lol!) but would not have broached it at all when we were engaged.
Even if it was on the back of my mind, it was just not a done thing in our community.
The closest we got to it was "did you start lessons yet?" "yes did you?" "yes are you nervous about it?" "nope I have you there is nothing to be nervous about" and that was that until after the wedding.

Do I think we would have been better off if we would have discussed these things? nope I don't think so.
I see plenty couples who never talked about these things and rarely 'talk' about it now and they are really happy. I see others that did talk about it and are happy too. And then I see those that did or did not talk about it and are unhappy. Its not what you discuss rather its the connection, the couple etc.
Most times there is more happening in the marriage if a couple can not get 'along' in their s-x life. We might say he was so "ger" he did not want to do anything but if he was a nice, caring, kind man he would listen to what his wife had to say and what she wanted and change (and I know guys like this!).

The one thing I would think about discussing is BC and kids. Not that if I get married and say I want 10 and he only wants 5 it will mean divorce. But I think some people are the type that need time to get settled into things and having a kid right away might ruin that for either of them so they could discuss if they want to ask to be on BC for a couple months first.
BUT I strongly think that certain things that are discussed before marriage can make or break the future marriage whereas if they are discussed after marriage they might not make as large a difference because the spouse sees how much else she has with the other one and this 'one little thing' can be worked on.
(this is based on what I have seen in real life).
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Executive Member Joined: Nov 11 2010 Posts: 250

me and my hubby are chassidish and we still think, that we should have talked about s ex before the wedding. I don't really wanne remember the wedding night, bc we both were nervous and it wasn't a great xperience. I think if we would have talked bout it, we wouldn't be over the law of niddah the first two weeks.

but as many women say, each couple has to be comfortable with what they discuss.

I do think its important, that women and man should know what will go on in love live. I have a sister that was divorced and she said one of the reasons it didn't work out was bc she was disgusted by him. she told so many times, if she would have known before she got engaged what it means to have s ex she would never have married him in the first place.

my opinion, it should be discussed to a certain extend!

How would I know what I'd want until I got married? THat's a really weird thing to know enough about to discuss. Before I was married, lots of things sounded gross - I knew some of htat would change, but how could I predict how much it would change?

Executive Member Joined: May 22 2012 Posts: 474

What can you say about relations when you have never even touched the opposite gender? I didn't know what my needs would be, and how I would respond to the possible needs he might have.
We both had some baseless ideas about how our physical relationship would be - but they were completely baseless. And we were much less innocent than many of those very young yeshivish couples.
We were very much in love, I did not worry about relations, I figured it's something that will evolve between us naturally and it did. We did talk about bed arrangement while getting our furniture. That was a like a 'kosher' reason to bring up the topic.

Executive Member Joined: Jan 30 2008 Posts: 259

I feel like the point of these discussions would be to try to have control over what type of marraige you will end up in. If you have all the right discussions and ask all the right questions then all or most sb problems and divorce can be prevented.
Honestly though you need to remember who's really in charge here. If you are meant to have an easy happy marraige Hashem will make sure it happens and not be something you can take the credit for. And if not then all the questions will not guarantee the outcome.
People may think they know exactly whats good for them but I think Hashem knows better than us what we can handle and what not.
Someone might think they believe in having as many kids as they can and after lots of discussions before marraige make sure the chosson is fully and totally pro this. And this careful planning will backfire if it turns out she has PPD or for some reason that she needs to use BC and he is totally anti and nonsupportive. As he was prepared and expected to be.

Man plans and Gd laughs. Isnt that right?
All these questions would not result in better marraiges. And the problem is that it gives a false sense of security that they planned perfectly so this marraige will be perfect. And that will cause way more problems than if they left the whole thing alone in the first place.

We dated with all the rules (for our circles). I thought that seemed too impersonal. Let him ask me out again, instead of the shaddchin!
By the time we got engaged, we had already talked about number of kids (g-d willing) we wanted, but I had to discuss some more, achhemm, private details. I am a very private person but had to know if he had a strong enough libido as I needed. But that subject being so not tzanuah for an unmarried couple to discuss, it came out like a conversation on "the 10,000 dollar pyramid". I hinted, I read facial expressions, and of course I blushed!

Thank G-d we were on the same page. I felt that I needed to know that before getting married. And, having already been down that path, it was much easier to discuss that and other sensitive or touchy topics once married.