I think I might have reacted badly to news my wife gave me and I am wondering how to fix it

[gotew82674]

I (30M) have been married to my wife (29F) for 6 months, together for about 2 years total. When we first started dating, we didn’t have sex until around the 3-month mark because she said she prefers to wait a while before becoming intimate. That was unusual for me, but I liked her a lot and respected her boundary.
Recently, she told me something that really surprised me: when we first slept together, it was actually her first time ever. She had dated other people before me, so I assumed she’d had prior sexual relationships, but she said she hadn’t. I asked why, and she explained that as a teenager she made a conscious decision to wait until she met someone she felt she could eventually marry. She said she believed that person was me.
I was honestly stunned, and the first thing out of my mouth was, “Wow, you wasted your youth.” She looked really taken aback. I tried to explain that I meant I felt bad for her because I don’t think I’m particularly good in bed and that she never got the chance to have other experiences. She then said I had completely ruined the moment and didn’t want to talk for the rest of the night.
I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was just surprised and reacted without thinking, in fairness I insulted myself so I don't really understand why she is offended, but I would love to hear from the women on here as to whether or not what I said was really insensitive.
How would she be feeling? How do I fix this?

I'm not sure what you got out of shitting all over another woman's choice to only have sex with someone she felt had the real potential to become her dh but it doesn't it doesn't reflect well on you. Why should she force herself to sleep with men she doesn't want to? What's the approved number to not feel like allowing someone inside your body is a special thing. It's no judgement on anyone else. Whether I've slept with no men or a thousand makes me no better or worse than anyone else. She shared something intimate and personal with her partner and he was rude and dismissive. It's not hard to comprehend

This… and you can and should be having amazing sex in your relationship anyway, so why do we all need to do the extra steps of having sex with random men? I can’t say I learnt anything from any ONS or FWB, I wasn’t comfortable enough and it was a bit crap. Don’t feel bad for about life panned out. I get the feeling a lot of people are defensive and feel the need to overcompensate due to slut-shaming.

Yeah, it's weird to see so many women shaming this person for waiting until she was comfortable.

I wonder if it's a generational thing? Statistics show that Gen Z are having less sex. Being single is the norm, and many women are losing their virginity later in life - and not for religious reasons. The OP's wife, in her late twenties, would seem to fall into this bracket, with her experience being common but still too stigmatised to talk about.

It's interesting. Older generations were shamed for having casual sex, so many still view that as the ultimate act of feminist rebellion. A reclaiming of one's body. But for younger generations, casual sex has become the expectation - and in a porn-saturated culture, it looks very different to the casual sex their mothers might have had. More and more, it looks like the Gen Z reclamation of bodily autonomy is to restrict sexual access. Millennials have been pushing back for a while now too, with many Millennial women speaking up about how the "hook up culture" of their youth left them having sex they didn't really want to have, because they thought that was the empowered, modern woman thing to do. The Sex and the City effect.

Casual sex is never going to go away, but I think fewer women are actually comfortable with it than we assume. I get the sense a cultural shift is coming. Right now, the norm is to shame an older woman for her lack of experience, or to assume her choices are motivated by religion. But it looks like we're headed to a place where a significant proportion of 20s / 30s women will be virgins for other reasons. The way we talk about this will shift as that reality sets in. If 30% or more of women that age find themselves in that boat, and know most of their friends are too, they will stop feeling quietly ashamed about it, and start speaking up to defend their choices.

We saw the same thing as the birthrate started going down. Women got sick of being pitied and treated as less-than for being "childless", and began speaking up to defend their choice of being "childfree". About ten years ago, as this became reality for more and more women, the framing of the whole conversation started to shift. Among women ourselves, anyway. I think later virginity and rejection of casual sex will become one of the next big cultural conversations, along with solo parenting. (Women choosing to go it alone with a sperm donor.)

You can’t possibly know what is in op’s wife’s head!

I think if she wanted him to think her “pure and high value” she would have made a big deal of it at the time.

Fhs people are so literal on this site!

I wasn’t suggesting that they broadcast their conversation with megaphones in to a public space!

You can choose any out of the way place to sit and maybe eat, or have a drink, and relax and discuss something important!

I think it’s pretty obvious that the key thing is that the op really takes time to take his wife out to where she is relaxed and really listen and pay attention to what she is saying about this situation.

To make an effort in other words… .

"I think she probably wanted to hear “wow you’re not like all the other girls, you’re so pure and high value”."

This is a weird comment. You're projecting something on OP's wife here. Have you been slut-shamed a lot? You seem defensive.

You say you feel bad for her because you aren’t very good at sex. What do you mean by that? There is no reason for someone to be bad at sex unless they can’t be bothered. There are so many sources of information and if you take the time to learn what she likes you don’t have to be insecure about your bedroom skills. It’s got nothing to do with the size of your manhood. Do some research and put some effort in. Don’t have the mentality of ‘sucks you were a virgin before me because I’m bad in bed’.

But I also agree that virginity isn’t some gift she’s given you. She can’t expect you to place the same value on it as she did. It’s ok if you are neutral about the whole thing. But make it clear that you don’t see it negatively. If it made her happy to wait until you then you are happy. Then give her the night of her life!!

Have you had amazing sex Op? Given that you're not that good at it how amazing could it have been?

I don’t think the majority of people are shaming the op’s wife are they?

When I was young, I was quite choosy …and my DDs are the same…

But equally I don’t judge other women who make different choices to me because if I did that, as an older woman, I would be going back to the days within my living memory when only women were judged for having “been around a bit” whereas men received a pat on the back and “the boy’s done good!”

Edited to say: I take your point about young women potentially making different choices for different reasons yet again.

She waited until she found someone she was comfortable, which is exactly what every young person should be taught. It doesn't matter how old she was. Also, she didn't actually wait for her one special person as at thay point presumably they didn't know they would end up getting married etc.

But you’re not exactly selling yourself well to your wife OP. Not only did you react to something very private and intimate from her with great insensitivity, you also confessed to being bad in bed! I wonder what she would say if she were on here…

And then posted about it on the Internet!

Haven’t read the full thread but you say you don’t think you’re particularly good in bed ? Make sure you become good in bed then for her sake, poor thing, since she missed out on some experiences!

I know you weren't, I still don't think a restaurant is the appropriate place for such a conversation, particularly when his wife is clearly very private.

Fine. But I did not say that hence my reaction

No I’ve never been slut shamed.

I have no problem at all with women choosing to wait (whether it’s 3 months or until marriage or beyond). It’s their prerogative and it makes no difference to me. Everyone should feel comfortable.

I get the ick when people who choose to wait think they deserve some kind of award. It stinks of all this red pill/incel bollocks that is rife atm and is poisoning the youth. What did she want to hear from him? “Ok, that’s nice dear”?

I can understand much of your position, I actually share it. But how you expressed yourself in your previous post doesn't make space for women who feel that sex is a deeply intimate thing that they only want to do with men who they trust and love and are bonded to.

As many PPs have said, if OP's wife did think like this, why did she not lead with it when they did have sex? Clearly it wasn't a transactional thing for her.

And btw, there are men too who can't have sex willy nilly, who need an emotional connection to feel both safe and aroused. My H is one.

I myself am not like this, but people like this should be respected.

I imagine she wanted to feel valued and respected in her choice by her partner. When something is important to you it hurts when your partner dismisses it. There's things that are important to dh that I don't care about but I support him in valuing them and he supports me too. It's not hard to be a team mate but it does mean being considerate.

But they don’t have the same values when it comes to sex. If my DH told me he was a virgin when we met I’d have said “ok”. If he told me he’d slept with 1000 women when we met I’d have said “ok”. As it happens, we’ve never discussed it because it doesn’t matter.

If he’d waited over a year into our marriage to unveil something about his sexual history and expected a “moment” from it, I’d have thought it very odd (unless it related to some kind of trauma).

I make no judgement on the sex lives of other people. I don’t care either way. But I won’t celebrate fetishising virginity or “purity” when it comes to women because I think it’s damaging. I think it’s great that OP’s wife had as much sex as she wanted to have, and I would think that whether she had 1 sexual partner or many.

Well if something matters to my dh I make the effort to show some interest and understand why. It's not fetishising virginity to be a decent human being and show some interest beyond telling your partner they've wasted their time when it's something that matters to them. Not everything needs to align with my choices for me to not be dismissive and rude.

Oh heck. That was a bit of a blinder wasn't it?

Telling you about this was obviously going to be a big deal for her. She'd probably been wanting to tell you for ages and waiting for the right moment. You need to beg, shower her with gifts and treats, and say how you are totally overwhelmed with gratitude and love for her for what waiting for you.

That might help.

I don't think women need gifts and treats when their partner has acted like a dick. A sorry should hopefully suffice

We'll have to disagree on that one.

Nothing wrong with a peace offering.

Precisely that

A peace offering is not gifts
Again that comes down to the whole princess crap narrative that’s being pushed at the moment that the only women that are worth they are the ones that are pure feeds into the whole Madonna and Whore complex. That’s so many of these men are suffering with and luckily the OP is not.