i have been dedicated to chastity and marriage for eight years ever since i became religious, being a male that is nearly impossible. i have never even come close to entering into a fulfilling relationship during that whole time though i have wanted to desperately. i'm now in a relationship with a woman who i'm 98% sure wants to get married and with whom marriage could quite possibly work. there are problems however. she's egyptian and her english is right on the borderline between good and not good enough. i write poety of a very difficult sort and one of my lifelong dreams was to read and enjoy poetry together with my wife but with her english that probably won't be possible for another 2 years. we also have difficulty understanding each other in conversation and some topics i can't talk about because i know she won't understand them. i love to talk yet sometimes i feel that i'm censoring myself. then there is the culture barrier. i love to talk about politics, history, literature but if i were to say the words homer, frederick douglas, or ralph nader she wouldn't know what i was talking about. the other problem is that i'm not as deep in love as i dreamed i would be. we've only been talking to each other for a month and i tell myself to be patient but i clearly am not even close to being as love as i once was with women who did not love me. i know you might be thinking: what's the problem? why are you even in the relationship? but this women is extremely beautiful and 99 out of a 100 men in this country would kill to have this woman and i myself keep fantasizing about married life with her day and night. yet i have very mixed emotions. i also tell myself that thousands if not millions have entered into marriage with mixed emotions and eventually it worked out fine.

Hello bobjsmith7676 & welcome

Try reading back your post & looking at it objectively.



I don't think that this is a matter of mixed emotions. I think that, by remaining chaste, you have become sexually frustrated. Now you have this beautiful ~ almost fantasy ~ woman in your life. Your body and mind are fantasizing about her. But the only way that you will give in to desire is to get married. Because of your morals, you have decided that sex should go with marriage ~ and marriage & sex should go with love ~ so you are trying to convince yourself that you love her enough to marry her, so that you can satisfy your sexual urges with a beautiful woman you don't love and hardly know.

Is that fair on either you or her?


You hardly know this woman.

You don't understand each other.

You do not have shared interests.

The way you describe her English as 'on the borderline between good and not good enough' is hardly complementary & not the way one expects a man to describe the woman he hopes to marry.

You are not in love

She is beautiful & you fantasise about her.

This is not how it should be when you contemplate free choice marriage.

Certainly, in some cultures, arranged marriages can work out, where the partners do not start off in love, however, though many succeed, many also either fail or are not happy.

For religious & moral reasons, you have decided to be chaste until marriage, but it is not moral to wed someone you don't love, so that you no longer have to be celibate.
Surely, this would not be fair on her.

Are you sure that she would be happy to marry you?

Does she love you or does she want a marriage of convenience?

Would you both be happy with a relatively loveless sex life and partnership?

This is the answer that you are looking for ~ and it's there in your post:


Good luck!

Good advice. I agree entirely.