She Wants to Be a Virgin Again

Break-ups happen to everyone, even celebrities like Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift. Here's how to protect your heart.

Dear Lauren, I’m sixteen, and I’ve been dating the same guy for a year. Before I’d met him I’d never had sex, because I’ve always felt it was sacred, and I wanted to make sure that when I did it, it would be for all the right reasons. Now that he wants to break up with me, I feel used. I know that my friends would laugh at me because they don’t have the same opinion on sex: that it’s special and should always be meaningful. But in this day and age, how can I date before marriage without it? – Wanna Be a Virgin Again, in Ft. Collins, CO

Ignore your friends. Half of them probably agree with you but are too scared to say it what with society treating sex like it’s as casual as breathing and virginity like it’s a dirty Kleenex to be thrown away. It’s easy to succumb to those ideas when they are all around you. Sex in its best and purest form is intimate. It is something to be treated with respect.

If you felt like it was right to sleep with your boyfriend at the time then nothing he does now should take away from that decision. It is your body. It was your decision to have sex with him. Regretting that is giving him power that he does not deserve. I am sure he did not mean to use you. If you were together for a year than those feelings must have been real. Not all relationships last forever. In fact most don’t. But to treat them as if they meant nothing just because they end is to disrespect your heart.

Right now your heart hurts. Every break up will hurt. I have been on the receiving end twice and my heart broke both times. I struggled to remember and keep fresh all the wonderful things that those men did for me. To let one thing destroy that is to play the victim. “How could life do this to me?” “How could he use me like that and then throw me away?” You are not the first girl to ask these questions and I guarantee you will not be the last.

Regret is an ugly thing. That’s why I say “get rid of it.” A life experience is a beautiful thing no matter how hard it is. “Losing your virginity” is one of the biggest life experiences in a young woman’s life. It happened. Now you learn from your experience and you move on.

You are not less of a person because you are no longer a virgin. You gave your heart and your virginity to someone you cared about. You can be proud of that.

If you don’t want to have sex again before you are married then don’t. Some guys will share those values with you and they will be the right ones for you. Stick to your principles, they are what make you strong. If in the face of a new love, eventually, those principles change, then let them.

Just remember that your decisions are yours to make. Just because there might not be a happy ending doesn’t take away from the good in the experience. That still exists as long as we keep it in the forefront of our hearts.

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I’m a  doctor of psychology once removed: I’m John Gray’s daughter, so lets just say relationship know-how runs in my genes. Since the day I hit puberty, friends and acquaintances have come to me for advice. Twelve years later I’m finally making my skills available to the public. Finally! Dad’s brilliant and all, but sometimes it takes someone a little younger to really grasp the issues that are relevant to young people today. I look forward to giving you whatever help I can. Email me here at comments@marsvenusliving.com. –Lauren Gray

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Lauren Gray is our newest MarsVenusLiving columnist. To welcome her we will be running her “Dear Lauren Column” today, and tomorrow. Her column will appear weekly starting this Saturday!