Complicated relationship, trust issues and concerns! Help Please!

I have been with my girl friend for 9 months and trust issues are killing me, it's partly her fault or mine?

I'm 28 years old with alotta relationship experience, because I was always very athletic and decent looking, I could always get any girl I want often. This time I decided I really want to be with this girl who used to be my neighbor, who is beautiful and sexy. I always wanted to find the one!

However I always had issues, mostly not on my end, due to our culture issues..I am strict catholic from Iraq and so were most girls I dated. The problem is that in our culture the girls are suppose to stay reserved before marriage.. however most of them don't and it causes many issues because the girls who do have sex before marriage and leave their boyfriends end up lieng to the next guy claiming they are virgins! Which is understandable to some degree, however it has torn me apart, because I always end up believing, feeling guilty and relating to the girls nd the end up being liars, so for the past years I was staying away from commitment. Now you might think, why not get a girl from different culture? > the answer is because our culture is very unique and I am afraid many others won't relate and know my background/ language.

The problem right now with my girlfriend is that she swears on the bible that she only had one sex partner (her ex) before me when she was 17-20. Now she is 23.. She also told me that she regrets it and that they barely had sex after giving herself the first time, she was forced to stay in that relationship for the next two years and she barely had fun sex! She barely went down on him! I believed her of coarse, however there are still issues here that I found,,, #1 she is good in bed, very good! very good when she goes down on me?? #Very confident >. She sais this is all because she loves me, however its hard for me, because her body language does not tell me so often! #2. She was always way more outgoing before she met me, she goes clubbing often, drinks a bit and stays out real late, yet she claims she has never done anything there.. The other problem is that all her friend she hangs out with are girls that sleep around and who even take guys to the bathroom at the club..

How could she not have done the same? She swears on the bible? Am I exaggerating and overanalyzing? But I have experience? So confused!!! Help me??

I really love her and have talked to her many times about this... to the point we fight about it and she gets real defensive!!

By the way we are in a long distance relationship, she is in Europe and I am in Michigan. We talk everyday.. she has visited me already and we had sex when she was here...

Sometimes I question myself? Why did she give herself so soon? Why is she so confident? Does love really do this to a girl? Or is this all fake? I keep my hopes and prayers, yet I have to come up with a solution as well as conclusions! I really like to get to know her for the better...

Hi ~ I'm just going to give you my OPINION. This doesn't mean that it's true, or that it pertains to your girlfriend.

If a girl is REALLY good in bed, it's obvious that she's had some experience. If someone says they've only had sex a couple of times, you cannot learn too much in just a couple of "sessions."

Plus if she hangs out with "loose girls" it gives HER the reputation of being "loose" whether she is or not. If a girl has common sense she WON'T hang with those kind of girls unless she IS loose.

Beside all this, why are you having a long-distance relationship? These rarely work because of the fact you cannot see each other often. And the fact that she's in Europe and you're in Michigan (so am I ) makes it very difficult to have any kind of a REAL relationship at all. You can't have trust when you're that far apart. Why not look for someone near you? I'm sure there must be someone in your culture who is closer to you than Europe!

I wish you the very best. Take care! Hugs, Lee

Excuse me for speaking my mind, but... does your culture require the man to have his cake and eat it too? It makes me cross to read about someone questioning someone else's sexual history to this extent, bemoaning her experience yet here you are, sleeping with the woman when your culture (and yourself) looks down on women like her! It'd double standards and grossly unfair.

Her sexual past has nothing to do with you. It is her business and hers alone and you really should not question her to the point that you argue, and you certainly should not make her feel as though she has to swear on the bible. If you truly liked or loved this woman, you would look past the end of your nose, respect her, be kind to her and just enjoy being together. You shouldn't make her feel bad, especially when you yourself are complicit in the 'crime' of sex before marriage in your culture.


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I do not think that getting a girl from a different culture is the easiest way out for you. The easiest way out is to change the way you think and relate to people. Then you can have relationships with women who share your ethnic, cultural, and linguistic background, but not torment them and yourself.

My understanding is that the particular expectations in your culture and similar cultures have led to the availability and proliferation of the operation that restores the hymen and makes it even more virginal than before. The operation can be repeated as many times as desired. Girls in your culture and similar cultures who want to claim virginity go for that operation. I do not know why your gf did not do that. Maybe she did not have the money. Usually, to stay consistent with the story, women go to surgeons. It seems to me that doing the surgery and then claiming absolute virginity is more straightforward than telling a more complicated story about one partner whom she did not enjoy etc. But I cannot read her mind and know her motivation. And yes, the operation is widely available in Europe due to the high number of Muslim immigrants there.

When you call her a liar, which is a negative term, you assume that she has an obligation to disclose her sexual history to you. As riotgrrrl explained, she does not have this duty. You should immediately stop expecting her or any of your future sexual partners to disclose their sexual histories to you. If you do that, all your problems will be solved immediately. You would be able to enjoy the blow jobs without analyzing the level of experience of the person who gives them to you, and that will immediately lead to more joy, because the less analytical you are in bed, the better for you. You should realize that you are subjecting her to a very unpleasant experience when you are being so nosy about her past, and then she feels the need to tell you that she barely enjoyed her past relationship, which might or might not be true but it is none of your business either way. Making people swear on the bible is not the best way to treat them, either.

An adult male who is 28 years old, lives in Michigan, has access to the Internet, and has had a lot of relationship experience should have the ability to identify and promote the positive/valuable/unique elements of his culture, be it language, music, food, dance, or what not, and discard the idiotic elements, be it expecting virginity from sexual partners or something along these lines.

Exactly Hammy, especially when they don't hold themselves to the same standards. Being "good" or confident does not exactly point to " must be really experienced" either.

Riotgirl also said it well.

If you are not living up to the standard you hold others too, maybe the problem lies with you? You don't own her and she is not a possesion, she is a person and a sexual being in her own right independatly of a man.

That might sound harsh, but your post is harsh and seems a bit arrogant to say you could have any women and have had many but question her over her one previous. You also engaged in sex early on, she certainly didn't do it alone. Maybe time to focus more on yourself and less on her, figure why you feel this is a fair or just way to evaluate a female? So the men can sleep with whomever, but not marry them..after all they are not virgins. If all the women upheld and stuck to this value with whom would the men be sleeping with then? But I am sure the men have not complained about that part..untill the women actually start following this guide as well ( I am certain complaints would follow if they did ) Seems the women can't win in this situation either way.

By the way..every culture is unique..and none are without flaw.

"However I always had issues, mostly not on my end, due to our culture issues" ...You might want to think about that. The common denominator in that statement is you! Are you going to be part of the culture issue or not?

And no people do not do everything their friends do...that should be obvious. People are individuals not carbon copies.

Firstly I want to echo Riot, Hammy and Anika's posts.

You have no business questioning her sexual experience/inexperience unless you are bringing to the table exactly what you expect from her. No double standards.

Then I have concerns of my own...
I'm a tad (alot) confused!

Why do you look to date virgins if you're not even going to wait for marriage anyway? What is the point of this useless practice of yours?

Here's some advice:
Stop having sex with your gf or any future gf's regardless of previous experience. Instead vow to eachother to wait until you're married.

Thats how newly committed Christians do it anyway. They make a chastity vow to one another and seal it with promise rings. Because the past is irrelevant (save for venereal diseases) and the future is what matters.

Now if you have real feelings for this gf of yours, I suggest you get off your high horse and fix things before you fall off when she leaves you.

I will tell you a funny story with a morale at the end. It is going to be long, but I cannot make it shorter without losing the punchline.

In December, I went on a date with a 34-year-old East Indian guy from a dating site.

I do not remember if it was my first or second or third formal date but definitely not above third. All the other guys in my life in the past popped up on their own somehow, so it was the first time I was trying to use a more structured and formal approach to partner finding.

The guy was good looking, polite, and basically OK... but then he told me that he was divorced, that his wife cheated on him twice during their 1.5 year long marriage, and first he was devastated because he had expectations of an exclusive relationship and did not get what he expected, but then he went into therapy for 9 months, spending $10K on therapy, and recovered...

I am Russian by origin and I have to literally translate a Russian expression into English because I otherwise cannot explain what happened to me when he said it.

Translating from Russian literally, "I lost the gift of speech".

I am in that way the exact opposite of you in that you are nosy about the sexual past of your partners and I think that this kind of disclosure on the first date was too much information and I never required or expected to know this much about his private life in the past. I expected small talk and some information about neutral topics, such as his job and education. He was unable to articulate what he does on the job - he works for a biotech company but he was unable to explain what he does - and could not say what degrees he got. So he somehow failed to provide neutral and expected information but instead informed me of his therapy bills. You can be sure that it was the last time I saw him.

When I recovered the gift of speech to some degree, I realized that I needed to say something, because the pause was getting too long. The only thing that came to my mind was to inquire whether the ex wife was Indian as well.

She was not. She was a Christian woman from Lebanon. The Indian guy told me that before marriage she would not have premarital sex with him due to her religious beliefs. She was very strict about it.

I found it extremely amusing that a woman would be so strict about premarital sex but then jump into extramarital sex immediately or almost immediately after the wedding. So at least I got a funny story out of the date.

The morale for you is even if you find a girl from your culture who is a true virgin and who would not, using your words, "give herself so soon", it would do absolutely nothing in terms of predicting her future behavior, and based on your overall approach, you seem to want to be her only partner (correct me if I am wrong).

The right analogy from the money markets is "Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results".

Best of luck.