I am going to be totally honest now, hopefully this will help MrMoo.
I had 6 sexual encounters before I got married and I am ashamed to say 4 of them were when I was backslidden.
I didn't go looking for them in a sense but they happened. Now after each occasion something happened to me. Mainly guilt, and the ladies concerned who pretty and fun all of a sudden were not and I had to break the relationship off.
not being corse but it reall was 'leg over now use the legs to run away' and I wasn't proud of myself.
I just couldn't understand it. When I came back to church I avoided any kind of romantic relationship. Any time a friendship looked like it was going beyond to a relationship severe anxiety hit me and I ran away. In fact I did this with my now wife.
As I thought about this analogy came to me.
One man, one woman - one flesh. It's one and it's complete. Like this ruler
When either party then leaves that ruler is no longer complete it is now
BROKEN.
Look at the jagged edges. Splintered and jagged and parts missing. The jagged edges are the hurt. pain, emotions, guilt and everything that results as a result of what is basically fornication. You see when I used my legs to run not only did I damage myself I also damaged the other person. I left them splintered, hurt and in pain, feeling used and useless and not lovable. I realised also I did the same to me.
Every time we move on to the next partner that ruler gets more broken, more jagged and another missing part of us.
When I realised that I broke down before God in tears.
Fistly I had to ask God for forgivness, my focus was forgivness of what I did the those ladies. What I left them with, I asked that they would find in thier heart to forgive me and that he would heal them and set them free.
Then I asked God to forgive me and set me free and heal me.
As my wife and I got back together I actually explained the above and that's why I broke up with her, I was starting to deal with all the above and if she found out she would want nothing to do with me(just to clarify we did not have sex before we were married) As you can see it didn't, she saw what I was and it's not what I now was.
I have heard people say who are Christians and had sex outside of marriage and those who were not but now are say "I am a born again virgin"
Thats rubbish we are born again beleivers. Once you have given your virginity to someone it is lost.
When it comes to sex God gave us purity, that's our virginity, and he gave us the ideal of when we should give it away. That's when one man - one woman come together and become one flesh.
In the context of marriage, a life covenant with your partner.
There is hope when we get it wrong, there is healing, forgivness. God dealing with the jagged edges so that when we make that life long covenant with our partner then as I and my wife are