We Had Sex, Then He Told Me We Were Married
By: Dahlia Stone
Tags: Religion, Relationships, Marriage, Dating, Sex

We Had Sex, Then He Told Me We Were Married

That wasn’t part of my plan for the evening.

Photo by Sandy Millar via Unsplash

A few years after college, I ran into a classmate when I was out with some friends. He was telling me what happened to everyone we used to hang out with. It turned out a guy we knew, James, was working two doors down from me. I thought it was interesting we had never run into each other.

James was a friend of my college boyfriend. Having the same major, we had a few classes together and work together on a magazine at the university. I had never given him much thought but remember he was an interesting guy.

I stopped by one day on a break to see if he was around. It was fun to catch up. We exchanged numbers and talked on the phone a couple times. In a week or so, when we both had some time, we planned to get together.

He was tall and attractive in that brooding way I still found exciting and attractive in my 20s. We were both artistic and struggled as writers. I write short fiction and he wrote poetry.

We went to get something to eat and talked about books and films and what was really striking at the heart of us at that time.

Later, we decided to watch some artsy film at my apartment. We sat close on the couch. Lights were off and we were leaned into each other. We started kissing.

One thing led to another and we ended up in my bedroom. It was amazing and passionate sex. The kind you have with your artistically tortured college friend. Afterward, he took a shower and went home. That was that.

I got a call a couple days later asking if I could meet him. He needed to talk but wouldn’t tell me what about. He said we needed to talk face to face.

This is nothing anyone ever wants to hear after having sex with someone else. My brain raced through a million different scenarios. He has a girlfriend. He has an STD. He’s moving to Iceland.

Photo by Nicholas Gercken via Unsplash

It turns out that James had found a path to God after we had graduated college. This was nothing that came up in our discussions on the phone or when we were together. It was curious. In my experience, people that are highly religious have a tendency to work that into conversation one way or another.

They also don’t seem like the kind of person that’s going to bed down with their old college friend the first night after not having seen each other for quite some time.

When I met him for coffee, he said that he was struggling with what had happened between us. I figured that there would be some level of guilt perhaps. It was much more than that.

He told me that we had to figure out what our next step was going to be. I was confused. In that moment, I could imagine what it would be like for a man to sit across from a woman and be told that she is pregnant. I had no idea what he was talking about. Why we would require a next step?

He let me know that he was very religious and took his faith in the Bible seriously. He believed firmly in the Old Testament. In his eyes, sex between a man and a woman meant one thing. The consummation of a relationship. A marriage. He told me that he considered us, in the eyes of God, married. I was his wife.

Wait. What?

What the actual hell was happening? Immediately, my mind began racing. What was he saying? If we were married in the eyes of God, how does one become divorced in the eyes of God? That was some information I needed right away.

He went on to explain that civil ceremonies and legal proceedings were never part of a marriage ceremony thousands of years ago. A man and a woman became married when they had sex. So, there we were. Married.

He had completely forgotten to mention his strong belief about this matter when he decided to go to my bedroom with me several nights ago. Was that his entire intention? Had he planned that he was going to find a woman, have sex with her and then declare us married in order to not have to go about the practice of dating any longer?

I had no idea what to do so I told him I needed to think about this for a while and get my head sorted out. This means, “I need to run away very quickly and move to another town to get away from you.” He agreed as I think he could tell he dropped a bombshell on me that taken all of the color out of my face.

This was, without a doubt, one of the craziest things I’d ever heard in my life. I have no problem with people of faith. However, do not impose your faith on me when I have not asked you to. Just because you believe one thing does not mean that I am subject to that belief.

The next day I called him and informed him that regardless of what his own personal beliefs were, I was not of the same belief and I felt like I was still a free agent in the world of love and that he was going to have to reconcile the fact that his “wife in the eyes of God” did not want to have anything to do with him.

We never spoke again after that. It became a little awkward in trying to avoid him given the close proximity that we had to each other in our work environments. I ran into a mutual friend of ours a few years later and found out he had pretty much become a recluse.

I went about my life just fine after that. I went on to marry many more men in the eyes of God. Interestingly, I have very few rings and dresses to show for it.