Okay I've never understood this thing. Or, rather, I understand it less and less as time goes on.
Remember that story where the men bring the woman before Jesus and they're like "we caught her in the middle of adultery!" Never mind that there would have had to be a man in the process too but they left him alone. So Jesus starts drawing all their sins in the dust and says "he without sin can cast the first stone." One by one, everybody sees Jesus write their sins in the dust so they leave. Then Jesus tells the woman to go and be free or whatever.
Ostensibly, it seems like the don't do adultery thing (which we've arbitrarily defined as sex before marriage) is about not lusting after anyone but your spouse. Cool, but the lust happens long before sex ever is performed. So why draw the line at sex?
There are some verses which indicate it's about keeping a couple from getting attached and then tearing apart from each other, having wounds which will never fully heal. But that attachment can happen without the sex ingredient. I've had my heart broken and I've broken the hearts of plenty of people who I didn't have sex with. So why draw the line at sex?
It seems like the real issue here is children. Well not the real issue, but the next thing to worry about after avoiding lust. Except the children problem is essentially solved.
I don't want to make light of the situation you went through. That's tragic. But it's almost entirely avoidable.
That's a perfectly valid experience and I believe it's true for many people. On the other hand, I've known kids whose parents forced them to be vegan and they felt so ashamed to have to carry that flag in public, explain to their friends why they couldn't eat meat. And then they felt betrayed once they finally did get to try meat, like they had been deprived all of their short little lives so far.
It seems impossible to predict which direction a given person will lean, and I don't know how to reconcile that.
