The hidden pain of purity culture marriages
Plus three potential paths forward
Issue #7 | Publication Date: October 10th, 2025
If you grew up in a high-control religion, you were likely handed a very specific framework for how love, sex, and marriage were supposed to work.
It probably went something like this: Wait until marriage for sex. Men are the leaders. Women are the helpers. Desire is really “lust,” which is sinful and should be avoided. Marriage is the ultimate goal. So find a partner who shares your faith and get married as quickly as possible—the rest will sort itself out afterwards.
Many of us unquestioningly bought into the purity culture script. I certainly did.
But the illusion I was promised by purity culture was shattered in less than a year of saying “I do.”
Here’s the thing, purity culture marriages are extremely common among people deconverting from high‑control religions. And, over the years, I’ve heard many stories filled with pain, confusion, and heartbreak about how people are experiencing their lives inside these unions.
In today’s Religious Harm Recovery Digest, I’m attempting to name some of the most common dynamics that play out inside these marriages, how it looks when sexual and/or relational incompatibilities begin to surface, and the different paths couples might take when the purity culture script is no longer working.
What is a purity culture marriage?
A purity culture marriage is a relationship formed under teachings that link moral worth to sexual behavior, prioritize abstinence before marriage, and assign rigid gender roles.
These teachings often limit self‑discovery, queer identity development, and authentic consent.
They also train people to see marriage as the remedy for confusion or desire rather than a partnership between two whole people.
Common patterns I see in therapy and in community stories:
How incompatibility looks in purity culture marriages
Purity culture slows or blocks identity development. Many people don’t get space to fully explore their sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual preferences until after vows have already been taken.
Others only learn what turns the nervous system on or off once there’s enough safety to experiment, which many find impossible even after marriage due to years of shame-based conditioning around sex and sexuality.
Where mismatches between partners often emerge:
The outcome of chronic incompatibility
When a marriage begins with narrow, rigidly prescribed roles, both people inevitably shrink themselves to fit these confining expectations.
Men often become trapped in stoicism and control, while women learn to self-abandon and manage everyone’s emotional needs.
This imbalance can end up breeding resentment, loneliness, and uneven power dynamics in the relationship.
These roles also make it nearly impossible to build healthy communication, shared decision-making, or mutual autonomy over each partner’s body and choices.
How to address incompatibility in a purity culture marriage
When one or both partners in a purity culture marriage are experiencing any of the mismatches I described above, there are a few different paths they may take.
1. Staying but traveling the road of self-discovery alone
In this context, people often end up more like roommates than true intimate partners. There may be layers of dishonesty as one or both partners attempt to explore themselves or their sexuality in ways that feel more aligned individually but are at odds with the agreed upon structure of the relationship.
These explorations might include questioning one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual preferences, or beliefs and values privately. Or perhaps they’re exploring through online communities, therapy sessions, or even in secret relationships. Unfortunately, secretive behaviors almost always increase emotional distance, as secrecy tends to erode trust.
I’ve found that when someone is on this particular path, they feel like they have no other choice due to the life they’ve built with their partner. Children, a shared mortgage, or deeply intertwined friendships and family connections can make separation feel truly impossible.
However, even though this path may feel like the only option in the short term, it rarely benefits either partner. It typically delays inevitable confrontations rather than resolving underlying issues and reinforces feelings of isolation within the relationship.
If this is the path you’ve been on and you feel the pain of living a divided life, exploring the alternatives below may offer you a way forward that allows for greater peace and wholeness.
2. Staying but intentionally healing, renegotiating, and/or restructuring as needed
Name what is true, grieve what purity culture stole, and build new agreements. This might include sex education, trauma‑informed therapy, medical support, and gentle experiments with touch and pleasure. They retire performative purity culture scripts and co‑author a shared sexual ethic based on consent, curiosity, and care.
This path requires tremendous vulnerability from both partners. It means having conversations that may feel terrifying at first—about desire, about boundaries that were crossed, about needs that have gone unmet. It also means developing new communication skills that purity culture never taught, like how to express a genuine “no” or an enthusiastic “yes.”
They might also make significant changes to the relationship structure. This could look like renegotiating gender roles and releasing internalized beliefs around sex and sexuality. Some couples also re‑structure the relationship in ways that fit their values and identities by exploring ethical non-monogamy. The core is mutuality, informed consent, and ongoing check‑ins.
For this path to work, both partners need to be willing to question everything they were taught and build something new together. This requires patience, as unlearning harmful patterns takes time and there will be setbacks along the way.
3. Ending the marriage with compassion
Sometimes alignment isn’t possible, and in these cases, no one has to be the villain. Even without abuse or infidelity, ending can be the most generous option when staying requires self‑betrayal.
This might be necessary when fundamental incompatibilities emerge—like when one partner realizes they’re gay, or when religious differences become irreconcilable, or when the trauma responses activated by physical intimacy are too deeply ingrained to safely work through together.
What makes this path distinct from a typical divorce is the intention to honor the relationship that was, even as you acknowledge it can’t continue. It means rejecting the purity culture narrative that divorce equals failure, and instead seeing it as a courageous choice to live authentically.
This choice honors two whole people instead of forcing a story that no longer fits.
If you’re staying together
If you and your partner are in the process of staying together and want to rebuild connection, here are some ways to begin.
If you’re separating
If you don’t believe staying together is an option, here are a few things to keep in mind.
A final word about purity culture marriages
Purity culture promised that following a rigid framework would guarantee an amazing marriage. But a healthy marriage isn’t about performance. It’s about authenticity, mutual respect, and ongoing consent.
It’s important to understand that the challenges that emerge in these marriages aren’t signs of personal failure, but natural consequences of a system that prioritizes rules over human complexity.
Whether you choose to heal together, renegotiate your relationship structure, or part ways with compassion, what matters most is honoring your truth and treating yourself and your partner with dignity.
Creating a new script—one based on honest communication, equal partnership, and genuine desire—takes courage, but offers the possibility of deeper connection, whether within your marriage or beyond it.
Remember that growth often feels uncomfortable, and unpacking years of conditioning takes time, so try to be patient with yourself as you navigate this journey.
If you’d like to keep reading on the topic of purity culture, here are a few other articles I’ve written: