Do you care about your significant other's sexual past?

[Esquilax]

Well it is possible to love someone very much without having had sex with them though. If I love someone very very much, to the point where I am about to commit myself and my life to him, and we decided to have sex right before we got engaged, I wouldn't leave him if the sex wasn't great (especially since such a thing can be improved, but that's another point) . I already love him at that point. Likewise, I wouldn't leave my husband if he, for whatever reason, was unable to have sex anymore. I don't really see the difference between the 2 scenarios.

Whew, missed this thread for a few days.

You're right, of course, that you can love somebody without having sex with them, but if your marriage is going to contain sex (and some don't, if one or more of the participants is asexual) then it's still a component of the marriage, and one that deserves to be dealt with. It, and the emotional, relationship building things that go along with it, aren't trivial, they are going to have knock on effects in the marriage like any other part of it, so I don't see why it should be treated as this separate, irrelevant thing. It might not be essential to the marriage, but if it exists within it then it's a very relevant factor. It's like if you'd only ventured into your husband's living space on the day of the marriage, and you discover that he runs a secret dog fighting ring out of the basement; you'd just be fooling yourself if you think that wouldn't have an effect. This isn't about a love/not love binary, it's about the way individual aspects of life as a couple affect your overall relationship.

You can still love someone and be negatively impacted by choices that one or both of you make within your marriage.

I don't' think you quite understand. There are things that you cannot enjoy the other person doing if it makes them uncomfortable. BDSM isn't like the candy-coated spanking shit perpetuated by 50 Shades.

The next chapter of 50 Shades I have to recap is the one with the first sex scene in it. I dread it like I'd dread a root canal.