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after we became engaged,” she paused to take a sip of wine. “I thought we were both on the same page with trying to live better lives before God but obviously not! Ugh!” Michelle said, exasperated.
    “Hold on, wait!” Tammy interrupted. “Now you know that you can’t give dude the cookie before you get engaged and then just decide to take it away,” Tammy said giggling. “I mean, seriously. You can’t blame him too much for getting upset about that. Here you were, having sex with him, get engaged to marry, then you snatch the cookie away as if you were using it as bait. Guys love sex, honey, and they generally feel like they’re moving backwards if you’re taking it away, even if you’re about to get married.” Tammy snapped her fingers to solidify her point.
    Raegan’s stomach twisted into knots at Tammy’s reasoning because of how she’d let herself go with Rico. She was already feeling guilty enough about what happened between the two of them and now her friend was sitting here saying there was no going back. But Tammy wasn’t Rico , she thought.
    Echoing Raegan’s thoughts, Michelle sat up straight on the couch and interjected, “Well hold on for a second now. So you’re saying that if a woman slips up and says yes once, twice or lots of times, then she can’t ever say no? What if she decides that it’s wrong and she wants to do the right thing by waiting until marriage? Then what?”
    “A woman is certainly allowed to say no whenever she wants but you should understand that a guy may feel like he’s moving backwards and that usually doesn’t end well unless he agrees that the sex should wait until marriage,” Tammy said to clarify her point.
    “Can it really be serious enough to throw our relationship away?” Michelle asked as her eyes began to water, becoming frustrated again.
    “I’m sorry honey, but I don’t make the rules. If you want to wait until you get married, you can’t give it up at all,” Tammy said as she moved over to sit next to Michelle. She could see that her words were really getting to her. Tammy rubbed Michelle’s back as the tears fell. Tammy continued, “Guys are like this. They simply want the cookies. If we give them up, they are going to expect to keep getting them. To them, they are receiving mixed signals if we give it up and then take it away. I know it’s hard to wait, but you have to make a choice. We’ve all had this conversation before. We want God’s blessings on our marriage whenever we get married, so we are trying to hold on to the cookies until then. Establish the boundaries up front and stick to them like our girl Rae over here,” she said as she winked at Rae.
    Rae avoided making eye contact with any of them at that moment because she wasn’t sticking to her guns these days. Instead, she repositioned herself in the chair to help alleviate the awkwardness she felt in that moment.
    “I understand all of that, but I felt like we had a connection. Another reason why I wanted to stop having sex is because I didn’t want to pretend like I was already his wife. He was receiving too many marital benefits without us yet having tied the knot. I was cooking for him, laundering his clothes and rolling around in the bed with him at night. I was just beginning to feel like we were doing too much. The pastor confirmed my feelings during our pre-marital counseling session when he stated that we were putting marital pressures on our relationship by living together and acting like we were married,” Michelle explained.
    “Wow. I like the way he expressed that. That’s good info right there,” Kensi chimed in. It made her think of some of her own failed relationships. Although she had never lived with anyone, she had played the role of a wife.
    “Yeah, so marriage counseling helped bring out a lot of sore spots in our relationship. We broke up after that particular session. We just felt like we didn’t have what it took to make a marriage work. We