If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance someone in your life has told you that chastity is important. Maybe a parent, a priest, a youth group leader. And there’s an equally good chance you walked away thinking chastity was mostly about saying no.

I get it. That’s the message most of us received. Chastity was the long list of don’ts before marriage–no sex, no touching, no going too far. One long “no.”

But what if I told you that chastity isn’t about what you’re saying no to? It’s about what you’re saying yes to.

Chastity Is Freedom, Not a Cage

St. John Paul II wrote something that changed how I understand love entirely. He said that only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love–because chastity frees their relationship from the tendency to use another person. It introduces “a special disposition to loving kindness.”

Read that again. Chastity doesn’t limit your ability to love. It frees it.

The Catechism describes it this way: chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person–the inner unity of body and soul (CCC 2337). It’s not about pushing desire underground and hoping it never surfaces. That’s repression, and repression always explodes eventually. Chastity is about ordering your desires toward the true good of the person in front of you.

I worked with a man–let’s call him Nate–who told me chastity felt impossible. He’d been physically active in every relationship he’d ever had, and each one had ended painfully. When I asked him what he was actually looking for, he got quiet and said, “I just want someone who stays.” The irony was devastating. Every physical shortcut he’d taken had undermined the very foundation he was trying to build.

Where Friendship Meets Love

Here’s where most people miss the connection: chastity and friendship are deeply intertwined. The Catechism says it directly–“The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship” (CCC 2347).

Think about your closest friendships. They’re built on trust, honesty, vulnerability, and genuine care for the other person’s good. That’s exactly what romantic love is supposed to be built on too. But when we skip friendship and lead with physical or emotional intensity, we bypass the very skills we’ll need most in marriage.

Pope Francis put it beautifully when he wrote that the love of friendship perceives and esteems the great worth of another person. When we appreciate someone’s beauty–not just their appearance but their whole person–without needing to possess it, we’re practicing the kind of love that lasts.

Emotional attraction and physical attraction are so interconnected that they’re nearly impossible to separate. Where your heart goes, your body wants to follow. So if you want physical integrity, you have to start with emotional integrity. Are you being honest about what you feel? Are you using emotional intimacy as a substitute for the real commitment the other person deserves? Are you letting someone bond with you at a depth that your actual commitment doesn’t justify?

These are hard questions. They’re also necessary ones.

Self-Mastery Is the Foundation of Self-Gift

Love, at its core, is a decision to will the good of another person (CCC 1766). St. John Paul II added that it’s a sincere gift of oneself. But you can’t give what you don’t possess. And if you can’t say no to your appetites, your yes doesn’t mean much.

Self-mastery isn’t rigidity. It’s the discipline that makes generosity possible. A person who has practiced self-control in small things–delaying gratification, holding their tongue, choosing discomfort for someone else’s good–has developed the muscle they’ll need for the heavy lifting of married love.

Both Mike and I learned this truth the hard way. In our first marriages, we hadn’t done the interior work. We hadn’t built the habits of self-giving that marriage demands. We thought chemistry was enough. We were wrong. But God is faithful, and He meets us in our brokenness when we’re willing to start again.

The Fruits of the Struggle

Chastity practiced now–in singleness, in dating–trains you for faithfulness in marriage. It teaches you to be intimate without using. To be close without consuming. To wait to receive the other person as a gift, not seize them as a possession.

And the fruit is real: deeper trust, genuine freedom, spiritual communion, and the kind of intimacy that physical shortcuts can never produce.

Your Next Step

This week, ask yourself: Am I treating the people I date as persons to love, or experiences to have? Where am I substituting intensity for actual intimacy?

Choose one area of self-mastery to practice this week–even something small. Because the discipline you build now is the foundation your future marriage will stand on.

Your wounds aren’t disqualifiers. They’re teachers. And every step toward self-mastery is a step toward the love you’re longing for.

In Him,

Katie

Katie Palitto is a relationship & dating coach @Finding Adam Finding Eve ministry and co-creator of the Game of Love app.