‘I was celibate for 6 years to heal my sex addiction — then I married a 30-year-old virgin’

Emily Robbie was addicted to sex and then converted to celibacy (Picture: Emily Robbie/SWNS)

When Emily Robbie came out of her first serious relationship, aged just 21, she says she became ‘addicted to sex,’ relying on a string of casual hook-ups to ‘fill the void.’

But a six-year period of celibacy lead to her meeting her now husband, Tyler, who at the time, was a 30-year-old virgin waiting for marriage.

Emily says: ‘I felt I was addicted to sex It was casual and always this high. I was a sexual person.

‘But when I was with Tyler, it was genuine love, not lust.’

When Emily’s first relationship ended in 2015, Tinder had only recently launched – and she quickly found herself ‘searching for love through sex.’

‘I was having regular casual sex. I was getting into little short relationships,’ Emily, an actor living in LA, reflects, noting that she went through an eight-month period in which she engaged in three separate ‘casual’ relationships. But for her, there was something missing.

‘They’d ghost me or wouldn’t commit. I felt really empty. I loved having sex. I was filling a void.’

Emily was up-front about her journey from the beginning (Picture: Emily Robbie/SWNS)

In her last casual relationship, she was introduced to the church – and when that fling eventually ended, she decided that she wanted to explore the idea of faith further. At this point, she says she ‘gave’ herself ‘to God.’

‘When I became celibate, I really started to restructure my mind about sex,’ she says.

Upon discovering her faith, she felt an ‘overnight shift’ in her viewpoint on dating – and this ultimately opened her up to meeting her now-husband, Tyler Stone four years later in September 2020.

The pair had ‘instant chemistry’ but that didn’t mean the pair jumped into bed. Emily says: ‘You know if you’re sexually compatible with someone. You don’t have to have sex with them [to] know. There’s desire and attraction.’

She told Tyler, 33, who grew up a Christian, that she was ‘waiting until marriage’ and much to Emily’s surprise, he revealed he was doing the same. She says: ‘My instant thought was: ‘Really? He’s really attractive?’

The pair ended up dating for a year and a half before moving in together and getting married in January 2023, having connected on a ‘deep level.’ At times, they struggled to maintain their celibacy, but they ‘waited.’

Emily now believes that when you have sex with someone, you ‘become one.’ Two years after they tied the knot, they couldn’t be happier.

Emily says ‘celibacy is for everybody – not just for Christians’ (Picture: Emily Robbie/SWNS)

‘It’s a place of safety. If we’d have sex before marriage, it would have felt dysregulated,’ she says.

Taking to TikTok to share her story, Emily was labelled ‘damaged goods’ by online commentators because she’d slept with people before converting to celibacy. She says the celibacy is ‘for everybody – not just for Christians.’

‘I feel people rush sex because they want to be loved. If you wait – it’s beautiful,’ she shares.

Meanwhile, Tyler adds that he had the option to have sex beforehand, but ultimately, in the moment, he decided that it wasn’t for him.

He concludes: ‘I wanted to wait until I was in a safe place. I didn’t want to do that with anyone but my wife. She [Emily] re-waited.

‘It was hard for her to re-wait. Sex is the biggest bonus but not the reason why I’m with her.’

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