For a generation raised on the hyper-speed of Tinder swipes and “situationships,” the concept of a wedding night being a literal first night feels almost like a plot point from a period drama. But for Abby Howard, one half of the powerhouse influencer duo Matt & Abby, this wasn’t a Victorian trope; it was her actual life.
In a digital landscape where oversharing is the currency and “purity culture” is often viewed through a lens of trauma or regret, Abby recently pulled back the curtain on a deeply personal chapter of her marriage. On an April 2026 episode of her podcast, Always Here, Abby sat down with her sister-in-law to dismantle the myths surrounding abstinence.
But this wasn’t a lecture from a pulpit; it was a raw, conversational, and surprisingly sunny look at what happens when you save the most intimate part of yourself for a lifelong commitment.
The Myth of the “Awkward” First Time
If you’ve spent any time on the “snark” threads of Reddit or followed the Howards’ rise to fame since their 2019 wedding, you’ve likely seen the skepticism. The common narrative suggests that waiting until marriage is a recipe for disaster… a cocktail of sexual incompatibility, crushing pressure, and inevitable disappointment.
Abby, now 27 and expecting her fourth child (a “rainbow baby” following the heartbreaking loss of her daughter, Emerson Nicole, last year), wants to set the record straight.
“I feel like there is so much messaging that is so negative toward waiting ’til the night,” she shared during the podcast. “Like, ‘It’s going to be so awkward, it’s going to be so embarrassing, it’s going to be terrible.’ I just think that’s not true.”
According to Abby, the reality was far from the cringe-inducing disaster critics predicted. She described their first night as “beautifully intimate” and “wholesome.” Her reasoning? The foundation was already there.
When you’ve been “your person” for years, Abby and Matt met as teenagers during a local production of Mary Poppins in 2013, the physical act isn’t a high-stakes performance for a stranger. It’s a continuation of a story already hundreds of chapters deep.
A Timeline of Intentionality Beyond the Screen
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To understand why this choice worked for the Howards, you have to look at the math of their relationship. They didn’t just stumble into marriage; they built a fortress around it.
2013: Met as teenagers in St. Louis.
2016: Began dating while navigating the hurdles of long-distance.
2018: Matt proposed after they both transitioned to Missouri State University.
2019: Wed at ages 20 and 21.
While critics often point to their young ages as a sign of “stunted maturity,” there’s a data-backed counter-argument to be made. According to a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, couples who delay sexual intimacy until later in their relationship, or until marriage, report higher levels of relationship satisfaction and better communication quality in the long run.
For Matt and Abby, the lack of “sexual baggage” meant they weren’t comparing each other to past ghosts. They were learning a new language together, from scratch.
Is Abstinence Actually an Edge?
Here is where the conversation gets spicy. In a world that champions sexual “test driving” to ensure compatibility, the Abby and Matt Howard are living proof of a different philosophy: Sexual compatibility isn’t something you find; it’s something you create.
The modern dating era is obsessed with the “spark,” that immediate, biological click. But there is a growing, quiet movement of researchers suggesting that the “test drive” model might actually be backfiring. When we treat physical intimacy as a prerequisite for commitment, we often overlook red flags in character because the chemistry is “good.”
By removing sex from the equation during their formative years, Matt and Abby were forced to develop what psychologists call non-sexual intimacy. They had to talk. They had to fight and resolve. They had to figure out if they actually liked each other at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday when there was no physical distraction to paper over the cracks.
The contrarian take? Maybe the “awkwardness” of the first time isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. By embracing the learning curve together, they turned a potentially stressful milestone into a bonding exercise that reinforced their “us against the world” mentality.
The Weight of the “Purity” Brand
Of course, being the poster couple for “waiting” comes with its own set of heavy luggage. The Howards have built a massive brand on their relationship, and with that comes a level of scrutiny that would break most people.
They’ve faced accusations of being “performative” and have been the subject of endless debates regarding their religious upbringing and its influence on their content. Yet, Abby’s recent openness suggests she’s less interested in being a “purity culture” icon and more interested in being a human being who made a choice that worked for her.
Their journey hasn’t been all sunshine and sonograms. The loss of their daughter, Emerson, in September 2025, pushed them into what Matt described as “building a brand-new marriage.” They went to therapy. They cried. They got a puppy. They did the hard, unglamorous work of grieving in the public eye.
When Abby speaks about their wedding night now, she isn’t doing it to brag. She’s doing it to offer a counter-narrative to the “sex-positivity” movement that occasionally becomes so prescriptive it forgets that not having sex is also a valid, and sometimes beautiful, sexual choice.
A New Chapter
As they prepare to welcome their fourth child, the Howards seem to be entering a more mature era of their digital lives. The “clickbait” energy of their early YouTube days is slowly being replaced by deeper, more nuanced conversations about grief, recovery, and the long game of marriage.
Abby’s message to her audience wasn’t that everyone should wait, but rather that waiting doesn’t have to be the “terrible” experience society warns us about.
“It doesn’t look like the movies,” Abby admitted, “because it’s so much better than that. It’s uniquely special because it’s just yours.”
In a world where everything is for sale and every “first” is documented for the ‘gram, perhaps the most radical thing Abby Howard ever did was keep one small, “wholesome” piece of herself private… until she was ready to tell the story on her own terms.