This topic was brought up in the HPV vaccine thread, and I wanted to get everybody's opinion on it.

I think that sex before marriage is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it, along with living together, gives couples a chance to see what their marriage might be like. Sex is a huge part of marriage, and bad sex can undermine a marriage, IMO. Plus, it helps you figure out if what you are feeling is true love or just plain lust.

I personally believe that the push to make teens abstain until marriage may actually be contributing to the high divorce rate. If people think that they have to be married to have sex, I think they might rush into a marriage because they might not know the difference between lust and love. Take my former roommate, for example. She and her boyfriend dated for 4 years before they got married. To my knowledge, they were both virgins when they married. They separated within 6 months of marrying and were officially divorced the day before their first anniversary. I really believe that the disgrace in having sex before marriage and living together (he was Mormon) contributed to the failure of their marriage. I think that if they had been allowed to see what each other was truly like, apart from dates, they wouldn't have gotten married.

Carlene - that sounds familiar! Not the delivery aspect, but one of "his jobs" (we've pretty much split household responsibilities based on what we absolutely can't stand, don't mind, and enjoy) is to pick up the mail. Any "urgent - open immediately!" messages are brought straight to me, because he's afraid it's a late bill.

Why? Because ONE TIME we had one bill that was 9 days late. :faint:

I have everything set up on automated payments through our online banking. I don't actually have a manual process of paying bills. Once I came across one of those "get our card and save 30% off and get free delivery" deals, so I did it. And paid it off right there, but - I don't remember the details of what happened - somehow I ended up owing exactly $3 more than what I paid. So the combination of being spoiled by auto bill pay, and not expecting to get a bill from this place anyway, resulted in -- well, completely forgetting about it. So when they did send the bill, I assumed it was junk and trashed it w/o opening. And then they sent a late notice and I trashed it also - more junk mail. Then we got the courtesy call and uh-oh, better go pay our $3!

DH freaked. He only has a loose idea of how most things here work (remebner - he's from another country). So he heard the voice message that our payment was late and truly believed our credit rating was instantly trashed and we would never be able to qualify for a loan again.

I explained it to him, but he still has this sort of worrisome fear about it. So anytime mail comes in that's "urgent", or if an envelope contains a colored piece of paper (the late notice I trashed had green paper instead of white) he tends to overreact.

My biggest fear - and I'm sure this is quote normal, is that I will be a bad parent.

Wheetsin...

I am the quintessential "Earth Mother", I guess. Growing up, I loved babies....couldn't wait to get married and have a whole bunch of them. That did not make me a good parent, however. And sometimes, I wasn't. Like everyone else, there were times when I definitely was not in the running for Mother of the Year.

I have noticed that many times, the people who WANT children are not necessarily people who SHOULD be having them. They have one, don't parent it very well, and instead of stopping, they have MORE. That doesn't mean they don't love them. My daughter has 3 children. She loves them more than her own life, but she is not good at parenting them...because she is not good at acting responsibly. You, on the other hand, seem to be very responsible. Very reliable. And that counts for a lot. Your children will grow up feeling secure - knowing that they can count on you. Knowing that if school is out at 3:00, they won't still be standing by the flagpole at 3:30, wondering where you are and when you - IF you - will show up to collect them.

One of the best mothers I know has just one child - a son whom they adopted as an infant. She put off having children until she was almost 40, then found that she was unable to conceive. Carol wasn't sure she would be a good mom, either. The first thing she lined up was a reliable babysitter. She did not want to feel overwhelmed by a crying, demanding, infant. But when the time came to hand him over, it was much harder than she had anticipated. She called the sitter a LOT. Just to check on Christopher.

Christopher is 23 years old now and his mom is VERY glad she made the decision to be a parent. And she's looking forward to being a grandmother.

Knowing that if school is out at 3:00, they won't still be standing by the flagpole at 3:30, wondering where you are and when you - IF you - will show up to collect them.

This reminds me of me. It wasn't unusual for me to be hanging around the school at 4:00 or 4:40 (let out at 2:45) when I was in elementary school. I understood, though. My mom ran my dad's clinic, so there were times she couldn't leave on time. That was one reason I always carried at least one book with me at all times. I never knew when I would be left with nothing to do for a couple of hours.

One concept that I think should be done more often is waiting to have children. My parents were much older than the average new parents (at least in the late '70s and early '80s) when they had my brother and me. My mom was 34 when she had my brother and 39 when she had be. I think we were much better off and better adjusted than the five kids one of my highschool classmates popped out before she was 22. Seriously, I remember seeing her first baby at the end of our freshman year, and I saw her in Wal-Mart a year or so ago with four more surrounding her.

One concept that I think should be done more often is waiting to have children.

Wow, do I agree with this. People really do grow up later these days, and so many people in their 20s are just not equipped to be good parents. I'm really glad I waited until my late 30s to have kids, even though being an "older" parent is challenging sometimes. But I'd much rather be an older, better parent than a younger, trapped one. (Which is what I could easily have been if I'd had a child with my first husband--trapped.)

One concept that I think should be done more often is waiting to have children.

:clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

Growing up I was the only one of my friends whose parents were still married. DH and I talked about the kids thing before we were married. Even though we didn't want them at the time, we agreed that IF we ever did, we would not have them right away. We both believe it's very important to establish yourselves as a couple and to know your husband and wife identity before you have to bring in the new identity of mother and father.

That's part of why, even though we knew we eventually wanted to have a child a handful of years ago, we haven't done it yet. Part of it (my obesity was another part). I know everyone says "there's no perfect time to have kids, you can never wait until you're ready" but I never believed that, and it wasn't true for us.

In a way I now wish I had done everything sooner - but the regret is weak because I KNOW that I wasn't ready to have a child before. There's no way DH and I were mature enough, or responsible enough. Jobs, careers, income, etc. aside, mentally - and in our relationsip - we weren't mature enough.

It's amazing how much things can change in a year.

As far as the marriage/decision part of this discussion goes, I think we are all saying the same thing, just viewing it from a different perspective. We all agree that no one can get their own way always, that compromise is the key to respectful resolutions, but that sometime we have to bend to the person with the most knowledge or expertise in the area being discussed. That is what happens in a truly Christian marriage or any successful marriage or partnership. We may all call it something different, but it is really the same thing. Those of you not coming from a Christian perspective have a beautiful way of describing your working relationship with your spouses, but it sounds exactly like how my husband and I handle things. We are not so different, after all....!

Ah *puts hand up* - Eliza started kindergarten a week or two ago, the schedule has been a bit mad as they're easing the kids into it. Dont they realise 3rd kids are raring to go? Anyway, it finished at midday on Monday, at 12.15 my phone rang, "ah, Jacqui? We've finished, where are you". It was the kinder teacher, lol.

No mother of the year award for me either I guess.

I guess the big difference is that some of us come from a place of working these things out between ourselves, using our own inelligence and rationale. Others of us rely on our churches to guide us in following the path to successful marriages as set out for us in the Bible. Thankfully it sounds like most of the churches represented here do not use Bible passages to keep women barefoot and pregnant, figuratively speaking. Thank the Lord for that!

Jachut: Not to worry... you'll have lots and lots of time to establish yourself as the mother of the year!

It takes a while to get into a routine and I'll bet every mother of the year has a slip up from time to time!

I'll never forget my first speeding ticket. We had just moved to Arizona, enrolled my 1st grader and was trying to get the house all set up and organized. I got the dreaded phone call, raced to get him and the friendly gendarme slapped me with a reality check. It only takes a time or two to get it all working smoothly!

I don't have a lot of time today to get into this, but I had a feeling a lot of what I said would be misinterpreted so I wanted to clarify based on the responses I've seen.

Just like all of yours', our marriage is also a partnership. We do each have our own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I was a math minor in college and he doesn't have good math skills, so it would be patently idiotic for me to expect him to take care of the bills. If he desperately wanted to, I would certainly take the time to teach him to do so. But he doesn't, so I take care of them. It works this way for a lot of things in our marriage. He doesn't rule over me with an Iron fist, and I don't use my feminine wiles to influence him. I do, however, respect his opinions greatly and if he wishes me to do or not do something, I will comply. We always, always, always present a unified "front" to our children -- if we disagree about how to discipline or attack a problem, we will discuss it together until we reach a conclusion. Any of you who have "know" me from this board certainly can't think I am a weak-willed doormat!

Sorry, but I think this is nonsense. Your happiness is never someone else's responsibility. Nor is it possible to "fix" another's unhappiness. You are responsible for your own happiness.

I was explaining his perspective. And I meant unhappy in the marriage -- not unhappy as a person.