A Freebie Worthy of Deebye

[ShadowHM]

Who is not reading whose postings?  I never said that my nieces were pregnant.  What I said was that girls that are my nieces ages and Younger are getting pregnant.

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Lots of ground to cover here. Let me first apologize for not taking the time during the writing of my post to go back and re-read exactly what you said about your nieces. I was pressed for time, but that is a poor excuse in a forum structure. :blush:

Next:

it has been my experience from observing the Married couples that I see around me that have gone through messy break-ups because they never took the time to get to know one another before they got married.

Please tell my how you know this? Were you there when they met and courted? You may well be right in your assessment. But I remain puzzled as to why you mention this. I have not noticed anyone disagreeing that people should know one another well before making the life committment that is a marriage.

I have two cousins that have been married for over 30 years and now the wives have decided that they don't want to be married anymore.

Do you know what sort of effort these people have put into their marriages? Have the wives tried to work things out and hit brick walls in terms of willingness to participate in compromise? Or have the husbands? Were they hanging in 'for the sake of the children' and now feel no need to do so because the children are now adults?

One of the few things I know for sure is that one can never know all of what goes on between couples. The story is never simple.

As to your comment about Sexual Compatibility being only one of many factors, what I took your original statement to mean was that sex is the only important factor to consider, and I don't agree with that at all.

In fact, this is what I said:

A good marriage has many strong underpinnings - shared values, communication skills and a willingness to compromise being important ones. But marriages can and do founder if the sex is not good.

As to your first point about Divorce, let me ask you a question.  Why is it that people who get divorced didn't figure out that the relationship wasn't going to work before they got to the point of getting married?  I'll tell you why.  The reason that they didn't is because they weren't really communicating with each other at all.  That is why Marriage Counselors exist, to help couples that are considering getting Married work through any problems that they may have, which is the main reason that I support the idea of Pre-Marital Counseling.

People do get married for a lot of oddball reasons. Quite a lot of the time it is because it is 'the thing to do', for social reasons. Sometimes it is because that way they feel they can have sex legally. ;) I consulted no Marriage Counselors, myself, but I can see the benefit in doing so. It certainly would prevent more than a few mistakes. :)

And whose fault is it if you and your spouse don't know each other's extended families, theirs or yours?

Sometimes it is nobody's fault. That was my point. We live in a very different world than the one where our notions about marriage were developed. Sometimes extended family is on the other side of the continent or the world. We, in general, seldom live in close physical proximity to our families anymore. So the support system that families used to provide is not in place for today's nuclear families.

What is bemusing you about what I said about Dating?  All I was trying to say was that people Date for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to find someone that they can spend the rest of their lives with.  One important reason people date each other is to make friends with other people.  Do you understand what I am trying to say?

I suspect that we have a problem with definitions. When you go out with friends, that is not a date. In my lexicon, dating is part of courtship, which is why I was bemused by the notion that sex was not part of it. You were claiming that pre-marital sex was a Bad Thing™ You said: " Sex outside of Marriage is just plain wrong." I jumped in to aver that it was actually a Good Thing™. I said: Good sex needs good communication skills. But libidos differ and so do the cues that turn you 'on' in the first place. You cannot tell by mere talking about it whether you will indeed be compatible.