Posted on 03/01/2006 7:09:06 AM PST by ZGuy
We do.
In my opinion, the whole "holding off on kissing/touching" thing should end at engagement or whenever the couple has decided that yes, they are going to get married. Kissing before that decision could cloud the decision. Not kissing afterwards is just weird.
And I wouldn't make an hard and fast rule either way... some people would find holding hands to be going to far before engagement, others see nothing wrong with making out. I'm not here to judge any of them.
Living together without marriage is not a good situation for women. You give up everything; your freedom, privacy etc, and you get nothing.
I know of many older women who lived with a man and were not married. Their SO died and they were left with absolutely nothing after 10 or 20 years.
See my post above. You give up everything and get nothing.
(1)...transfer of authority from the father to the husband when a woman leaves her father's house
Heh.. I understand the ideas in the marriage vows and all that, but this idea of "authority" transfer, sounds pretty bizarre to this chick. I think if some suitor approached my dad about 'taking authority' over me, my dad would have wished him lotsaluck and sent him along, after he stopped laughing his head off. "Authority" isn't even in the vocabulary of the marriage I'm in.
(2)NO physical contact even kissing. (3)Almost no time alone.
While I can respect in principle those who wait to be very intimate... It wasn't a big barrier for me. What I would fear more about the courtship result is that you really don't learn what the person is like when they don't realize they're being evaluated. I think it sets up people spending time only on their best behavior, we're ALL on our best behavior in the beginnings of relationships, and not being alone together ever, or spending enough time alone for the pretenses to come down a little, would mean you really don't know the person... only how they act in public.
BUT... having started my own 'courtship' in the same way Jen did... online, I'll say it's a lot more intimate for the kinds of conversations that are important, than people give credit for. I might propose that those who court online in writing probably converse more and converse deeper than many couples who meet in person. So the act of courting online does make up and become part of that necessary "alone time".
Also - too many rules... that part isn't for me either. Part of it is age and part is personality. But I offer my thoughts on the subject, grist for the mill ;~D.
We are just not going to agree on that. If that were the case, my judgment would have been clouded in sixth grade, when one of my Catholic school classmates, a boy, had a boy/girl party where I first played spin the bottle. I attended several of those kinds of parties, well chaperoned of course, several times thereafter.
This notion that you see in some circles that's just neato keen to date women young enough to be your children.
It doesn't sit well with me either... It's a subject I've talked a lot about with John O.
Creepy/scary is in the eye of the creeped out and scared. I wish I could tell you differently, but yes Virginia, this does creep me out. That's just a statement of fact.
You say that as though it's a fact, when it's not. I personally doubt that it would have happened anyway. In either event I KNOW that neither of us can prove it one or the other.
Yeah, it's called a common-law marriage and in certain states, women can demand alimony if you live with them for a while and then break up.
Agreed. See #3 in the post you quoted.
Though noble in it's intent, the courtship model seems geared to eliminating the pain in finding a mate, particularly for women. Though, the pain can be minimized, for most of us, unless our first boyfriend or girl friend is THE one (I do know people for which that was true), to eliminate the pain entirely or even as much as the courtship model intends, is just not possible.
Which parts are creepy to you? We would probably find the same things creepy... I've known of people who court in a way I'd find pretty darn creepy.
Of course a number of my friends were creeped out that I wasn't planning to move in with my fiance until after I get married so creepy goes both ways apparently.
Nor I.
I want to wish you luck or at least wish you well, but I can't wish that on a woman. I know we disagree, but I'm a firm believer that May-December relationships are absolute hell on the younger party once the aged member of the relationship truly gets old.
I'm 42, and I could easily keep up with a woman of 22. However, when I'm 72 and she's 52, her life would just suck to high heaven. She'd still be young and vital, and stuck to a guy playing connect the liverspots in the mirror.
Yes, it does.
It is stealing their youth.
A woman I used to ride home with on the train from work was in a relationship like that. Her husband was really beginning to age and slow down (he was 20 years her senior), and she confessed to me that she was no longer attracted to him.
IMHO, and this isn't a hard and fast rule or anything, just an opinion, but 10 years is about the absolute limit for a healthy relationship.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.