Posted on 09/10/2014 8:33:58 AM PDT by rhema
Despite the lack of cultural support for positive practices that help couples toward healthy marriage relationships, the good news is that individuals have control over their relationship choices.
Most young people want a happy marriage and family life. As a new report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia shows, the choices people make in their relationships prior to marriage matter. Unfortunately, the laissez-faire sexual practices embraced and promoted in our culture today don’t build a strong foundation for marriage.
According to the report, authored by Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley of the University of Denver, individuals with more sexual partners and cohabitation experience tend to report poorer marital quality, as do couples with children from prior relationships. And yet, today the average person reports five sexual partners prior to marriage. Less than one quarter (23 percent) have only had sex with the person they marry. Cohabitation is also common, with the majority of people cohabiting prior to marriage. And more than 40 percent of all children are born outside of marriage.
The pathway to marriage is a precarious one today. Sexual freedom and experimentation pervade our culture. Yet they jeopardize the outcomes that most people say they desire. An anything-goes ideology marginalizes intentional decision-making in these most important areas of marriage and sexual activity.
Sliding vs. Deciding
(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...
A friend of our family, is a 35,year old bachelor. He’s got a good job, responsible citizen, does volunteer work. But he has no desire to get married. He has a different girlfriend every time we see him. He is never alone, he always has somebody to be with. He’s introduced us to some very lovely interesting girls.
The subject of marriage came up, and he said he is just not interested. He said he has too much fun traveling with girls and being with different girls, and he doesn’t want to mess up a good thing.
In his mind, moving from girl to girl is a good thing.
This man is a responsible hard working young man, who would be a great catch to some girl. Yet he has no interest.
rhema:
If women as a group decided to wait until marriage before giving a man her body would this man still feel the same way about moving from girl to girl? I do not know what one woman can do in our culture, but if the entire female gender decided sex before marriage was bad, I am pretty sure the men would become much more interested in marriage. Just my two cents.
Divorce judges destroy guys.
I have a good friend... a confirmed bachelor who says “Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house.” That’s what it amounts to.
“This man is a responsible hard working young man, who would be a great catch to some girl. Yet he has no interest.”
I don’t blame him. The way young women comport themselves these days - why buy the cow, you know? ;)
I haven’t spoken to my wife in over three months. We’re not fighting...I just don’t like to interrupt.
So this guy is a complete slut but he would be a great catch? I don't think so....
He probably has heard one too many divorce horror stories.
As he is now, he has multiple girls competing for his attention. I can see why a 35-yo would like the status quo.
“This man is a responsible hard working young man, who would be a great catch to some girl. Yet he has no interest.”
He might not remain faithful in a marriage and he knows this. It’s debatable as to whether or not he would be a good catch. This is ONLY my humble opinion and I’m probably wrong.
PFL
Wouldn’t that result in a lot of men that don’t really want to be married, getting married just to have sex? Is that acceptable?
He probably doesn’t like the idea of getting caught.
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“He might not remain faithful in a marriage and he knows this. “ Correct! Some people are not built for marriage. If you value your children, though, the best things you can give them are a stable home and a good name.
How to be a millionaire: Start with 2 million and get married.
I agree with you. I have 3 sons. The oldest has been married and bandied the idea of he & his fiancé living together before they got married. He respected our opinion and didn’t. #2 son..smiled and said that financially it made more sense for them, she was moving in from another state..... they are getting married next May, we aren’t happy but he’s 27. #3 son, engaged, buying a house, so far the subject has not been broached. He’s getting married in December...... They just don’t see it like we do. It’s no big deal they say.
Lighten up, Francis. I’ve been married twice and it all boiled down to “I OWN you.” Don’t talk, buy me this and my car isn’t better than the one I have.Support my kids, don’t criticize them and we need more better, but don’t ask me to help. I now have a “housekeeper” and can tell her to shut up, I’m going fishing and take care of the house while I’m gone for three months. We, (the housekeeper) have been together for 20 years and that is twice as long as the other two put together.
My nephew, early 30s, would like to get married but says all the women he meets are crazy. He is thinking of forgoing marriage and adopting.
He was married briefly to a crazy liberal. She left him for a co-worker who was in his mid 50s. (they were in their late 20s at the time)
Conversely, I don't blame women for not wanting it either. It seems women (who aren't complete moonbats in their youth) grow more together with age. Men, they go altogether frikking nutty once they hit their mid 40s.
I am seventy, by the time I was 23 people thought I was a lost cause, good for nothing simply because I did not already have a wife and at least one child as was considered the norm in those days. I knew more than one young fellow back then who actually told me that he was married to someone only because, “That was the only way I could get in her pants.” By age 23 I had already had more than one young woman propose to me even though they hardly knew me, including one who was twice divorced already at 26 and literally announced to me that, “I am going to marry you”, as if I had nothing to do with the decision, apparently she thought there was no way I could turn her down, she seemed amazed that I did not jump at the chance to be her third husband but I did not marry until two days after my 28th birthday. By then I had been written off as a “confirmed bachelor”, people were stunned to learn that I, “Finally DID marry.”
Any time you want to wonder about why gay marriage has come as far as it has, think of this article. The concept of traditional marriage — where a man and woman get married in their early or mid 20s, have kids and live together until they die —has been under assault for years. As this article points out, heterosexual people just don’t value marriage anymore. They shack up, they get divorced at the drop of a dime, or they never get married in the first place.
A large number of people in this country just don’t care about marriage anymore. In some instances, its understandable and perhaps beneficial — there is some merit to living together before you get married. But in other cases, it results in getting divorced instead of trying to work problems out, and “alternative” marriages like gay marriage.
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