BEING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND...

 BEING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND...

Have you ever had that terrible feeling at a wedding that you need to leave before the bride throws the bouquet - at you? (Men may feel this way about the garter being thrown at them!) It's happened to me. I was on my way out when the bride yelled my name and threw! How embarrassing. Especially because I had told this friend more than once that I had NO INTEREST IN GETTING MARRIED. Everyone in the place looked to find me! I suppose it's just silliness but for some it's superstition! And for some it's one of the many pagan - fertility enhancing - mini-rituals in the Western wedding tradition, along with throwing rice, confetti, popcorn, or bird seed at the bride and groom so they will soon be pregnant. In an overpopulated world fertility rituals should be the personal endeaver of the proven infertile. (Instead we should have a ritual that will prevent conception until we are ready to be parents.) 

Sister

(First posted October 21, 2011)

 

70 YEAR OLD VIRGIN AND CABARET SINGER PAM SHAW THINKS SHE'D LIKE TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

 70 YEAR OLD VIRGIN AND CABARET SINGER PAM SHAW THINKS SHE'D LIKE TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

What a fun article and a fun lady! Pam Shaw has been busy with her sexy cabaret act but is (still) a virgin! Pam Shaw was always too busy with her cabaret singing career to find herself a man. And, as she is against sex before marriage, a casual fling was out of the question.It's all a world away from her onstage person as The Sexational Pam, with her daring outfits having turned many a head during her years on Britain's club circuit.But, as she told the Sun, she's not looking for just any old man. She said:'Now's the time. I'm ready to take the plunge for the right bloke. 'My standards are still very high, though. I'm hoping to bag a tall, dark and handsome millionaire..." 

HUFFINGTONPOST UK 70 YEAR OLD VIRGIN PAM SHAW

(First posted May 11, 2012)

ABORTION IS NASTY BUSINESS - SO IS CHILD BIRTH! BIOLOGY SHOULD NOT BE DESTINY : SISTER SPEAKS

It's funny, but when I was a teen, a teacher who was educating her students about debate had us pick a topic and take a side. It didn't have to be the side we were on, but a side.  My best friend in the class took pro-abortion and I went against. She was a genius and more sophisticated about women's liberation - feminism - at that point in our lives.She had the voice of authority while I simply said Abortion is wrong because it is wrong and it is gross.

Now, we are in the complete opposite corners.

She used to say she hated babies, but then maybe that was because after school she had to take care of her little sister who had come as a surprise in her parent's dying marriage.  She also made more money per hour taking care of children for a single mother who had to work than I did working as a cashier and seemed to be upset that the father of these children provided no support even though he had been married to the woman. As an adult, my old friend has been married and the mother of four for some time and rarely has a moment for our friendship. She's become a religious person and no doubt thinks women like me are sinners. You could say that she is no longer a feminist.

I remember as a teen going against abortion because it was and is nasty. At the time there was no abortion pill and young women in my high school seemed to be getting pregnant with ease also because they had no contraception and the young men were also as foolish.  Some had their babies and quit school, with some promise that they could go on living with parents who helped them. Some parents demanded the baby be born and be put up for adoption elsewhere or sent their daughter out of state to do the same. Some parents took their daughter to another state where she could get an abortion that was beyond the three month point.  One pitiful girl took herself to New York for the same reason, the waiting time about her having to earn the money to pay for it and to travel.  I can only think of how lonely and frightened she must have been.

My classmates were without parents who told them about sex or contraception and some of them seemed to use abortion instead of contraception. All of this scared the hell out of me and I was determined to avoid sex.

I saw pictures of aborted fetus including cut up ones in a pan.  Still grosses me out.  I could never ever work in nursing or any profession that requires gross. I could barely dissect a worm in biology class. I would not be able to eat meat if I had to hunt or slaughter. I admit it. 

What I was NOT well educated on was how dangerous, painful, life-threatening, and otherwise icky childbirth is. During the teenage debate my friend said "All surgeries are gross." She was right.

Nothing unites us with the animal mammal kingdom than the realities of childbirth. It's an experience I never wanted to have, an experience I feared, even if just about every woman I knew growing up had gone through it.  I wasn't sure I'd become an NM but I was sure I wasn't interested in having children.  This has been interpreted as my hating children but I do not hate children.  It's just that I'm not gooey about children.  I don't think they are all cute. I also think they deserve and need a whole lot more than most get.  (Although encounters with the spoiled brats leaves me thinking that some are demanding and unappreciative and too precious.)

I read on a blog recently a young mother complaining about how painful and damaged her nipples were from  breast-feeding and the frustration of having a baby who was not gaining weight despite all her trials of attempting to feed it.  Further she'd had a traumatic birth and was becoming an advocate for other women. She said the birth was so traumatic (she meant horrible) that it changed her consciousness. 

Nature designed women to bear this trauma and all else until we die.  A very small percentage of women made it to ever go through a menopause. I had sympathy for young woman but I also hoped she would realize she is no 'natural mother' and make sure she had ended the possibility that she would put herself through this again.

The great number of women leaving their children orphaned; that was an initial reason why some contraception advocates were active a century ago.  Even spacing children so that a woman could potentially recover from a birth and feed her latest infant became controversial.  All of it - including death - were supposed to be 'natural' meaning fateful.  Biology was to be our destiny. I knew I didn't want it to be mine.

Though much of European history, women who were without a husband trying to have a child on their own or because they were widowed were almost forced to marry someone else quickly or become prostitutes or sometimes went to a "work house." In other cultures a man could have more than one wife, so long as he could afford them all.

Contraception, including sterilization and legal abortion changed that. If a person is willing to use these.  If a person is able to get health services.  If a person is able to get a legal abortion, which is the safer alternative to other methods.  If only...

What Anti-Abortion advocates do not care about is the MOTHER. Quite possibly the MOTHER OF OTHER CHILDREN ALREADY. Quite possibly someone who cannot have a relationship without being sexually active but who cannot herself or with a partner afford to raise a child. What about women who are abused but stay in relationships because they can't afford to raise their children alone?

Why is our government making CHILDBEARING regardless of a woman's self determination MANDITORY?  Aren't there already enough people on earth?

This is why I became PRO-CHOICE and still am.

C 2022 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot

 

THE REASON YOU ARE NOT MARRIED?

 YOU DON'T WANT TO BE!

SOPHIE TANNER MARRIED HERSELF IN A UNITARIAN SERVICE - SOLOGAMIST SAYS THE COMMITMENT DIDN'T HURT ANYONE ELSE

DAILY MAIL FEMALE : SOPHIE TURNER MARRIED HERSELF

It's an interesting story and the article by Latoya Gayle is loaded with photos from the wedding.  Basically after being cheated upon, Sophie, who is now 42, decided not just to be committed to herself but actually have a wedding.  She had the church, the minister, the dresses.

EXCERPTS:

SOPHIE SAID SHE STOPPED EXPLAINING WHY SHE HASN'T SETTLED DOWN and FOUND EMPOWERMENT IN THE SIX YEAR SINCE HER WEDDING.

Before her ceremony she had relationships of varying lengths but had a tendency to put her partner's need before her own and was frequently cheated on.  She added that the experiences made her question if there was something 'wrong' with her.

...

The self-declared "sologamist' said self love has never been more important than in the last year.

She added: 'The enforced isolation that lockdown has brought on us this past year has meant that self care and self love have become less of a fad and more of a priority.  Personally, I've had to dig deeper into my reserves of self-love than ever before, and the experience has been humbling.

I CRY AT WEDDINGS - LABELEING YOURSELF NMNK

The other day I was reading a British publication - celebrity driven - and to get to the point here, the writer of an article basically said that the fact that Prince Albert II of Monaco's bride, Charlene, appeared to be holding back tears at her wedding proved she didn't want to go through with it and was regretting it already. Well, I thought that was ridiculous. I thought about how I am often stirred with emotion at weddings and shed some tears and how tears of happiness or feeling overwhelmed can be mistaken for tears of sadness or fear or regret. I imagine I would cry at my own wedding (though I have never had one.)

Yes, even though I personally have not married and don't think I ever will, I have been known to cry at weddings, even of weddings depicted in fictive films or on television. I'm capable of having empathy for someone else's happiness - or sadness.

I recently watched the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and enjoyed the humor.

Apparently in Britain one can attend a lot of weddings in a season, one after another.  I enjoyed that attending weddings - the whole business of it - was depicted as boring and also that some wedding guests do NOT mind their manners.

I suppose the theme of the film is that even though weddings themselves can be awful and finding the right person to marry can be awful it happens all the time.

In real life I think that the idea that everyone gets married - that everyone finds love - is omnipresent. You can love and be loved in many ways and not live with someone or marry them. You can also make a commitment and find yourself in an experience where you can not or should not go forwards. Yet there are many people who might want to marry who never get the chance to for various reasons starting with:

DISABILITY : Sorry to say but mental illness and many other disabilities prevent some people from being economically viable or being a partner. 

LOOKS  (Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder but there are also trends. Cosmetic surgery wouldn't be as big as it is if it were not for the fact that people don't want their looks to stand in the way of their success. For most people the expense of it makes it not an option) 

RELIGIOUS VOWS : While it seems that there are far fewer people joining priesthoods and nunneries that require celibacies, more people are taking celibacy as an option due to their own spiritual explorations, or as a "time out" after a break up or dating hell.

LACK OF OPPORTUNITY :  A person may live in a place where there are few options or the girl or boy next door is already taken. Long gone is the village mentality that matchmakes widows and widowers or where everyone has to be married in order to exist. The matchmaker used to be an option and now it's using the internet to meet people.

*****

The main reason I cry at real weddings is that I see the chance taking involved, the idealism and the hope for a good and happy life that the couple are making. This is especially the case because we all know the rate of success, if we think of it in terms of the vows of "till death" that so many marriages are NOT successful. If we count long term relationships in which people do or do not live together without having a wedding or a legal marriage, we all know people who have been "married" many times. I've worked with or had friends who have had three to five long term relationships and have basically never in adult life been without a partner.  I consider some of them to be OVERMARRIED.

As a result of all this, it's difficult to DEFINE who is NMNK! 

Do I consider someone who marries for the first time at 38 and, in the last moments of their fertility has a child, NMNK?  Not any more, but I did before.

Someone who was long married but childless, has been divorced for a decade and has not re-partnered?  Probably.

Ultimately a person should APPPLY the NMNK to THEMSLEVES, rather than on others.

The label has a lot to do with you NOW.

For me, no "spinster's prayer" to find a husband. No dating clubs or meet ups. I have never worn a wedding band to tell the world I'm not available. 

Am I capable of falling in love?  If the past counts, apparently so. 

C 2021 Never Married No Kids BlogSpot

PAUL DOLAN's BOOK HAPPY EVERY AFTER SAYS WOMEN ARE HAPPIER NOT MARRIED

VOX : MARRIED WOMEN MISERABLE? DON'T BELIEVE IT

EXCERPT:  Women should be wary of marriage - because while married women say they're happy, they're lying.  According to behavioral scientist Paul Dolan promoting his recently released book HAPPY EVER AFTER, they'll; be much happier if they steer clear of marriage and children entirely.

"Married people are happier than other population subgroups,but only when their spouse is in the room when they're asked how happy they are.  When the spouse is not present" f***ing miserable." Dolan said, citing the AMERICAN TIME USE SURVEY, a national survey available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and used for academic research on how Americans live their lives.

S IS FOR SINGLE

Be proud to be SINGLE with no sense of SHAME !

Keep a crummy marriage? Now that's INSANE!

I first posted this in 2009!

WOOPS...DID I MISS CHRISTMAS? MARRIED PEOPLE WHO FEEL ALONE IN THEIR MARRIAGES

I certainly missed POSTING for Christmas.  The Holidays. 

So I have to admit to you, I've been feeling a bit alone, maybe not to the point of being lonely, and certainly not to the point where I thought "Gee it's all my fault that I didn't get married and have children."

Well, I had to be reminded that being married doesn't mean you never experience loneliness.  In fact it's probably awful to be MARRIED and feel ALONE IN THE MARRIAGE.

Before I could feeling sorry for myself,  I realized my two newest friends are in need of a person like me to go places with them because their partners (one in a same-sex marriage) are so busy with work and other friends and activities that do not include them.  Not that they would stop their partners from having friends or activities that they aren't interested in, but both of them admitted to me that they spent many hours alone.

My friend in the same sex marriage has been with his husband, the income earner, for 20 years.  He helped raise the man's daughter, now grown, being the one who drove her and picked her up for school and other activities.  His partner is a professional who seems to always take on more in his profession.  Sometimes, in order to spend time together, he goes on rides to this man's meetings, then finds something to do like go shopping while he's in there.  He has been like a traditional stay at home wife, making a beautiful home and so on for them so that the professional really only has to come home.  I encouraged him to speak up and say they need more quality time together, but he will not.  He says usually he likes all the alone time he has.

My friend in the opposite sex marriage married a man who she knew as a coworker for 35 years, someone who was married for 20 of that to someone else.  He's a man who lives up in his head and is rather uncommunicative overall.  I see how she always goes to him and tells him she loves him before she leaves the house.  I know they most often sleep alone for practical reasons.  Their house is rather quiet and she says she is not much of a talker - but she is with me.
One day I got a text from her saying that someone she feels alone in the world.

Neither relationship is likely to end in divorce. These people have accepted the limitation of their partnerships. 

As I must too.

Because when the partner actually wants to spend some of that quality time, one way or another I will be cancelled upon or put on hold.  I understand it.  I do.  So far I haven't been offended. 

Yet, it is also nice to have other unpartnered friends who won't do that to me.

C 2018  Never Married No Kids BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved.

WHAT IF MEGHAN and HARRY NEVER HAVE CHILDREN?

Although I think Meghan and Harry, The Duchess and Duke of Sussex, want to have children, it's not lost on me that at 37, the Duchess might not surprise us if she doesn't become pregnant right away.  Their lives are full and they are united in their desire to make positive impact on the world.

Already I'm readying speculative stories about the names of their children and other assumptions.  You know what they say abut assumptions!  They make an as* out of you and me.  So, WHY DOES ANY ASPECT OF THE MEDIA PUT PRESSURE ON THIS COUPLE to procreate?

BECAUSE IT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE to put pressure on any couple to do so, and the pressure starts in some cases before a couple marries.  Grandmothers to be a big problem with this.  When a woman get's pregnant and is not married, some grandmothers tell their daughters it is time to GIVE THEM a grandchild.  Sometimes these women are bored and eagerly wish to raise the child.  Some just say this trying to prevent an abortion of an unplanned for child.

I say let's get the pressure of the royal couple and off everyone.  For us commoners, WANTING a child is one thing, being able to raise the child to adulthood is another consideration.

Sister

UPDATE FEB 2019  Well, Meghan is pregnant and due in a couple months - April, maybe May and so having a child was top of the couple's agenda.  At least they are mature adults who made a decision and very capable of affording children.

U{DATE May 2021 - Again.

UPDATE  JUNE 2022  Well, and it is clear they did have two.  At least these two were wanted and can be afforded.

THE WISDOM OF MARRYING TOO YOUNG?

Soon after I read about how Millennial are delaying marriage until they have no debt, I heard about a distant family member who got married, age 18, to her boyfriend of less than one year, age 20, kept it a secret, and then continued to live with mom and dad.  All hell has broken loose since. First of all, the family feels deceived as this secret is based in economics: as two college students they cannot afford to live independently, not even with house mates, due to the extreme cost of living.


Quizzed further, the two of them seem to be extremely innocent of the fact that now neither of them can be covered on their parent's health insurance. So they both got kicked out of their respective houses because they are now considered liars and manipulators.


I've tried to be the voice of reason and to empathized and understand what would motivate two brilliant college students to do such a thing.  Are they truly devious, selfish, or only out to get what they want from others?


Well, I reasoned (and said), "they are in love."  Actually I do think this is true.
But what to make of the plotting?  It's wrong.
One says that they "knew" that no one would approve of or pay for a wedding, so they thought it best to just go to a JP and this is also why no family member was invited.

MILLENIALS WANT TO PAY OFF HUGE DEBT BEFORE MARRIAGE?

MARKET WATCH - MILLENIALS KILLING MARRIAGE - THAT'S GOOD


EXCERPT:
Lowry is one of many people in her age group waiting longer to tie the knot. The average age for marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men compared to 21 years for women and 23 years old for men in 1963 — and that is if they get married at all. Only two in five millennials were married in 2015, compared to two in three in 1980.

Many couples cite high levels of student loan debt as an obstacle to marriage, and millennials are wise to wait to pay that off before tying the knot, said Brianna McGurran, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. She noted that people with more financial independence have the resources to break off relationships they may be forced to stay in otherwise just to split rent or pay the bills.


....
What happened to marrying and THEN PAYING OFF YOUR MUTUAL DEBT TOGETHER?

FRIEND BEATS AGE 50 DEADLINE - IMPORTS CHINESE BRIDE

OOOOH how I hope this is a "miracle of love" situation.  I've learned a friend of mine, a man who never seemed to find a Ms. Right, though he met a lot of possibilities, imported a woman from China to be his wife.  She's an intelligent woman and speaks English. Much younger than him (I should say "of course").  Young enough that she could stay married to him for a decade, get a nice social security retirement out of it, divorce, remarry.

How did they meet?

Chinese-American friends made the match, then they were using Skype or equivalent for courtship.  He went there to marry her, and at the same time they honeymooned as tourists, saw the Great Wall.

I'd be completely rude if I didn't wish them a wonderful life.  Don't think I can't be happy for him/them because I can.  Hope springs eternal.

It's just that me and my girlfriends are a bit suspicious when an American man has to import.  We see the woman far from her family and support system, sometimes financially unable to leave if she wants to.

My old friend is someone who always has to have his own way.  He needs someone to live around him and make his life easier.  He's not someone who has ever physically abused another person, but he can be passive aggressive.  He has a good sense of humor.  Sometimes it's a bit wicked.

A mutual friend said, "Come on Sister, he's an A-hole!  The reason you're not close anymore is that as the years went by he became less and less flexible, less willing and able to meet you half way on anything.  You two used to go to films a lot.  It got to where if he wasn't picking the film, he wasn't going!"


Yea.


C 2017  Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot

MARRIAGE TOO EXPENSIVE IN AMERICA or OUT OF STYLE?

A couple articles have come out about this lately, so here are the links...


WASHINGTON POST/ ECONOMY - MARRIAGE TOO EXPENSIVE  by Michelle Singletary
(I wonder about her surname...)
EXCERPT: The researchers concluded that middle-income families can afford to spend the money to maintain the intimacy of their marriage or deal with troubled children while working-class people are priced out of the institution because they don’t have the money to pay for “therapy, horses, college, and gyms to stay happy together.”


and this one
SLATE - MARRIAGE ONLY MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS CAN AFFORD  by Amanda Hess
EXCERPT: For their new paper "Intimate Inequalities: Love and Work in a Post-Industrial Landscape," University of Virginia sociologist Sarah Corse and Harvard sociologist Jennifer Silva interviewed 300 working- and middle-class Americans like Cindy, Megan, Earl, and Jan about their work and relationships. They found that as the American workforce and the American marriage have destabilized over the past half-century, marriage has become an increasingly inaccessible option for working-class Americans. While middle-class people like Earl and Jan are throwing money at their intimate relationships to keep them stable, working-class people like Cindy and Megan have been priced out of the institution.

MILLENNIAL NEIGHBORS JUST MAKING IT IN A NOW EXPENSIVE NEIGHBORHOOD BY NOT MAKING IT ON THEIR OWN

MILLENNIALS are people born between the late 1980s and the beginning of the 21st century, give or take a couple years.   Out walking my dog, I've made the acquaintance of several on my street.   They are all living in much more modern and expensive buildings than I live in, or renting houses with more than one person contributing to the rent. 

Maybe it's just the MILLENNIALS on my street, the one's I'm meeting, but they don't seem to be very independent for their ages.  None of them aspires to living in their own place, but is depending on a working girlfriend, parents, a trust fund, or some other supplemental income to make it as is, even as they drive for Lyft, Uber, take in people through AirBNB, post YouTube Videos,  EBay, Etsy, or find some other cell phone - Internet - computer way to have some money coming in.

I'm not saying that I have nothing to learn from them.  I can see that these are opportunities they seize rather than deal with being evicted or ruining their credit when they have no regular full time job to depend on. 

But just so you know, there are also OLDER people on the street who have addressed their money and work issues with DRIVING in particular, and the way they do it is that they take Lyft or Uber as their full time job, keep themselves to a regular schedule, such heading for their car every morning at the same time, and not coming home until 5 or 6 PM, when they have their dinner with their partner or spouse and then go walk the dog.  These OLDER people are also using their driving experience to get full time work driving for one of the van services for the disabled, the MTA or smaller Community Shuttles. 

Maybe they have given up on their dreams.  I don't know. 

I see part economic crisis and increasing unaffordability of the city, mixed with an unwillingness to let go of their basic need to be creative, or an unwillingness to redefine themselves in some boring, go nowhere job (of which I've had myself) that will kill their spirit, as the Millennial's dilemma..

To me the crisis point comes when someone gets pregnant and the possibility of having to financially and otherwise support offspring hits home.  Luckily there is contraception and legal abortion.  One couple on the street, married for seven years, both employed full time with the same companies, had their first child despite knowing that they may never afford an actual house.  Another couple, living together for a couple years, and also employed full time with the same companies, got married last year, but have their parents providing a down payment while a real estate agent friend combs the neighborhood for a small house they can get into, which they see as the first step before they have a child.

These people aren't aged out of having children yet, but they are approaching it.

The other day one neighbor who has been doing ALL of the things above to pay his share of the rent on a house, while his girlfriend with a Master's Degree is out hustling, making cold calls as a sales person, and I were talking.  He had just gotten his Real Estate license and had put a couple thousand dollars he BORROWED from her to pay for nice business cards and postcards which he is leaving everywhere he goes.  He had some early success in a creative field but it's been bumpy, he's trying to learn the business and doing office time, makes no money, and then drives in the evenings.  The other day this all went on hold when he got a call from one of the big film production companies to do some free lance work.  You could never say this man is lazy, but the fact is that if his girlfriend wasn't making a reported $100,000 a year, then he would likely be living in a single apartment alone.

He told me he wants children.  She however decided she does not because she fears the pain of childbirth.  (When I said, "There is always adoption.  There are also lots of foster kids who need a good home,"  the conversation stalled. )

A recent article in Daily Mail UK covered the great numbers of women who are avoiding pregnancy and childbirth for this very reason, even electing to have unnecessary cesareans. 

I think, but do not say to him, that I think he should break up with her if he really wants children.  He loves her for sure, and she probably loves him too, and rather than either of them break up or do something about meeting someone more compatible, they do not.  They get along, there are no bad fights or abuse happening in their relationship, and they do have more time to decide.  Certainly many people have chosen good partnerships without children over bad ones with.  Makes sense to me.

About once a year, usually around her birthday when this couple go out with her well to do family, she announces to him that she doesn't think their relationship is going to work out.  He becomes depressed and threatens to leave town and go back to his parents.  They have a dog as a child, and he is the full time caregiver of the dog while his girlfriend actually owns it. 

Recently the dog was injured and a vet gave the price to do surgery on it as $10,000!  Poorer people would have faced the fact that their beloved pet needed to be put to sleep and suffer for it.  Instead he started looking for inexpensive or free surgery for the dog.  It was about that time that he revealed that she was earning $100,000.

Well, if it were MY DOG and I were earning "bank,"  I might get a second and third opinion, or some price quotes, but I wouldn't let my boyfriend search out cheaper or free alternatives or let the dog suffer.

I don't say it but I think, "She clearly wants a man who is making a lot more money than you are.  That is the bigger issue in your relationship."  Who ever heard of a true partner only LOANING money to the other, especially when it comes to using that money for something like classes, rent while doing an Internship that might lead to paid work, business cards and marketing/promo postcards.  Our culture and tax system is set up to favor the married.  If they were doing joint tax returns a lot of this could be taken as tax deductions and business loses.  When one person is making so much more money than the other, and finds fault with their ability to make money, then I think it would be more than "nice," to help them in these practical ways.

I think these two have never been NMNK in their mind set. 

Instead of being an educated, hard working, BUSINESSWOMAN who prefers really to be out in the word and someone else to care for her dog child, she has the prop of a boyfriend and the marriage substitute called "living together."  She doesn't want children, be it painful childbirth or any other reason, and that's OK, especially because there is contraception and abortion, but she does not want to SUPPORT HIM. 

If it were a traditional marriage-like relationship in what we used to call "role reversal," where the wife goes out and makes the living and supports the family and the husband is the person who stays at home and takes care of all the domestic duties, she would not MIND SUPPORTING HIM.

He prefers to be a STAY AT HOME HUSBAND and FATHER, and a CREATIVE, that's clear.  He's not money motivated or a corporate person like she is. I think the Real Estate gig is him trying to prove to her that someday he too will make big bucks and then maybe when they are financial equals they will marry.

I like this man, very much.  He is a sensitive, kind, and caring person, and his parents did tell him over a decade ago, "We've done our parenting, now you're on your own."  Every time I talk to him though, I think he's going to tell me that they have realized that they don't belong together, and that he's moving out and on. 

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WOMEN GETTING TOGETHER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MEN - IS THERE REALLY A SORTAGE OF "GOOD MEN?"

WOMEN GETTING TOGETHER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MEN - IS THERE REALLY A SORTAGE OF "GOOD MEN?"

Yes and no.

Something I don't much miss is getting together with women who are trying to get married and unhappy.  Now honestly, sometimes "dating hell" stories are funny (looking back on it), or tragic, or simply must be told to a bevy of women friends so that one can get support. It's women's night out and everyone is kicking back and complaining, which is no fun.

It's not easy dating for the purposes of finding someone right to marry, and really many of my women friends have put up with a whole lotta you know what in the process.  They are in pain.  Which is a shame.  So there have been SO VERY MANY DATING SELF HELP BOOKS published in recent years in which experts (self-proclaimed) attempt to explain how to do it better.

And I DO think, based on the experience of friends, that many women are MAKING DO, so that they will not be alone in this life.

Let's say that in your late teens and early twenties, you're just out of the starting gate, and so are most of the other horses.  People are mixing it up, are often sexually explorative, and very many do get married.  Late twenties and mid-thirties is the "it's about time,"/ "everyone's doing it" zone.  Dangerous.  Mid-thirties to mid-forties, if there is any time in which a "biological clock" ticks (for some women) that's when marriage is about having a baby before it is too late.  (And actually, all things considered after your mid-forties it probably is too late, even if you read about a billionaire woman having a child near 60 years old - consider that her fortune will sustain the best for a child even if she's dead.) 

I think people are dating wrong, and though I know this applies to a lot of men also, I'm speaking to other women here.

First of all YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOURSELF, and this is not about your own personal philosophy (an esoteric concept) but practical things like how important income, religion, sex, and other big issues are to you.

If you are very religious no doubt you need to find a man at your church, or at least of the same or very similar religion.  The more political you are - ditto.  I'm telling you that if there is anything at all that others think of you as "radical" about, you probably are in some way, and differences here will end up breaking you as a couple.

Think you can "work" on big differences?  You probably CAN if there is only ONE big difference.  Consider that different races, different in "class," and expectations about income (who makes it, who makes more, who quits working to childcare, etc.) are all issues, as in BIG ISSUES.

So, let's say you're exceptional.  You've made it out of poverty to become a Phd.  You're also a Republican even though your family is a Democrat.  Through hard work and sacrifice and innate brilliance you have gone way past your circumstances of birth.  You will probably feel most comfortable with someone from a similar experience.  (I know - good luck finding this person!)

And MOST COMFORTABLE is the thing people have dismissed as THE ALL-IMPORTANT consideration when they are dating to find a spouse.

Because HOME, your marriage/relationship, IS THE MOST IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE.  YOU MUST BE COMFORTABLE there, or it is not the REFUGE from the rest of the world/life that it needs to be to sustain you.  This means you don't bicker every day and you don't have too many blow ups.  Maybe you're not constantly verbally communicating, but because you have no to few BIG ISSUES there are other ways to know and FEEL you are on the same page.

One of my friend's divorce came down to this.  He was from a Germanic Father is ruler of the home background, and even if his wife's income was much higher, and even if he was out of work, he was NOT going to do much childcare.  She was from a Slavic Mother is ruler of the home background, and a working woman, who wanted a role reversal.  They had a power struggle over the children constantly.

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All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

ASEXUALITY IS NOT THE NEW NORMAL BUT IT IS BEING RECOGNIZED AS A SEXUALITY CATEGORY

One of the things that horrified me in my teens was the new knowledge that, if you got married, then you were signing on for being sexually active with the same person for the rest of your life and you HAD to satisfy them.  At the time I wasn't sexual with anyone and most girls seemed to be intent on fending off boys who were supposed to be the "horny" ones.  It seemed to be our jobs - and our reputations - to stop them.  I hated the pressure and the feeling of being pursued madly.  It felt to me like all boys were stalkerish. 

Married for life: This is how just about everyone who surrounded me seemed to be doing it, being married and faithful and loyal.  Divorce was rare among the people in my community.  Perhaps I was too young to understand that married people had all sort of understandings and contracts between them, things that sustained them, and that all marriages were really not alike, even if these people had the traditional roles of man as breadwinner and woman as wife and mother. 

I had no idea really about my parents' sexuality.  Or anyone's.  It was a private matter, not discussed, which I agree with actually.  Parents should not be talking their intimate lives with their children.  It was a shocker years later to find out that one of my friend's parents had divorced after three children because he was actually homosexual and his rejection of his wife had lead her to drink and sleep around.

Still, when you're just trying to figure things out for yourself, it can be daunting to imagine that you might have to have sex for the rest of your life with the same person, granted a person who you supposedly love and who supposedly loves you, and who you made a (sacred) commitment to for life.  If you have some sexual experiences with boys who have not a clue what they are doing and remain unsatisfied yourself, sex feels like a chore, an obligation, a duty, and a danger.

Well, I've got lots of love to give, always have.  But I never met that "special someone" who I could imagine being committed to, in love with, and sexual with, for the rest of my life.  Nor did he find me. 

Am I asexual?

I've been reading around this subject and actually I don't think so.  The reason I don't think so is that from what I'm reading it sounds like asexual could be a natural state one experiences their entire life.   Such a person just never is very interested in sex. 

Maybe we all go through questioning, doubts, and experiences, and eventually we come to  come to a decision about our ORIENTATION, and our GENDER.  What about when people get older and find themselves with much less libido?  They are still likely to self identify themselves based on all the experiences they had as younger people.

Still, I know some asexual (by self identification) people have read NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS BLOGSPOT and left comments in the past, explaining to me that this is WHY they are NMNK.

Early on in this blog I tried to identify the various groups of people who are NMNK including priests and nuns.  I said being NMNK could be a temporary lifestyle or something you have no choice in, though I myself am NMNK by choice. 

So in the next few posts I'm going to look into the latest on ASEXUALITY.


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A FRIEND's VIEWS ON MARRIAGE CLASH WITH MY OWN - I'M THE CONSERVATIVE!

Over the last few months I've been getting to know - again - a friend who left town in '07, lost touch with me in '09, and has returned.  I say friend because essentially that is what it was, even when we dated a short while, and most certainly is, now that he's tried to get back into my life by playing the "we used to date" card.

I know people change.  I have.  But back in '07 - '09 I actually thought there was some good commonality in the relationship that might sustain it.  So I decided to give the relationship another try, but without any high hopes that it might return to romance.

So it hasn't.

But worse, this man has convinced me that it is I who is the conservative!
What with my "first comes love, then comes marriage, and then the baby carriage (if ever)," ideals.

In my family of origin my not marrying and not having children is considered lesbian or not natural.  As I've mentioned by own godmother backstabbed me with gossip, telling others that I'm the type of person who doesn't even like to hold a baby.  (You can sort through these posts and find my retort.)  The purpose of this blog was to support people like me who have made many micro-decisions and some big ones to not be a birth mother or parent, while knowing that there are so very many ways and reasons to be NMNK.

Now when he tells me that I'm some sort of fossil for such ancient (not just old fashioned) beliefs, because "nobody" this and that and "everybody" this and that, get's married that way, or even has those EXPECTATIONS, I feel he is mostly talking about himself.

Sure there are places on this earth and in this country, mostly places where the cost of living is low, where there are women who not only wait for love, then marry, and then have children, but also do not have careers outside the home but instead make motherhood and being a wife their career.  Their choice.

I decided he and I are utterly incompatible!

Because I noticed that he lets me make dinner (and do the shopping, preparing, clean up and sending him home with left-overs) about ten times for every one time he cooks or takes me out to dinner.

I find his relationships and the "family" he has taken his ex step children to be as unstable and risky.  I mean, do these now adult children who had him in their lives a few short years when they were growing up, when they all lived together, but didn't get married, actually make them think of him as dad, as in a dad that may need visitors in an assisted living someday, or a dad that needs people to bury him?

Apparently so.

I love the notion of "family as friends."  I've tried it and it didn't work in a crisis.

But OK,  my opinion doesn't count since it is his life.

What do I really think all this way along?  That this man has been very happy for girlfriends to buy him things when they were the ones who had the money from inheritance or earning, and that is a comfort that in his generation was rare.  Not exactly a free-loader but nowhere near the kind of man who marries and supports a wife and children.  So he hasn't had any, while putting me down for not wanting any.  You know, if you Really Want Children, there is a Very Good Chance, you Can, meet someone who Also Wants Children, and Have Them.

So he's a CLOSET NMNK!


C 2015  Sister / Never Married No Kids BlogSpot  All Rights including International and Internet Rights reserved.

IT'S ONLY ROCK "N" ROLL - 30 YEARS MARRIED TO A ROLLING STONE by JO WOOD : NMNK BOOK REVIEW

It's Only Rock "N" Roll
30 Years Married To A Rolling Stone
by Jo Wood (wife of Ron Wood)  C 2013
!t books - an imprint of HarperCollingsPublishers

Book Review By Sister at NEVER MARRIED NO KIDS - AN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY

It's not easy to write a memoir and write it so every chapter advances your story.  Jo Wood did that, and she had a hell of a lot of life to select scenes from.  No doubt I was attracted to this book because Jo Wood is not just an ordinary woman in a hellish, dysfunctional marriage, but because women like her keep men like Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood happy for a long long time, that is until a life long alcoholic and drug user who has NEVER GROWN UP, decides he has to womanize before he dies, and dumps his no longer co-dependent wife!

I used to study at a coffee house that was owned by members of AA and frequented by members of AA (and other 12 step groups attempting to resist addiction.)  Several times I met men who were flirtatious and generally attractive to me but they never seemed to follow through.  Perplexed, I brought this subject up to others there, and I learned well one thing:

A person who lives their life for years on substances, be that drugs or alcohol, who basically AVOIDS life by being high, partying a lot, etc, DOES NOT GROW, DOES NOT MATURE, and so, when they finally join a 12 Step Program and get off their substance, they are the age they were when they started avoiding life... Jo was a hard partier and addict herself, which was attractive to Ron, but it was she who had to be a bit more sensible because she was the one having children, raising them, and keeping some sanity in her own and their lives.

Therefor, when they met he was about her age (20) as a human and 30 years later, she had matured to be maybe 30 something, while he was still 20 something and having affairs with 20 year olds.  That's my explanation.

Now, if Ron Wood were NOT a Rolling Stone, if there were not drugs, travel, excitement, fame, money (to be earned and invested unwisely and lost), would Jo have stuck in there and had three children with him?  My guess is that there are a lot of more ordinary people who are in these hellish marriages, with and without children, in which people met as partiers or drug addicts and remained so.

Jo portrays Ron as selfish, self-centered,  capable of verbal abuse and unable to imagine how he hurts others, and clearly she made a lot of excuses for him and did a lot of compensating.  Nearing 50 she dared to move her organic lifestyle into a product line, and she used the book to promote that a bit.

She stays clear of what their financial settlement was, though I'm sure most readers would like to know what she got (earned) after 30 years of loyalty and faithfulness.

**************

Speaking of drug and alcohol use and abuse,  there are people who can use without becoming addicts. There are people who can keep it to 2 drinks or 20, people who can keep it to weekends, people who never drive themselves when they are using.  Still, when you choose to be out of control regularly, even if scheduled, or at home, you may be self treating for a emotional or mental issue.

People are often wondering so I will tell you that I'm all for MEDICAL MJ and have been for years, ever since a professor at my college talked about how it would have saved her father's eyesight, and since I've met ovarian cancer survivors who used it and ate and didn't waste away.  I think alcohol may be worse than MJ.  However, I don't use MJ or any other illegal drug and drink very little and then usually with a meal, like dinner out, or a special occasion like a birthday.  So it is really hard for me to relate to drug addicts.

OLD MOVIE SCENE IN "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY" REMINDS ME - SOME PEOPLE WOULD RATHER BE DIVORCED SO THEY CAN SAY THEY HAVE BEEN MARRIED

Is that scene OUTDATED?

Watching this old movie, I was reminded of women I once knew who definitely felt that way.  (They are all married now though I have no idea how happily.)

Maybe this is now a CONSERVATIVE or BACKWARD attitude, that it is so NORMAL to at least TRY MARRIAGE, that it would be better to commit and then fail...It's like people are getting points (with parents? friends? employers? God?) for trying and LEARNING.

But don't people who commit to relationships that don't become legal marriage and fail also LEARNING ABOUT HAVING A RELATIONSHIP?

And what about LEARNING from other people's relationships, like how NOT to have one?

Recently on a free news stand I saw a publication that is called DIVORCE, i.e. Divorce magazine.  It was full of ads for professions such as forensic accountants (who look for where the marital partner hid money) and of course lots of divorce attorneys who promise to "fight" for you.

All of which I will be very happy to SKIP.

The rush to marriage because it's something "everyone" is doing or does, or because it's time (i.e. 26 years old or so), without really knowing the other person well, is just stupid.
So maybe people expect points for stupidity?