Opera Nut

Guess I didn't make myself clear.

Marriage can be an uphill struggle if you are committed and the person you married isn't, or is pursuing goals totally antithetical to the goal of marriage and friendship.

I don't think you truly know someone until you have been living with them for two or three years; in that time you have seen them depressed, with PMS, sick, in pain, not the perky person who shows up on a date. And then you find out if they are a basically nice person or a basically mean person.

That piece of paper cannot make someone like you or love you.
I was committed and faithful; the first one was sexually unfaithful with seven of my girlfriends and refused to be faithful (that's right you read seven; we were in college);

and the second one never said anything nice to me, never said he loved me, never encouraged me, all he did was criticize me and try to control me. He also refused to take baths for several days so he would get sticky and I would not touch him. He did not want sex either after we married. I never said an unkind word to this guy while we were married. He wanted to push me far enough that I would file for divorce and look like the bad guy. Two months before I filed for divorce he put a deposit down on an apartment. When this check was shown to him during his deposition during the divorce, he had NO explanation for it.
He did not want commitment. This is the one that nagged me until I came down with pneumonia and suffered fromit on and off for five years, and I had my lungs vacuumed out four times in five years, all from him trying to destroy me before I realized what was happening. I had a total physical collapse as soon as I filed for divorce. Four years of his griping nearly killed me.


In those cases, there is no alternative but divorce.

scigirl

I think we are going around in circles seebs.

You say "spouse" in your sentence above - I am saying, find out before the person becomes a spouse. I don't necessarily think you have to sleep with several people to be sure - if you are unhappy with your partner because you think there might be something else better out there - I highly doubt that getting more partners is going to help. This is called "fear of committment" and I think it's a virus spread through the male species!

One thing that is interesting - some religious people somehow think that marriage somehow makes sex more magical and meaningful - and sex before marriage is totally meaningless. Atheists rarely hold such views. Sex in any relationship can be extremely meaningful if you make it so. Just ask gay people, who aren't even allowed to get married in this country. They seem to have meaningful, faithful sex without the need for a piece of paper or a ceremony. How silly to think that spending 10 grand on cake and flowers all of a sudden gives you a more meaningful relationship. Yes I realize that marriage is more than that - but not that much more, in terms of emotional changes.

When I think of past relationships, I don't put everything into discrete categories like "finances" and "sex." There's just the relationship - and everything it entailed. I am utterly convinced that sex does change a relationship - whether you are married or not. Sex brings out feelings that you just can't get from other ways (or at least I can't). I suppose you could find out by "nearly" having sex, but honestly that's just silly to suport one action and not the other - if you had an O, you had sex!! So replace all my points with "intimacy" and it's the same argument, as far as I'm concerned.

A great sex life, just like anything, takes work from both parties. The idea that premarital sex is bad and meaningless, and only becomes ok in the context of a 10 grand paper ceremony, is just plain ludicrous, and probably does more damage to people's sex lives than we will ever know. If you don't subscribe to this magical idea, like us sinful hell-bound heathens on the other hand, you will have a realistic idea about sex. It takes practice, it isn't magical, but it can be a damn good part of a healthy relationship if you both work at it. The other thing that atheists have is less hang-ups, which means we are probably having better sex than Christians, on average (at least the fundie ones!) Mutual masturbation for instance. . . . .

scigirl

scigirl

Fatherphil,

Please explain to me how getting married helps with people's judgement. I"m a bit confused - because the wedding's I've been to entailed dancing, a bit of drinking, perhaps a few words of scripture here and there, but no formal training on decision making. Perhaps weddings are different in your neck of the woods.

Why do people think that getting married is this magical experience? Honestly I'm beginning to think more and more that this religious idea of marriage makes things harder than it has to be. Huge expectations, and huge guilt trips if you fail.

It is possible to be a faithful loving person without having a certificate. If the two people have agreed to be faithful, and are continually working on it, what's the problem? Relationships aren't magical, they are a process. Unmarried couples who have been together 50 years are much further along on this process than married couples who have only been together for 1 year. Where on that continuum the couple chooses to have intercourse is totally up to them, and probably irrelevant to whether their marriage/partership is going to last. Whether it lasts depends on a bunch of stuff, of which sex (and how they react to/initiate/work on sex) is only a part.

scigirl

Eagel4Jesus

The biggest problem with premarital sex is that people normally do it before having that relationship. If you have been going out and have a wonderful relationship for a long time, you're basically married, you just don't have the certificate and haven't gone though the process.

Most people have sex a lot with different people, before marriage. That is the problem with it, if you only have sex with one person it's not that bad...although you shouldn't until married...

Matt

HelenM

I don't know how you got to "an impossibly-difficult uphill struggle" from my comment above that "it takes a certain amount of commitment".

Since when was "a certain amount of commitment" equivalent to "an impossibly-difficult uphill struggle"?

Helen

scigirl

But how do you get that "relationship" status without some form of intimacy? Yes talking, playing scrabble, going bowling -these are all very important parts of the dating process. But at some point, you have to go to the next step. So tell me, Eagel4Jesus, what is an acceptable next step? Is kissing ok outside of wedlock? If so, how do you decide when it is ok to kiss? Is passionate kissing acceptable outside of wedlock? If so, how do you decide when it is ok to passionately kiss? How about touching other body parts with clothes on, or rubbing next to each other, or seeing each other naked? How about simply saying "I love you?" When is that acceptable on your time frame?

You surely see what I'm getting at. You think that we atheists are devaluing sex (I'm assuming you mean penetration), I think you are devaluing everything else.

Here's how I see your argument: It's ok to kiss, and make out, and rub each other, before you are married, because that's not penetration. Penetration should wait till marriage, because it's so much more special and different than making out, rubbing, etc.

I think that's silly. Sex is only good when you do all that other stuff - right? But the other stuff is ok in or out of a marriage? It doesn't make any sense.

scigirl

seebs

Only it doesn't appear to be any such thing.

This seems rather a bit of a straw man.

Which, it seems, has absolutely nothing to do with premarital sex.

Loren Pechtel

Agreed. I'm curious but no way would I risk my marriage to satisfy that curiousity. Besides, I doubt it would be as good anyway--the emotional component wouldn't be there.

Eagel4Jesus

Well, since premarital sex has increased and so has divorce rates, premarital sex does not help build that relationship.

The best way to advance a relationship is:
1) talking
2) TIME

I am only 18, but I like to consider myself mature for my age in relationship issues. I've been up and down and in and out with my current g/f. We have gotten through everything and now we are closer than we ever have been, and I now know we will be together forever (of course, she still won't marry me...earliest possible date of marriage is 8/04) But anyway...

Well, I can tell you when it is ok to say "I love you". It is when you mean it. And since there are different definitions of "love", you wait until you can mean love in the way of a one-on-one sexual relationship, even if not having sex, that helps clarify what I mean...

Now, to go back to my relationship. Neither of us grew up as Christians, so we're both open sexually (I wish I was like my other friends, who have never done anything sexually and therefore do not crave those feelings as I sometimes do) and we have agreed that it is not wrong for us to perform certain acts upon each other. We are between 2nd and 3rd base as I like to say, 3rd base is oral, we're not there yet, we leave it to our limbs to perform those actions. That is what I was saying earlier. Giving a handjob or fingering someone takes more than having sex with a person. Why? Because you are not getting anything while you're giving it, you are only giving at the time, and how well you do that tests your sincerity with that person.

Sex is merely the most pleasurable action a couple can take. That should be left for marriage, the whole point of dating someone is to test your compatibility and to prove your sincereity and loyalty to the other person.

Matt

Loren Pechtel

Allergies vary in severity. I've got a lot of allergies, but mistakes are merely unpleasant, not dangerous.