For want of a lot of good men

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ChuckB said:
If some girl would just exert a little bit of effort to get to know him, or at the very least not just dismiss him out of hand, she’d probably find that he’s a diamond in the rough - and he’s not really THAT rough.
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Combine that with the guy making an effort to actually develop his social skills and you might have a win/win.

Not always, but most often, lack of social skills demonstrates either a lack of maturity, or a bigger problem. I imagine these women are trying to avoid the bigger problem.
 
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JimG said:
About six months into the new job my wife had a medical emergency and was in the hospital for a month. Because the job was new we had no insurance
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This would put most people into bankruptcy today. A one month stint in the hospital with basic care can easily run $150K.
 
I met my husband in high school, and we started dating when we were 16. We went to college together, and got married a few weeks after graduation. We’ve been married 40 years this summer.

My younger daughter met her husband in high school. She was 14 and he was 17 when they starting dating, and they were married 7 years later while she was still in college. He is a mechanic, so just an Associates degree. Both of them are (and always have been) hard workers who have held more than one job since they were old enough to work (age 14).

My older daughter didn’t date in high school. She is in her mid-30s and not married, although she dated throughout college and her working life. She hasn’t dated anyone seriously in several years now–too many heartbreaks.

I think that it’s good for young people (teenagers) to date. They grow up together and make plans while young and while their parents are around and have authority and influence in their lives (so they can lay down the family law that children and teens must attend church).

I know a lot of Christian parents (and other parents) discourage romantic dating in high school, but that’s not the way it’s always been. I know from my parents that teens used to date, and I know from reading fiction and non-fiction that teenagers dated, and often ended up marryng a high school sweetheart and staying together for decades until death.

I think that if more Christians would encourage their teens to date while they’re young it’s more likely that women and men would marry while they are young and gifted with youth, health, hope, fertility, and love. I think that working out financial difficulties with someone you love is not a death knoll for a marriage, but can actually make a couple stronger.
 
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JMMJ said:
This would put most people into bankruptcy today. A one month stint in the hospital with basic care can easily run $150K.
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Yes, you’re right. It was cheaper then. We made monthly payments and paid everyone off in about two years. The availability of health insurance had made the cost of everything skyrocket.
 
JMMJ said:
Not always, but most often, lack of social skills demonstrates either a lack of maturity, or a bigger problem. I imagine these women are trying to avoid the bigger problem.
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Interesting analysis. However, from my perspective, it might just be that the men in question are introverts who, by their nature, simply have a harder time making an easy connection with others. That said, I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of “avoiding the bigger problem.” If some guy sets off a woman’s “this guy is trouble” alarm, she should listen to it. If, on the other hand, she decides within 60 seconds of meeting the guy that he’s just not polished enough to be her Prince Charming, then she’s doing him a favor by rejecting him. Unfair as it might be, Father Time is much kinder to men than to women. The rejected nerd has a much better chance of eventually making a lasting connection than does the woman holding out for a knight in shining armor.
 
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Good points. I think the lack of self-awareness that so often seems to accompany poor social skills is the bigger problen these woman are trying to avoid.
 
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That’s true, and I think it really all depends on what type of social awkwardness we are talking about. Some guys may just be shy, and they know they are awkward but are trying to improve that. Other guys may have deeper issues and/or have no clue that that there social skills are lackng. The first category has much more dating potential than the second.
 
A couple of “personality flaws” that would be deal-breakers for me if I was a young, single woman:
  1. Over-attached to Mom. Many women have married “Mama’s Boys” and have had heartbreaking marital issues. I would stay away.
  2. Violent. This should be a major red-flag! Some men hide this well during a dating or courtship relationship, but if there are any signs–I would get out.
  3. Narcissistic personality. If it’s all about him and never about anyone else, including the woman he says he loves, he won’t be capable of being a husband or father.
  4. Addictions. Starbucks and junk food are OK with me, but alcohol or any other drug, smokes, gambling, etc.–bad for me. I happen to believe that almost all men have some problems with porn, so if you’re looking for a man who never uses it, good luck. But an addiction to porn will lead to heartbreak.
  5. I think couples can work through differences in money-handling, religion, politics, in-laws, what city to live in, job woes, child-rearing philosophies, etc., but I think these differences should be faced and talked through BEFORE the marriage. IMO, young engaged couples should be paired with a mature couple who have been married for many years (more than 10), and this couple can provide a good ear and some sound advice that will help the young couple work things out without having to pay for a counselor.
 
fj2020 said:
A lot of cultural forces are pushing up the age of first time marriages. People have other pursuits and interests they would like to follow before thinking about marriage. I believe that’s a good thing.
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My mother strongly believed people shouldn’t get married before age 30. She didn’t marry till she was 35. I wasn’t planning on getting married at all, but got engaged on my 30th birthday.

I think this helps a lot. I can think of at least 2 men I might have married in my 20s (they both asked) and I think in both cases the marriage would not have lasted. One never married and lived with his mom till he died young; the other one married someone else when they were both in their early 20s and had several kids and divorced.
 
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Location can have a lot to do with it as well. As a Catholic single guy living in the Seattle area, I’ve flat out given up. A couple of years ago, there was a stat going around that showed that for every 100 single women in Seattle, there were nearly 150 single men. Not to mention that Seattle is nearly a spiritual wasteland, so the thought of finding a single, Catholic woman is not something I waste time hoping for anymore.
 
fj2020 said:
I think the OP should not lose heart in her search for her man. The weddings my wife and I have attended lately have all been people in their late 20’s to mid 30’s tying the knot for the first time.
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Late 20s is average nowadays, honestly; I don’t think anyone considers a marriage at 28 or 29 to be a “late life marriage” anymore. My husband and I were in our mid 30s, and while that is a bit more unusual, you are right that we are seeing it more often.
fj2020 said:
A lot of cultural forces are pushing up the age of first time marriages. People have other pursuits and interests they would like to follow before thinking about marriage. I believe that’s a good thing
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It’s certainly not a terrible thing to marry later than is traditional, but I also would also urge people not to put it off merely because they think they have plenty of time or have things they want to do before then. While there are some benefits to marrying later, there are also some drawbacks, the main one being that there is a shorter window for having children. If you run into fertility issues, you may only have a few years to get them figured out (and unfortunately figuring them out can take years) before the window closes on having biological children.

That said, it is still worth it to wait for the right person. You don’t want to rush into marriage, and being single is better than being unhappily married.
 
Here’s an issue no one’s brought up about postponing marriage—the increased likelihood of the children having or being able to bond with grandparents.
If a woman is 20 when she has her first kid, and that kid is 20 when they have a kid. Grandma is 40, more likely to still be healthy and able to do fun things with the family.
If Mom is 40 having her first kid, then the kid is 40 when they have their first, now you have an 80 year old grandma who is more likely to have some degree of infirmity and less likely to be able to keep up with the grandkids or enjoy babysitting or whatever.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
Here’s an issue no one’s brought up about postponing marriage—the increased likelihood of the children having or being able to bond with grandparents.
If a woman is 20 when she has her first kid, and that kid is 20 when they have a kid. Grandma is 40, more likely to still be healthy and able to do fun things with the family.
If Mom is 40 having her first kid, then the kid is 40 when they have their first, now you have an 80 year old grandma who is more likely to have some degree of infirmity and less likely to be able to keep up with the grandkids or enjoy babysitting or whatever.
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I would agree with this because it’s what’s happening to me and my husband.

Our daughter was married at 22 to a wonderful man, and we knew they were going to wait to have children until she was finished with school. Then they put it off a little longer so that he could finish some training and testing for his job.

When they started trying to have children, they found that it wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be, and now it’s been almost three years with no pregnancy. Tens of thousands of dollars spent on infertility exams and treatments (not IVF!!), and probably still more money spent, and heartbreak after heartbreak.

Meanwhile, my husband and I are definitely getting more infirm and eccentric, and we fear that if there is a child(ren), we will be decrepit.

Oh well, best to just trust that God has everything under control.
 
Yes.
And please don’t think I’m advocating anybody to breed “early and often” LOL.
You need to take care to find a good spouse, and to have a source of income.
But I question the wisdom of starting out with the idea “no matter what, no marriage or babies until I’m 30” even if there’s a good potential spouse and a well paying job in your life right now.
 
This math seems to work better with small families. Example: I’m an only child. My mom was 25 when she had me and I was 25 when I had my oldest. But my husband is the middle child of 7. So his parents are a decade older than mine even though they started having kids at a younger age than my parents. In addition, their youngest is just getting married at 22 yo and they are already past retirement age.

For some families, no matter how early they start having children, the grandparents may not be spring chickens.
 
Oh, it’s definitely not a complete theory 🙂
Just a thought that occurred to me.
 
Because not everybody finds a spouse, and not everybody wants to.
Both Jesus and St Paul allowed for and even praised the single state (and were single).
 
Yeah but that isn’t what you said. You said you aren’t advocating anybody breed early and often. I see nothing wrong with breeding early and often.
 
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