Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Marriage Questions...

You don't know the area I live in. I have to drive 45 miles just to be able to sit down and have an adult beverage. They don't serve in this county. 47,000 people in the county and there are about 130 Baptist churches.

roughly 50% should be female !

Roughly! Married at 16 and living in a trailer next to mom.

I still need another week or two to lick my wounds.

I took a girl to Outback steakhouse, we got the menu and she looked at me and said "I don't know how to order in a place like this." It is truly amazing here. Literacy is about 60%.

Sounds like a place the brothers should visit.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Kids need their parents, not some pale imitation. Moms make better moms than dads do, but kids need their parents! Whether you or your wife stays home with the kids, they need you, not some largely disinterested, transient hireling.

Don't be in a hurry to have kids. I love my kids, but I loved the years that my wife and I had each other all to ourselves. It's good to have it both ways.

Determine your priorities. If education, career, and money are what you want, don't have kids until you've reached those goals. You have a choice, but your kids don't. If kids aren't that important to you, why have them? Dogs are cheaper and less trouble.

Be flexible. You may have to move, give up the new ___ that you want, even give up hunting or something else that you love (usually temporarily). If that's too much for you, don't have kids.

You can raise a family on one spouse's income. It's usually hard and usually demands a lot of sacrifice. I think most of us would agree that our kids are worth the sacrifice. If they're not...well, there's no law that you have to have kids.

If you think licking wounds is fun.... you should try licking a womb.................

Follow the 'keep it simple principle' -

Have a PLAN, stay focused on each other/and your plan, realize there are surprises (good and bad) mid course readjustments are required, change is a constant, and most important communicate.

Stay home Mom's rule. Stay close to your kids no matter what it takes, they only grow up once, you need to be there for them. Kids are influenced by who ever they are around, good and bad, all the time. Kids remember everything.

Be prepared for hard work, if not you will fail, if you fail the consequences involve others.

I was just pointing out the fact that the right daycare will have advantages. It's a PITA to find one and then deal with them(almost like having another wife) My mom worked, so I did the daycare thing as a child. didn't warp me too bad(except for the fact I became a dentist) My sons have IQ's of 135 and 144, so daycare didn't slow them down much. Trust me you and your wife will make so many mistakes raising your kids-they will probably survive all those. Usually a good daycare lady has raised about 50 or so by the time she gets yours, so there won't be any "first timer" mistakes.

Are you implying that you would intensionally have a kid with the intent of someone else (with more experiance) to raise it ?

Well, without sounding arrogant, welcome to the life.

The decisions you face are the same ones many have faced.
I have been married 25 years, three kids, we went through the decision making three times.

My wife obtained a childcare license and took on about five addtional kids so she could stay home with ours...don't know how she could take it.
Years later she took on medical trascription as a home buisness. That is about the only advice I can give, have her look into something she can do at home for a few years to help ends meet, it is a tough time to experience.

Not many can support a family on their own anymore, she will probablly have to come up with a plan to make some money at home.

Because I'm a cynic, three marriages does that.
Rule one: There's only one person on this earth that you cannot live without, that's you!
Rule two: Prior to marriage put everything into writing, such as you came into the marriage with a house and if the marriage dissolves you come out with the house.
Rule three: The woman you dated and lived with is not the woman you'll have as a wife.
Rule four: Think of everything that you find intolerable/unacceptable lying, gossip, getting grossly over weight, infidelity, etc. discuss it and put it writing with both signatures.
Rule five: Accept the fact you will have tough times for the first 10 or 15 years.
It took me two failed marriages to realise that the bells and whistles I was experiencing, that I believed was 'love' was in reality, alarms going off. I proved this to myself by dating four different ladies that made the bells and whistles go off were, in fact, lunitics. So I found a nice lady that I was comfortable with, who shared the same interests and liked me just the way I was.
Good luck and congratulations.
Jim
_____________________________________________________________________

Wow, I think you just authored a contract for divorce.

I did live with my wife for three years before we married for 25 so far, & I can't imagine how she would have reacted to your advice.

By the way, after 25 years, there are still plenty of hard times, they're called teenagers.

In my own case, my wife and I benefitted hugely from her early-retired Asian mom, who lives about a mile away and wouldn't even think about putting a grandchild of hers in daycare. Sometimes extended family does have its advantages.

Birdwatcher

Being your future wife has ''very clearly stated'' what shes going to to about a situtation that has'nt happened yet i hope it's sending up a warning flag to you, it won't be the last thing she's planning on controlling without your input.

I was in the same boat a few years back with a wife who ''very clearly stated'' the who, how and what on lots of things that i could not accept.

Now i can ''very clearly state'' that i'm divorced

If your future wife is pushing and declaring now just wait till she gets the wedding ring on!!!!!

Accraholic, are you TRYING to piss me off? Keep taking everything I say and twisting it to fit your agenda. What I SAID was the daycare provider will probably have more experience than you will at raising kids. Everyone who raises their own kids will make mistakes an experienced person won't. Yet most kids will still turn out OK. Some daycares are bad and someparentsare also bad. My kids are better off in daycare instead of hanging around that male hating, browbeating bitch I'm married to. She'd have them lower than a snakes belly if she had them all the time. She thinks that constantly correcting every little thing is good for them. So take your 1 idea fits all and pound sand.

NICE REPLY !

I'm sure glad that you and YOUR wife saw fit to produce offspring......................without your fine taste possibly she might not have reproduced.

P.S. Walmart is hiring.................

accraholic,

What an ass you are...................................I love it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

newt:
stay away from credit cards. stay away from debt. live simply. apply the Word. for a salary man or working man (or woman) there is no thing - i repeat, no thing - in this world worth going into debt for except, maybe, a house or a good education. if you are a businessman, then debt is a whole 'nother thing, and i don't know nothin' 'bout it.
keep it to one or two debts at a time, and you will be fine.
as a 20-year veteran of poor stewardship, i know about these things. i pray you do not get to know about them.

Day care providers don't raise kids, they watch kids, only parents raise kids. If don't understand the reason for having kids if you're going to pawn off their rearing on others, but to each their own.

What Fish said is right on the money (accidental pun). Trying to buy happiness doesn't work. Be happy where you are and have goals, but don't go in debt trying to get that new toy buzz. The debt lasts much longer than the buzz. 458Lott is also correct according to my view of the world, and I think it does a disservice to both the child that grows up without seeing good family structure, and to our country as a whole which is gaining a larger population of screwed-up kids. Having a second income to pay for childcare does not advance your financial strenght one rotten penny.
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