You know that time in your life....

miranadobe

 (as if not getting pregnant in the first year was a sign of a bad marriage

Oh my doG yes and it is all about insecurity. When I worked for a large investment bank, there was a woman who went dashing out of the office to mail her son's preschool application one day and made a big to-do about what school it was and how she'd die if he didn't get in. That was the moment I knew I would never have anything in common with people who have those priorities.

I am all for education, but my kids will never be trophies. 

BlackLabbie

LOL! You know what they say....if you can't say anything nice, come sit by me!

Steel Magnolias....another classic!

aerial1313

BlackLabbie

LOL! You know what they say....if you can't say anything nice, come sit by me!

Steel Magnolias....another classic!

Yah it is! I love that movie!

BlackLabbie

*sigh*....Our weekends keep getting lonlier and lonlier. Not that I mind being with Jeremy or anything, lol. But I like to coupley things; bowling, bars, etc.

Hmm .... just to give you a completely different idea ... David and I don't do "coupley things" -- we do together things.  When we're not working we're pretty well doing stuff together unless it just doesn't work -- we seek our own private time, but most of what we do, we do because we enjoy it.  Dinner somewhere with good food, live theatre, travel when we can ...

"Lonely is when he's working so much he can't take time off, or the same with me.  Lonely for me is missing doing stuff with him.  Sometimes we include others, but it's a mutual choice ...

Because of the arthritis I don't do "sporto" things -- and bars never have been my thing.  We don't have kids (I've never been able to have them) -- we would have welcomed them, but we share pet therapy, dog events, and even vet stuff as 'things we do together". 

Mind you -- we were 40+ when we got married and he was from the UK and I was from here  and divorced so  the friends we've made are people we've gotten to know post-marriage. 

But for us, marrage was simply the joining because we're better together than apart.  It wasn't a set "thing" of Marriage ==> kids ===> house in the suburbs ===>boredom forever. 

You don't have to fall into the same pattern friends do -- and if kids and that pattern of life isn't what both of you want DESPERATELY, then don't do it!  But marriage should *not* mean "gotta have kids".   It's simply the union of two people who know they're better together than they are apart.  From there you define what works fOR YOU TWO.

calliecritturs

You don't have to fall into the same pattern friends do -- and if kids and that pattern of life isn't what both of you want DESPERATELY, then don't do it!  But marriage should *not* mean "gotta have kids".   It's simply the union of two people who know they're better together than they are apart.  From there you define what works fOR YOU TWO.

 

i agree with the above whole heartedly. 

i know what it is like to lose touch with friends who were married and having kids. it is tough to find time to spend with them, and they mostly all seem to go to bed so darn early after the kids come around! :D 

I've had this problem especially since I'm not planning on kids.  My best friends all have kids.  Our cousins that are close in age that we are close too also have kids.  And, they all got married much earlier than we did.  I'm DH's second wife so I was older when we got married, 31.

Mike and I just aren't kid people.  Our lifestyle and kids just don't mesh and neither one of us wants to change.  My dad says I'll regret it some day.

At any rate, the way we go out has changed.  Instead of going someplace we might just get together at their house.  Or, instead of dinner and something at night, I might call my friend and I'll get together with her and maybe the kids during the day for a coffee and snacks or something quick like that. 

We don't call as much, it's more e-mail than anything now. 

It's changed but I try to keep the relationships there. 

The worst if my friend who got married and now he doesn't call because she gets jealous!  Please.

Liesje

I have the opposite, besides one of my best friends who is 10 years older than me and has 2 kids, all of my other good friends are not married.  Some date off and on, but none are paired up in the sense that when we go out, it's still us girls, not couples.  DH and I say we don't really count though because we live like college roommates, friends with benefits, lol.  We have different schedules, we rarely eat together, different friends and hobbies, even different bank accounts.  I think it really bugs his mom.  It's not weird to us for me to go to a dog show a thousand miles away and be in a hotel room for a weekend with people he's never met.

Alex and I live the same way.

 I'm the opposite way round - out of all my friends I am almost the only one married with a kid. 

I don't think marriage and kids is an indicator of how strong a realtionship is. 

I do feel kind of sorry for some of my friends, and not in a patronising way.  I'm in a really good place.  Being a mum is the most amazing challenge and rewarding experience, beyond anything I could have imagined.  It's not what I expected.  I think back to when I was in the position my friends are in now, looking in on marriage and parenting from the outside and most of my thoughts or feelings on it were inaccurate, despite having lots of nephews and nieces of all ages to help look after.

I feel that there is now a wall between my friends and me, because I understand them - I have been where they are - but they don't understand me because they haven't been where I am.  I want them to catch up - not because I think my way is better, but because I want the friendship and understanding to be close like it used to be.  I can't go back to the way I used to be, so all I can do is long for them to catch up! 

This might be the case with some of your friends.  They just want the closeness that used to be there - the whole "we're all in the same boat" feel, like you get when you are all at college together or whatever.  It also allows them to support you through the challenges you face - if only because they are facing the same ones.  They don't have to DO anything, just BE - just knowing that "they are doing all this too" is a comfort.

 I'm still young enough that I'm not getting too much pressure on this end yet, but I suspect it will come. I'm 23, never really cared to have a boyfriend, and right now, I'm pretty insistent that I won't have kids or get married. I just joke to people that I plan to get divorced (but not married). The only person who really ever bugs me too much about this is my sister, who is 24, and she isn't married either. She however feels this desperate need to have a boyfriend, get married, and have kids though. I enjoy being able to make somewhat impulsive decisions, and only having to consider Max when I do it. I don't want to have to consider another person, or multiple other people, especially children. I work with kids, so I don't think it's that I have no maternal or caregiving instinct. Maybe it's because of that that I don't want to have kids. I worked in a daycare for a while, I know I wouldn't be happy with that for my own kids. I was going nuts spending several hours a few days this week in a room, and I don't think I could do several years of that. I could never live up to my own standards raising my own kids, so right now, I feel like I should chose not to. I don't want to live feeling like I failed, especially not in something that important.

Cita

I also don't yet trust my mid-twenty-something self to be able to make decisions that will affect my mid-forty-something self.

A bit of irony there I couldn't resist noting. The decisions you are making now will affect your 40-something life. It just happens.

As to the parents-only club thing, a lot that has to do with what the parents expected of themselves growing up. I have seen a few cases where a person becomes a new parent and all of a sudden, they are an authority on everything. You can't tell them squat because they popped out a kid and are now responsible for that life.

OTOH, the friends getting married and having kids does signify the end of the college buddies thing, the run around town and create havoc thing. A spouse and kids require approximately 26 hrs and 15 min in a day that only has 24 hours. As I mentioned before, I have not sired any children, in or out of wedlock and it seems a foregone conclusion that I will never sire children. Nor are we in a position to adopt. But DW has a daughter that was born in 1973. And through her, we have a granddaughter that was born Valentine's Day 2008. Yes, folks, Malia is almost 1 year old. We have a goddaughter, Celina, Shadow's other favorite human. He becomes her dog when she visits. We have neices and nephews in Louisiana. Our neice and my brother live in Maine. So, we'll just spoil them rotten. DW works in a dept that deals with baby stuff so she gets a baby fix nearly every day at work.

And I help out the animals when I can. Donating to the shelter. Giving my advocacy for pets and pet animals. Volunteering my time when I can. Educating my fellow man when possible, without being to pedantic.

ron2

OTOH, the friends getting married and having kids does signify the end of the college buddies thing, the run around town and create havoc thing.

See! I'm not ready to give that up yet! I <3 creating havoc

 We're in kind of a weird place with our friends.  We got married at 22, and many of our friends got married around that time or a couple years after it.  The majority of them are now divorced or separated.  The only friends that we have that really do "couple" things are actually separated, they just still do things together.  I know that she cheated on him with a co-worker while they were still together, I know that she is having the time of her life being away from him, and I know that he is unhappy being away from her and has resorted to MySpace hookups to fill the void (he actually sent a message to my little cousin hitting on her--she's 10 years younger than him).  I'm not sure how to desribe it, but I just know too much to be somewhere with the 2 of them and not have it be weird.

Many of the women I work with are older and most of them have kids, and are shocked that we don't have any yet.  Whenever people ask, I just tell them that we have 2 dogs and a horse and that those things fill our plates (which is true).  Heck, I'm just now figuring out how to properly care for myself much less another human being!

The good thing about DH is that he is not a jealous guy.  I can go out to the bar and party if I want (although I don't very often) and he doesn't care if I go without him.

I guess another thing that prevented me from trying to have kids right away with anyone willing to tolerate me is that I grew up dirt poor, one time living in govt. assisted apts. I vowed that I would not have kids until I had a financially sound situation. And that's never happened. I know my mother did fine with us, having nothing more than her most recent paycheck. And plenty have done well on the same budget. My brother managed to do it. My neice from him is 14, now.

But such things never worked out for me. I did want kids, very much so. But it's not going to happen. So, I try to make the lives of kids around me a better place, when possible. To have trained Shadow and educated my goddaughter and have them be such pals was very gratifying to me. She was afraid of big dogs and together, we have cured her of that. And that has removed at least one fear from her life. One of my favorite movies is "It's a Wonderful Life." I like the idea that one person affects others. And I would like to think that I have made the world a better place for at least one person.