In Hour 1 on March 5th's show, Dr. Laura got a call from a shack-up honey who was just nineteen, or maybe that was her age when the shacking up started. She was concerned about how her boyfriend handles money. Now, I'll say yet again that I think shacking up is a terrible idea (I intentionally avoided it) and I adore Dr. Laura and I'm a huge fan of her. It is because I listen so thoroughly and closely that I can pick bones sometimes.
Dr. Laura told her...
Monday, March 09, 2015
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Justifying Unmarried Fornication is Not the Same As Planning to Cheat on Your Spouse
Ah, two entries in a row inspired by the Dr. Laura Show. As I often do, I'll say I love her show, books, etc. and I generally agree with her and I think she does a lot of good for people.
With that out of the way...
In the first hour of yesterday's (March 3, 2015) show, a woman called to ask about letting an unmarried middle-aged couple stay in the same room of her family home while they visited for an event to which they were going. The caller was against it; her husband was OK with it. She and her husband did NOT shack up themselves. Her husband was justifying the fornication of their friends by saying that dating was to get to know someone, and sex was part of that and people did it so they wouldn’t get "defrauded" into marriage. Dr. Laura claimed that the statistics are that when people don't shack up and don't have sex before marriage that their "success rate in marriage is much greater".
I’d like to believe that. That's how my wife and I handled it, after all, and this is a claim I have always accepted. I think I've gone into great detail about that before on this blog about the various reasons that statistic might be true. One of them is that the kind of person who is willing to wait until marriage for sex and cohabitation is also likely to avoid filing for divorce, no matter how miserable or toxic things get.
Anyway, if the call had ended there, that would have been great. But it didn’t.
Dr. Laura then told the caller to be "very worried" about her husband's mentality because "sex outside the marriage may be the next thing he justifies." The caller was stunned. "Yeah," Dr. Laura continued, "He’s going in a direction, can't you see that?" Then when the caller revealed they got married when he was 45 (he'd never been married before) Dr. Laura said she would have talked the caller out of that one, and ended the call. But she went on to say "He's creeping out from under the covers. We're hearing more and more the truth."
Really?
There are many, many people who think it is "OK" for middle-aged people to fornicate monogamously with each other who do NOT think it is OK to cheat on their spouse and never would cheat on their spouse. I know, I know, there are people who say fornication is cheating on your future spouse, which, of course, assumes someone will have future spouse. But that's a very specific religious view. I'm instead talking about general mindsets in society.
I largely agree with Dr. Laura’s overall moral mindset, but I know there are many people who do not think like "us" and thus do not see all sex outside of marriage under the same general category of immorality. In their minds, cheating on a spouse is entirely different than having sex with your longtime monogamous partner you are with under the intention of finding a spouse.
I'm not sure telling that wife to be suspicious of her husband was a productive thing to do.
The more likely way this pertains at all to the marriage of the caller is that her husband himself might feel like he was defrauded. But the caller said they didn't shack up, not that they didn't fornicate. I'm fairly certain from what the caller said and didn't say that they did fornicate and so the husband "knew what he was getting himself into".
So Dr. Laura's nudging of the wife towards suspicion seemed to me to be a mistake on her part. The call should have been ended with the fact that the wife is co-owner of the home (assuming she is - she might not be given the ages, and if she's not Dr. Laura probably would have said that was wrong, too) and she doesn't want unmarried couples spending night together in her home, and that should be the deciding factor.
With that out of the way...
In the first hour of yesterday's (March 3, 2015) show, a woman called to ask about letting an unmarried middle-aged couple stay in the same room of her family home while they visited for an event to which they were going. The caller was against it; her husband was OK with it. She and her husband did NOT shack up themselves. Her husband was justifying the fornication of their friends by saying that dating was to get to know someone, and sex was part of that and people did it so they wouldn’t get "defrauded" into marriage. Dr. Laura claimed that the statistics are that when people don't shack up and don't have sex before marriage that their "success rate in marriage is much greater".
I’d like to believe that. That's how my wife and I handled it, after all, and this is a claim I have always accepted. I think I've gone into great detail about that before on this blog about the various reasons that statistic might be true. One of them is that the kind of person who is willing to wait until marriage for sex and cohabitation is also likely to avoid filing for divorce, no matter how miserable or toxic things get.
Anyway, if the call had ended there, that would have been great. But it didn’t.
Dr. Laura then told the caller to be "very worried" about her husband's mentality because "sex outside the marriage may be the next thing he justifies." The caller was stunned. "Yeah," Dr. Laura continued, "He’s going in a direction, can't you see that?" Then when the caller revealed they got married when he was 45 (he'd never been married before) Dr. Laura said she would have talked the caller out of that one, and ended the call. But she went on to say "He's creeping out from under the covers. We're hearing more and more the truth."
Really?
There are many, many people who think it is "OK" for middle-aged people to fornicate monogamously with each other who do NOT think it is OK to cheat on their spouse and never would cheat on their spouse. I know, I know, there are people who say fornication is cheating on your future spouse, which, of course, assumes someone will have future spouse. But that's a very specific religious view. I'm instead talking about general mindsets in society.
I largely agree with Dr. Laura’s overall moral mindset, but I know there are many people who do not think like "us" and thus do not see all sex outside of marriage under the same general category of immorality. In their minds, cheating on a spouse is entirely different than having sex with your longtime monogamous partner you are with under the intention of finding a spouse.
I'm not sure telling that wife to be suspicious of her husband was a productive thing to do.
The more likely way this pertains at all to the marriage of the caller is that her husband himself might feel like he was defrauded. But the caller said they didn't shack up, not that they didn't fornicate. I'm fairly certain from what the caller said and didn't say that they did fornicate and so the husband "knew what he was getting himself into".
So Dr. Laura's nudging of the wife towards suspicion seemed to me to be a mistake on her part. The call should have been ended with the fact that the wife is co-owner of the home (assuming she is - she might not be given the ages, and if she's not Dr. Laura probably would have said that was wrong, too) and she doesn't want unmarried couples spending night together in her home, and that should be the deciding factor.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
A Success Story
Let's get something straight right away. I'm still of the conviction that sex is for marriage.
Today’s Dr. Laura Show e-mail of the day comes from "Kelly" and is titled "Waiting Made It Better". I don't know if that’s Kelly's title or the title given to the letter by Dr. Laura or someone on her staff.
Getting back to the title of the letter and her comment that "this was made all the sweeter". The fact is, we don't know. We have no idea what it would be like if they hadn't waited. She might be just as happy with everything now. And yes, things might have been not as good. We don’t know. What we do know is that for that amount of time, which they are never getting back, they weren't enjoying sex. We make these claims, implicitly or explicitly to younger generations that if they just wait, things will be great. It isn't necessarily so. There are real people out there who waited and have found things are not great - they may be awful. I'm glad things are great for Kelly and her husband, and wish them a long and happy life together, but it doesn't always so the same for everyone, and they're only five years in anyway and things could be very different in another five years. We can still make the case that waiting is the right thing to do without fostering unrealistic expectations that will leave some people confused and bitter.
Today’s Dr. Laura Show e-mail of the day comes from "Kelly" and is titled "Waiting Made It Better". I don't know if that’s Kelly's title or the title given to the letter by Dr. Laura or someone on her staff.
When my husband and I began dating, we were in our forties. Unfortunately, in our age group, sex is an expectation of even the most casual of dating.That's an expectation of any age group from 16 years-old on up.
I knew I had a keeper when at the very beginning of our relationship, he agreed to wait until our wedding night!Many women "knew they had a keeper" due to a similar agreement, only to find out that they married a man who has little to no interest in having/ability to have sex with her or women in general. This could be due to impotence, or trauma, hormonal problems, or a disorder, or only having attraction to children or males or inanimate objects. And then what? Well, many people who insist only having sex in marriage also insist on not divorcing. So you they find themselves enduring a lack of this kind of affection for the rest of their lives. That is more tolerable if someone is paying your way through life, but for men, it is less so.
This was made all the sweeter as we had both previously been married so we knew what comforts and pleasure we were missing.So it isn't like they were curious and pent-up virgins. It's one thing to "wait" when you've had it as a regular part of your life before. It is another thing to wait when you've never had it, and we shouldn't pretend it is the same thing.
We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary this past Valentine's Day.That's smart on his part - getting married on February 14. It cuts down by one the number of "special days" he has to make a big deal about. He gets even more points if he Kelly's birthday is December 25. If you're going to get married, guys, find a woman whose birthday is either 2/14 or 12/25 and get married on the other date.
We have a marriage that is not only passionate and getting more so each year, but we have peace in our home and the loving, trusting, never-going-to-leave-you-no-matter-what relationship we've always dreamed of.If she's implying that he's:
- loving
- trustworthy
- never going to leave her no matter what
Getting back to the title of the letter and her comment that "this was made all the sweeter". The fact is, we don't know. We have no idea what it would be like if they hadn't waited. She might be just as happy with everything now. And yes, things might have been not as good. We don’t know. What we do know is that for that amount of time, which they are never getting back, they weren't enjoying sex. We make these claims, implicitly or explicitly to younger generations that if they just wait, things will be great. It isn't necessarily so. There are real people out there who waited and have found things are not great - they may be awful. I'm glad things are great for Kelly and her husband, and wish them a long and happy life together, but it doesn't always so the same for everyone, and they're only five years in anyway and things could be very different in another five years. We can still make the case that waiting is the right thing to do without fostering unrealistic expectations that will leave some people confused and bitter.
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