Reply #110: I married late, in my forties

[catmandu57]

for the first and "hopefully" only time.
When I was younger my mother bombarded me with shoulds and give me's. You should be married, give me grandkids was all I heard from her from the time I was eighteen until I finally told her to shut up, I was tired of hearing it.
In those days, when I was hearing her, I had desperation dripping from every pore, and every female I got close to could smell it. The smart ones ran away as fast as they could, except one, we became engaged and before we married that relationship turned into a nightmare.
I look at it now as a blessing, it would never have lasted, and in all probability turned into a living hell, we're both better off.

My brothers on the other hand, both married when they were young, both got divorced, she hated her daughters in law, wouldn't have jack to do with them or the grandkids she demanded.
This was the early eighties and the glorious st. ronnies heydays, the hard times then had a lot to do with their breakups.

In the meantime I met a woman who already had two kids and had her tubes cut after the second, we were together for seventeen years, getting to know one another. we did the cohabitation thing for a while, but that didn't work, more my fault I'm really not a father, and an even worse stepfather. Though we get along great now her boys and I.
A little over three years ago, we decided to make things official, and got married, so we're working on twenty actually. We're best friends, I wasn't sure that she really was what I was looking for when we met, but, we grew into each other, and we're comfortable with each other.
We don't have the stresses of a younger couple, her kids are grown and on their own, and are making a decent life for themselves.

I believe that people marry too young, before they are mature enough to stand up to the financial strains, and sexual wanderings that occur.
Many people grab the first thing on the shelf and when they find it's not what they wanted toss it away.

We have it back wards, it's too easy to get married and harder to split up, we should make it hard to get married, make people think about what they're doing and why they're doing it.