To ask what happened to having traditional values?

[mozzarellasticks]

I'm 23 and from a very young age I was told that it was 'right' to live life in a 'traditional' order.
For example: being in a relationship with someone, buying a house, getting married, and then having kids.
Not trying to be smug or on a high horse, just wondering what happened and why people are getting pregnant after knowing someone for 5 minutes. I'm generally considered to be have old fashioned views but want to know why no one else feels the same way

@Amibeingnaive thank you. I'm a lab technician within retail

Sorry - I forgot you were already cohabiting - will you promise to obey your husband when you get married?

@Parthenope

You know that was removed from the film? Madness.

here it is

Maybe I do sound smug - I feel proud that I'm doing something productive with my life unlike my brothers

So is this a bash at your brothers and their views and morals?

To be fair I think the posters saying "live first, don't get married too young" are as judgemental in their own way as the OP.

The OP's problem is her desire to see her way of doing things as correct for everyone rather than herself.

Life is short and the only person you need to answer to OP is yourself - are you happy with how you're doing things? If so then stop needing validation and stop trying to prove your worth. I'm getting a sense of insecurity over your choices. Own them.

what happened was acceptance of casual divorce, acceptance of children being born out of marriage, apparent generosity to single parents and so on. Women's lib campaigners wanting equality except when it suits them, and despising men who open doors and offer seats and so on. A tax system that actively militates against married and especially single earner couples. A coarsening of society, with the prevalence of foul language on TV. Soft policing of laws.

All genies once out of the bottle that are very hard to put back. IMHO

I remember reading a statistic about the number of Victorian women that were most likely pregnant at the time of their wedding. Of course, I can't remember what that number was but it was far higher than the supposedly prim Victorians would have had us believe.

You really would have a happier life by just getting on with your own thing that works for you and letting others do the same. We are all such complex and complicated creatures that it would be unrealistic to expect 1 rule to fit us all. I'm probably more like you in the sense I cohabited first, married and then had children (don't own own home however) but I can think of about a million other ways it COULD have gone and may indeed go in the future. Life is fluid and everything is temporary.

Women's lib campaigners wanting equality except when it suits them, and despising men who open doors and offer seats and so on.

If a man ever has the temerity to open a door for me I pluck a hair from his head when his back is turned and take it to my local Feminist Voodoo Cooperative and have them perform an awful curse on him.

what happened was acceptance of casual divorce, acceptance of children being born out of marriage, apparent generosity to single parents and so on. Women's lib campaigners wanting equality except when it suits them, and despising men who open doors and offer seats and so on. A tax system that actively militates against married and especially single earner couples. A coarsening of society, with the prevalence of foul language on TV. Soft policing of laws

Oh bless you, you’re fucking confused

Damn those feminists and all their equality bollocks. We should go back to the good old days for women...

OP I think you’ve been given a tough time on this thread. I don’t think you anticipated that most other posters here would have more intelligence life experience then you. Best leave it be now.

Life changed.
I bought a house by myself, not with a partner. Then a career, so not much time for a partner. Then I was 40, had encountered my share of less than honest men and avoided marrying any of them. Then found myself unexpectedly pregnant at a very late age, and was definitely not going to throw away my one time opportunity.
So here we are, happy ds, happy me, happy house, solvent, amicable relationship with ds’s father.
I’ve never once thought about “values”. Our lives are no-one else’s concern.

Thanks for each and every one of your replies. I think this thread is done with now. Besides my husband to be will be home soon and dinner must be on the table for him the second he walks in the door 🙄 (joking - he's cooking tonight) I hope you all enjoy the rest of your lives no matter what path life has taken you on

Two phrases guaranteed to give me the rage -

"it's swung too far the other way now"
Often used to imply that an oppressed group or specific class of society has now been given some rights, had injustice acknowledged or granted some help so now it must stop. An example could be #metoo

"Women's libbers wanting equality until it suits them" if I hear you say this I'm totally going to judge you as a misogynistic tool.

I hope this thread has woken you up OP. You need to realise that life doesn't and shouldn't fit one specific formula. Children can be happy and loved out of wedlock just as they can be miserable and neglected by married parents.

All credit to you OP, you've answered gracefully on this thread, even though you've been given a coating.

And there is nothing wrong with doing it your way, just as there is nothing wrong with doing it another way. Hopefully you can see now that a happy home doesn't come in one standardised, rigid design, but is as diverse and variable as its inhabitants.

Best of luck to you and I hope life continues to go according to plan

OP if that's sincere (I hope so) then absolutely the best to you too. If things don't go to plan it sometimes can mean the plan wasn't the right one

Enjoy you tea.

It's personal preference, I think we need to be responsible, this may mean being on an established relationship to have children, or it might mean having sufficient income to go it alone.

Hope you're leaving the thread more open minded than you arrived 🙂

Enjoy your dinner, OP. It always tastes better when someone else cooks for you!

What I don't understand is why people give a fuck about wether others have signed a contract to be legally bound together?

I am married, I am a home owner... but why does that matter to you? Nothing in my life changed when when I married except once a year we have a wedding anniversary we didn't have before....

It’s not that life materially changed with you getting married, it’s that the effort and decision to actually get married says something. Not everyone needs to go through those actual steps for their relationship to be so solid but many many people have not made it there because the commitment or love or intention isn’t there. So they just have a baby anyway because that’s a wonderful thing and only takes a shag to do it.

So you’re bemoaning the lack of traditional values...

... while saying you’d have an abortion if you got pregnant before marriage, rather than that you’d speed up the wedding.

Abortions aren’t very traditional, OP.

You’re an odd duck, bless.