Lost Boy

Yes, on paper that is correct. In practice, it would never happen. The economy is king. Trump could sacrifice a baby on the white house lawn and if the economy is booming, he will be reelected. People for the most part don't really care who is president so long as they have money coming into their coffers. Look at Richard Nixon.... Bill Clinton... Both horrible people. Both reelected mostly because the economy was good. The only real other predictor is war. If we are in a popular war, the sitting president is a shoe in. Please let me know who in history has made a successful challenge in a primary to the sitting president. Let me give you a hint.... Franklin Pierce, a southern democrat from a long long time ago. He really upset his party. Trump has not done that. There is little chance anyone could trump the Trump.

If the economy is good, they are for all intents and purposes immune.

There is no point in running a Mormon against Trump, unless that mormon is a Democrat. If the economy is strong, people tend to vote for the status quo... That would be Trump. If the economy sucks, they tend to go for the other party, the Democrats. Unless there is some major scandal that rocks both the Democrats and the Republicans, no third party candidate would stand a chance. That said, I will most likely not vote for either party. Neither has values that I like. 1) Small Military 2) Small Government 3) Reduced welfare. If you are able bodied, you need a job. 4) For basic universal health care. 5) For immigration reform. No more anchor babies. No more being born here as the basis of citizenship. But provide means for intelligent immigration. 6) Education. Subsidized higher education for all. Basically a set amount for tuition which can be used at any accredited college or vocational school. Smaller class size, more teachers, year round school with two different month long breaks. 7) No more race based programs. Treat everyone as equal. No affirmative action. Let people sink or swim on their own merits. 8 Do away with the minimum wage. Let the market manage it.

You have a lot of issues you need to work out here. You would like hot steamy sex with your wife and confuse that with love. Love is putting her first above your needs so she can be happy. It is doing this without expectation of something in return. This is incredibly hard to do. We all want life to be fair and marriage to be equal. Life isn't fair and marriage isn't equal. The only aspect where marriage is equal is say in decision making. And that is the end of the equality. You can't divvy up chores evenly. You can't divvy up responsibility equally. You can't put equal amount of effort into the relationship. It is impossible. The only thing you have control of here is you. You get to decide if you are going to fight with your wife. You get to decide if you are going to love her. You get to decide if you are going to better yourself. You are the one that determines if you are going to live a Christ like life. There are millions of arranged marriages in the world. They do not start with love. Some never end up with love, but some do. If you want love in your marriage, it needs to start with you. Learning about your wife and her needs and then setting out to meet those needs. You may have to view this as a duty more than anything at first. You certainly aren't going to do this out of love at first, but you do it out of a desire to have love. Learn what foods she likes best and learn how to make it well. Take her on dates. Spend time with her. When she makes you mad, stop and analyze it. Anger is essentially a heightened form of frustration. Frustration is basically not being able to achieve an outcome that you want. Figure out just exactly what you want and why. Then figure out what she wants and why. Then learn to communicate with her. Don't use phrases like "you always..." Or "You never... " that never leads to anything good. In loving your wife, stop asking what has she done in return for me. Instead focus on what the next thing you are going to do for her. This is part of the "life isn't fair" bit. Do as much for her as you possibly can. Treat her like the queen you want. There are some here that probably hate the movie Johnny Lingo, but the big take away from Johnny Lingo is that Johnny treated his bride with love and tenderness and treated her like the queen he wanted. She became that person. And her love for him grew as well and the bond between them grew. Johnny Lingo did not give waiting for something in return. He just gave knowing that that is how you make a better marriage. Doing the above is not going to fix things over night. It will likely be many months before you see real improvement. It may even be a year. I started this year with the real possibility of me ending my marriage with my wife 25 years. I turned it around. Or at least have made great progress. We recently went on a cruise to celebrate 25 years of marriage. And today things are so much better. It starts with committing to learn to love and then sticking with it even when it seems pointless.

Most here are completely clueless on universal health care. First it is not socialized medicine. It is socialized insurance.. Second what we have today is not a capitalistic system. Your choice today is highly limited. With a universal health care system, the hospitals, doctors, etc are not government owned or government employees. They remain in the private sector. Doctors wages are not capped, but the price that they get paid for a procedure is set. But today what they get paid is set as well by the insurance company. The amount you pay into the system would not go up for most citizens. The only thing that really changes is the flow of money. Instead of money going through an insurance company, it would go through a government agency. The benefits are as follows. Risk of bankruptcy due to medical debt mostly goes away. All citizens get good health care and good health care means lower crime and more people in the work force. No more worrying about whether you have money to cover a needed procedure.

Methinks you know essentially nothing about my wife and commenting on her like this is rather low.

It is an relationship where one chooses to spend time with someone else over a spouse. Where they share a deep closeness. Share secrets and generally hide the relationship from their spouse. Often in these relationships one will complain about or bad mouth their spouse to this friend. And no, I don't bar my wife for being friends with anyone. But if she were to have another emotional affair, I probably would divorce her. Since the last one she talks very little to other guys. She says it is not worth the risk of falling in love love with them.

An emotional affair is basically putting emotional energy towards someone other than your spouse. For me it was my wife spending hours texting or talking on the phone or going out to dinner with the guy. As far as I know the most they ever did physically was hug, but that doesn't help much.

A long time ago before my mission I had a girl friend I liked a lot. Probably say I loved her. While we were going to be away, I told her that she was free to date other guys. I hoped she would wait, but 3 or 4 months into the mission the dear john came.... She fell in love with her good friend. Yup, I was a bit heart broken. OK, a lot heart broken. But, I knew there were many other girls out there. Your girl friend is not the only one for you. Life goes on just fine without her. The quicker you understand this, the easier your life will be. My girlfriend was married within 6 months of the dear john. But by that time I had moved on. No point in holding onto sadness. Fast forward to after the mission. I dated several wonderful women and had a great time. Finally found one that I wanted to marry and who wanted to marry me. I don't regret for a second that my ex-girlfriend got married to another. in the end, she turned out to be too crazy for me. I love my wife and couldn't imagine being married to someone else. let her go and if after the mission she is still available, then great. If she isn't, then enjoy the hunt for another.

Well if you think that me thinking my time is more valuable because I have 7 years of college and several degrees, then yes, I guess I am an elitist. But I don't view it as such. I view it as spending 7 years educating myself and sending much of my own money to get there. And yes, I believe in paying more to someone who has more capability.

Except that is not at all what happened. I didn't complain about how much I paid. I was quite content to pay that. At the end of the job, they asked if there was any more work that they could do for me. I could have had them redo the flower bed where the bushes were pulled from, but I did that myself. I did refer him to a friend or two. Everyone was happy or content. Those wanting $600+ were content because they weren't hurting for work. The guy that did the work got paid what he requested and I got the bushes pulled that I wanted pulled. So how is that Elitism? I personally would rather have those laborers here legally. But the laws are screwed up and no one is willing to fix them. Give a means for laborers to come here legally and most would. Then you could tax them and keep track of them and for those that want to become a citizen you provide a path to citizenship. Right now you have a situation that does very little to promote legal immigration and a lot to promote illegal immigration.

Where did I say gardeners are uneducated? I did not. I said "uneducated gardners" There is a difference. There are educated gardners and there are uneducated gardners. Pulling bushes out of the ground doesn't require a degree from MIT. $35/week for a 3 man crew is not crazy prices. $8,000 for redoing a yard does not indicate anything about the labor rates. The bulk of that price could have been materials, so you aren't giving a good comparison. Pulling bushes required a pickup truck a chain and some shovels and about three hours work. There were three guys. I paid them a little over $200 for the job. That equates to $22/hr per person. I am guessing the forman made more like a $120 and the paid the other 2 guys $40/each. For uneducated manual labor, that is decent wages. I know the contractors that wanted $600+ would only be paying their guys no more than $12/hr as well. And chances are there would be illegals on their crew as well. So I am opposed to hiring illegals at slave labor rates, too. I don't believe that is what happened. But then again, this guy could have screwed his two employees as well. This is a free country. You are not forced to work for labor rates you don't agree with. If you don't like what you are paid, you find better employment.

I don't need to pretend. I needed 4 bushes removed from in front of my house. I had 5 business quote the job. I figured about 3 hours worth of work. 4 of the places quoted me over $600 for the job. I guy said he could do it for a bit over $200. I suspected he had a Mexican crew. I hired him and he and his crew had it done in less than 3 hours. And I am pretty that they were here illegally. So if it were one of the other companies, it would have been over $60/hr per person. I don't make that much as an engineer. I am not going to pay uneducated gardeners more than I make per hour.

I am much like you in that the older I get the more I realize that we all have our own demons that we have to contend with and it is not fair in the least for us to judge others based on our experiences. 10 years ago, I was so much more judgemental. I definitely couldn't see the beam in my own eye. I know I would be scared to death if I were a young woman pregnant, no husband and massive fog clouding my future with very little hope. Cudos to you for being understanding.

When you found out, was it a bit of a blow? If it was, how did you deal with it?

Yes, there are many women who are skilled abusers. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence Because men are "supposed" to be the protectors, society doesn't speak up much for men that are abused. Men because of their size can typically do more physical damage to women, but that doesn't mean men shouldn't have the same level of voice that women do when it comes to abuse. And as far as mental/emotional abuse, I would dare say that women are equals in this regard. And I would definitely say henpecking is a form of abuse. Anything that is mentally/emotionally degrading or manipulative to a spouse is abusive in my opinion.

I find it odd that so many here have carried in church. What is the chance of there being a mass shooting in an LDS church? Very low. What is the chance of you being in that particular church if it ever does happen? Much lower. You have far greater chance dying in a car accident going to and returning from church. If I am taken to heaven while attending church, then that is where my maker wants me. Things don't happen by chance. The man upstairs knows the end from the beginning. And while I would never take away the right to carry, I won't carry and trust the Lord is watching over us.

I am not talking about guilt tripping anyone into doing anything. The question is whether or not having a prior abortion would make you not want to marry someone or date someone granted they repented of it. My personal take is that if the savior considers it repented of then that should be a non-issue. But my guess is many would get hung up on it. And if they are hung up on it, then they should move on to someone else.

I don't think it is anything like sending a kid out for trick or treating. A guy has sex with a knowledge that their act has a good chance of ending in a pregnancy. And most likely a pregnancy he does not want. But he gets to wash his hands of it because it is not his choice. So yes, I still believe he bears a great part of the responsibility. As for whom you date and marry, certainly no one should force you to marry anyone and it should be your choice. I don't think that is the point. The point is whether you are capable of looking past a past sin or not. Unfortunately, some here can't. Even though christ can forgive and make clean. Some would still hold that deed against the person.

Whereas he may not be equally responsible. He is responsible for putting the woman in an incredibly difficult situation. So if he has put her in an extremely difficult situation, part of the blame goes to him.

Actually, I think that is a legit question.

I love getting people to think about things. Hopefully this is such a question. I have thought about it quite a bit. I think one really has to consider who God is and what he is capable of. Consider that God knows all. Surely if God knows all, he would know that the abortion was going to happen. I don't believe for a second that if the fetus has a soul, that that soul would be in any way damned. So although a terrible thing abortion is, I don't think you are condemning a life to hell. Rather if the soul exists at that point, it would be treated as any soul who died before the age of accountability. I don't know if any church leader has actually come out and said when a soul enters the body. What we do know is that many women get pregnant and have early miscarriages without them even knowing they were pregnant. So is abortion equivalent to murder? I don't really know, but my gut tells me no. There have been nearly 50 million abortions in the US alone since 1970. Is God going to look on all of these women as murderers? I really hope not. Could I date a woman who had an abortion? Yes. Could I marry one? Yes. What if I found out after marriage that she had had an abortion? That would seriously hurt, but I don't think it is something that I couldn't get over with time and prayer and some help from above. I truly believe God still sees these women as his daughters... Daughters whom he loves. And if he can love them, why can't I? How about the guys that knocked up the women who have abortions? Does the sin not equally fall on their heads as well? I think some of you will try and argue that it is the woman's choice, so no. But I would put it out there that the instigator of the series of events that lead to the horrible choice lies squarely with the guy as well. I personally can't through a stone at someone who came to the decision that an abortion was the solution. It couldn't be easy and it is a decision that will live with them for the rest of their lives. I would hope that if ever I do something horribly wrong, those around me will be able to forgive.

To clarify a little more. The woman had the abortion before she became a member of the church. If you were a single guy looking to get married, would you date a woman who had an abortion? What if you never asked and you got married and then found out?

I used to be pretty judgmental until I really looked at me in the mirror and saw someone that needed a lot of improvement. Just because one person does it, doesn't make it right to do Just because you have perfected living a commandment doesn't mean everyone has. Did Jesus stone the prostitute? Why do we think we have any more right to do so than Jesus? Be kind and gentle to those trying to find their way on the path or even those trying to find the path. We each have our demons that we have to contend with. I have done some pretty dumb things in my life and I am grateful to those who have forgiven me. I try to do likewise.

I can give you many examples of happy part member families. Listen, give the guy a chance. Why make up his mind for him? You aren't committing to marriage at this point. Most likely this guy is an honorable person and respectable. Date him a couple of time and find out who he is. If he seems like a guy that is out to "help you", then move on. But you want a guy that is going to respect you and this guy probably will.