Marriage 101 FOR DUDES. From a totally unqualified man


Overwatch
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14 hours ago, lostinwater said:

What we'd all like to see is you to have a relationship with your child where that relationship doesn't strike terror into, or consistently overwhelm you.  My guess, actually, is that this is what you'd like too?

I want to be a good father. 

 

14 hours ago, lostinwater said:

It sounds like you know just how special the relationship between a child and a parent (your mother in this case) can be.  And none of us want your child to be without that.  And none of us want you to be without the blessings a relationship could bring either.

I had a very loving relationship with my mother when I was growing up but not with my father. I hated him and he ruined my childhood, I used to wish he would just disappear or leave. Now I can see my father in me sometimes when I am handling my nephew and I hate it. 

 

I know that being a father means putting my child first and even though I always want to live with my wife and child I will leave if it is better for my child. 

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14 minutes ago, Lee said:

Now I can see my father in me sometimes when I am handling my nephew and I hate it. 

But you are not your father. Did you inherit his genes? Sure. But you are not him. If you feel like you are acting in a way that is similar to how your father acted, then write down those traits/characteristics you're seeing that you don't like. Visualize them, and then work to improve upon them. We all are flawed, but we can continue to work to be better each day.

You can be better than your own father was. You have the motivation to do so--you said it yourself. You want to be a good father. And so you will. It just takes work and effort. 

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33 minutes ago, Lee said:

I had a very loving relationship with my mother when I was growing up but not with my father. I hated him and he ruined my childhood, I used to wish he would just disappear or leave. Now I can see my father in me sometimes when I am handling my nephew and I hate it. 

I know that being a father means putting my child first and even though I always want to live with my wife and child I will leave if it is better for my child. 

i can see where you're coming from.  i don't think anyone wants you to go into the situation feeling the way you do.  i'm not a fan of the idea of just burying pain and powering through. 

Pain has a way of leaking out of a person.  It will blow up any jar it has to sit inside of.  i don't care how tough or thick that jar is.  And i think we have both physical DNA and emotional DNA.  Emotional DNA is formed in childhood though - and perhaps modified by exceptional circumstances.  Pain builds up in emotional DNA, and we pass it forward to each generation, usually amplifying it a bit also.  Who knows, maybe that's somewhat what happened to your own father?

Again, i don't think anyone wants you to go into this feeling like you do - but if you found someone you can express these things to - for an hour at a time over a few months, or even a few years.  If you took time for yourself to just externally process all that's happened to you, i think you have a really good chance of changing some of that emotional DNA.  And the positive effects of that would echo through countless numbers of people - starting with yourself.

i think whether you stay with your child or not, the things that have happened to you are horrific and painful.  Wouldn't the future be better either way to try and release some of that pain?  

i guess the point i am trying to get across is that you are important here too.  

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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Actually, the mission president was 100% correct. Once you are 18 and living on your own, your personal choices like having kids, not having kids, when you are getting married, etc, are exactly your business and no one elses-including your mom and dad.  

Agreed, but “none of your business” doesn’t seem like a great response.  

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33 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Agreed, but “none of your business” doesn’t seem like a great response.  

It doesn't-you need to be smoother than that. 

I'm glad that my parents respect me as an individual. They know that if I want to tell them something I can and I will-but they never pry. It's the Old style New England Yankee in them, I guess. They stopped running my life the moment they stopped paying my bills. 

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3 hours ago, lostinwater said:

 Again, i don't think anyone wants you to go into this feeling like you do - but if you found someone you can express these things to - for an hour at a time over a few months, or even a few years.  If you took time for yourself to just externally process all that's happened to you, i think you have a really good chance of changing some of that emotional DNA.  And the positive effects of that would echo through countless numbers of people - starting with yourself.

 

I would like to speak to my wife but she is stressed and I don't want to add to it right now. I can't speak to my mother because it will upset her. Those are the 2 women or people I usually speak to. Or my sister in law but she is recovering from cancer. I guess as well as being nervous I am a little lonely at the moment. 

 

3 hours ago, lostinwater said:

 i think whether you stay with your child or not, the things that have happened to you are horrific and painful.  Wouldn't the future be better either way to try and release some of that pain?  

 i guess the point i am trying to get across is that you are important here too.  

I actually don't have any pain from my childhood I forgave my father about 5 years ago so that I could have a close relationship with my mother. 

Edited by Lee
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1 hour ago, Lee said:

I would like to speak to my wife but she is stressed and I don't want to add to it right now. I can't speak to my mother because it will upset her. Those are the 2 women or people I usually speak to. Or my sister in law but she is recovering from cancer. I guess as well as being nervous I am a little lonely at the moment.

Bro, do you have any guy friends?  You should take a guys night out and go fishing or something.

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7 minutes ago, Overwatch said:

Bro, do you have any guy friends?  You should take a guys night out and go fishing or something.

Yeah I have the guys from my soccer team, few bros at work, couple people from high school live near me, few people at church. Guys don't talk about emotional things with each other. I am not lonely because I am not hanging out with people it is because I can't talk to anyone about my problems because all my favourite women are unavailable. 

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24 minutes ago, Lee said:

Yeah I have the guys from my soccer team, few bros at work, couple people from high school live near me, few people at church. Guys don't talk about emotional things with each other. I am not lonely because I am not hanging out with people it is because I can't talk to anyone about my problems because all my favourite women are unavailable. 

Lies, we talk about sensitive stuff. We may add a couple of jokes in for good fun but we'll listen. I have an idea. Brb

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10 minutes ago, Overwatch said:

Lies, we talk about sensitive stuff. 

Yup. 

If you don't have friends who can talk about emotions and sensitive things, than go out and get them. Thank God my guy friends and I can talk about anything, including emotion and other topics that might not be traditionally "masculine". 

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12 hours ago, MormonGator said:

If you don't have friends who can talk about emotions and sensitive things, than go out and get them. Thank God my guy friends and I can talk about anything, including emotion and other topics that might not be traditionally "masculine". 

I probably could talk to a couple of my bros but it feels weird it is more natural to have a DMC with a woman. 

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1 hour ago, Lee said:

I probably could talk to a couple of my bros but it feels weird it is more natural to have a DMC with a woman. 

Good! I seriously hope that every person is blessed/lucky enough to have friends like that. 

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12 minutes ago, Lee said:

I played with my 18 month old niece today and she is the most adorable baby girl. I wanted to take her with me. Although, some of the other kids on my wife's side of the family I could not deal with. 

Nice. Good progress man.

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2 minutes ago, Overwatch said:

Nice. Good progress man.

Some of the children I had no patience with. One boy pushed over my adorable niece and if my child did that I would explode at him but this boy's mom didn't even blink she told him to leave his cousin alone and that was it. I am so confused as to what parenting actually is.

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Just now, Lee said:

Some of the children I had no patience with. One boy pushed over my adorable niece and if my child did that I would explode at him but this boy's mom didn't even blink she told him to leave his cousin alone and that was it. I am so confused as to what parenting actually is.

Lol, you'll pick it up. Kids play, kids bust crap. You finally become numb to it. Only if blood comes out or a break, then you freak and call 911/ take the kid to the emergency room

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1 minute ago, Overwatch said:

Lol, you'll pick it up. Kids play, kids bust crap. You finally become numb to it. Only if blood comes out or a break, then you freak and call 911/ take the kid to the emergency room

Some parents don't even discipline their kids for hitting other kids. If a kid hit my child and their parent didn't tell them off then I would go crazy at the parent. 

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2 minutes ago, Lee said:

Some parents don't even discipline their kids for hitting other kids. If a kid hit my child and their parent didn't tell them off then I would go crazy at the parent. 

I don't blame you but it just gets old man. Kids are kids. I can't even whoop my own kids. When I was in the military they said we couldn't, Lol. Now I just take away their iphones and stuff. The last thing they lost was their 4k Big screen out of their playroom. Food though, food is fair game. I have smashed a birthday cake when my oldest mouthed off to her mom (relax I bought her TWO to replace it like 30 mins later) Oh and one of my girls was leaving Popsicle sticks laying around so I melted the huge pack I bought them in the sink and tossed it. They screamed bloody murder on that one, I kind of felt bad LOL but overall they are good kids and behave.  Also it's not like Jesus kicks open your door the instant you do something wrong, ya know?

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On 6/13/2018 at 1:28 AM, mrmarklin said:

Respectfully, your mission president was an idiot. 

 

On 6/13/2018 at 1:32 AM, MormonGator said:

Actually, the mission president was 100% correct. Once you are 18 and living on your own, your personal choices like having kids, not having kids, when you are getting married, etc, are exactly your business and no one elses-including your mom and dad.  

 

On 6/13/2018 at 4:41 AM, Grunt said:

Agreed, but “none of your business” doesn’t seem like a great response.  

Parents never stop being parents, no matter how old their children become. It is an eternal calling and responsibility. Ideally, there should be some changes in the way the parents fulfill their roles as their children become older, and there should be some shifts in responsibility and accountability from the parents to their children as they all grow older but it would seem to be unwise not to seek counsel from the people who know you best and who, more than anybody else, have your best interests at heart. A parent who does not occasionally offer the benefit of their wisdom and experience to their children would seem to be holding back from  them something that could be helpful. How this is done, and how frequently, and how it is received seem to be issues that need to be worked out between the parents, the children and their spouses.

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18 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Parents never stop being parents, no matter how old their children become. It is an eternal calling and responsibility. Ideally, there should be some changes in the way the parents fulfill their roles as their children become older, and there should be some shifts in responsibility and accountability from the parents to their children as they all grow older but it would seem to be unwise not to seek counsel from the people who know you best and who, more than anybody else, have your best interests at heart. A parent who does not occasionally offer the benefit of their wisdom and experience to their children would seem to be holding back from  them something that could be helpful. How this is done, and how frequently, and how it is received seem to be issues that need to be worked out between the parents, the children and their spouses.

All true. I still seek out my dad for advice, that's for sure. I'm so lucky to have him in my life. 

He doesn't give unsolicited advice and try to tell me what to do though. He stopped doing that when I left the house. Don't get me wrong-when you live in your parents house then they have every right to tell you what to do, no matter what your age is. 
 

Edited by MormonGator
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53 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

All true. I still seek out my dad for advice, that's for sure. I'm so lucky to have him in my life. 

He doesn't give unsolicited advice and try to tell me what to do though. He stopped doing that when I left the house. Don't get me wrong-when you live in your parents house then they have every right to tell you what to do, no matter what your age is. 
 

My parents and those I have adopted as my parents, ALWAYS give me unsolicited advice. Sometimes they makes sense, sometimes I respectfully thanks but no thanks their ideas but not say it to them directly (out of respect) I have found that a lot of times what they have to offer me is very helpful. I have also noticed that, no matter how old I get, they still treat me like I am their child (my adopted parents)  They come to my home and no matter how much money I am making they will fill my pantries, refrigerators and freezers to the brim. It breaks my heart but in a good way, I LOVE them and if ever they become infirm they have a place with me. Of course I will convert a place for them and most likely call in outside help BUT if they desire, they will die in my care and home, as they have always cared for me and had their doors and hearts wide open to me. 

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