Comments on: The Practice Marriage

By: Suzanne Vince

Suzanne Vince — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:27:04 +0000

In reply to Patricia. Indeed you did!

By: Suzanne Vince

Suzanne Vince — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:26:36 +0000

In reply to Patricia. LOL, I suspected you might have a word or two to say about that :)

By: Patricia

Patricia — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:18:36 +0000

In reply to Patricia.

Oh – and by the way – not all of the Disney princesses have that attitude. Merida (Brave) and Tiana (The Princess and the Frog) were strong, independent women who were not waiting around for a prince on a white horse. Those gals rocked.

Just sayin’. (Don’t be messing with my Disney.)

Patricia

By: Patricia

Patricia — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:16:58 +0000

I married young because that’s what my parents told me I should do. It was a religious thing for me. Women were not to have careers or educations, they were to be wives and mothers. Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well for me. I waited 13 years before I remarried, this time to a guy I didn’t need but a guy I wanted. I didn’t need anybody when I married the second time around. I was self-sufficient and emotionally confident. I (finally) agreed to marry my current husband (he asked me 3 times before I said yes) because I decided that I could still be me and have him too. It’s been eleven years now, so I guess I did okay.

Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt

By: Suzanne Vince

Suzanne Vince — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:26:59 +0000

In reply to Marianna Heusler. Good idea, Marianna! :)

By: Suzanne Vince

Suzanne Vince — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:26:20 +0000

In reply to Faith Williams. Thanks for sharing your story, Faith. One of the few people I know who married young and stayed together. Congrats on 24 years!! Your mother had it right, about the marriage that matters. My parents had a shotgun wedding in 1949 and stayed married until my mom passed in 2001. But then, those were different times.

By: Suzanne Vince

Suzanne Vince — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:22:28 +0000

In reply to Brett Hawks. What a wonderful story, Brett! Thank you for sharing!

By: Brett Hawks

Brett Hawks — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:48:26 +0000

Twice divorced in my early twenties, I was most certainly not prepared. Following my second divorce, I was committing a slow suicide–Baby Ruths, root beer, and cigarettes were my only sustenance–because my second marriage was a misguided attempt to prove that I could have made the first work.

By my late twenties, I had lost interest, and then I met the woman who I wanted to live the rest of my life. We were as ready as any two twenty-somethings could be, though neither of us was looking at the time. Through ups and downs, sickness and health, we’ve been together, and we celebrated our 35th anniversary this spring.

By: Marianna Heusler

Marianna Heusler — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:02:09 +0000

Great post. I am sharing it with an unmarried friend.

By: Faith Williams

Faith Williams — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:36:18 +0000

I married young (20 – about 4 months before I’d turn 21). Although I have family, at the time he and I were living on the opposite side of the country from them, so it was just him and me to figure out married life – no advice, no shoulder to cry on when something went wrong. And then his father moved in with us (after about three months of marriage) and he slept on our couch in our one-bedroom apartment for about three months before we moved to a two-bedroom apartment with him. He moved after about three months, and then we moved as well. After some time in Las Vegas, we moved back to my parents’ house. In the first three years of our marriage, we spent half of that time either totally on our own or living with an in-law. I firmly believe the reason we have made it through so far (24 years on June 16) – other than pure stubbornness – is because we both had to rely only one each other but had to both accommodate our partner’s family in our life as well.
We had actually eloped to Las Vegas for our wedding (it’s too long a story!) and when I told my mother I was married, she told me that it wasn’t the wedding that mattered, but the marriage. And my mother-in-law told me just last year that she was relieved we had eloped!!