My aunt came with us one time on a family trip to Maine. My grandparents were also there and paid for most of the things on the trip. Maine was a few states away from New York so it was neat to have to travel across states we’d never been to before. The car ride was cramped with five of us kids in the backseat, but nothing uncomfortable or unbearable to deal with besides not sleeping in the car.
My aunt stayed with my sisters and I in a hotel room. The three of us girls were in sixth grade or younger. She liked to have talks with us and so much of her advice sounded like it always came straight out of a self-help book. Looking back I can see different things that she struggled with and understand them. What still gets me is how or why the less positive traits could not be overcome.
One of the pieces of advice she gave on the trip was, “Don’t get married just to have sex.” She knew that we were Christian girls and what came along with that was the teaching that having sex was something that was supposed to be saved for when you were married. It created a barrier between your personal wishes and opportunities. Marriage was the only thing that could remove the barrier.
So that’s what I did. I got married so I could have sex. I pushed for marriage. I planned it out in my head. I told him that lack of money was not a good enough reason to wait. He wanted to be more financially secure. I was trying to follow the Bible and not be burning with passion. Sometimes it really haunts me that I had to convince a man to marry me. What would it have been like to be the one to be convinced? What if desperately wanting to have sex could’ve had nothing to do with it?
“Beck! You didn’t listen to Aunt Susie!’ One of my sisters and I were talking about this a couple days ago while I was walking. It made me smile because that was obviously then something that had impacted her too. I miss my aunt more and think about her quite often. Her words, Her laugh, Her openness to talk about anything. I might not have listen to her but I have heard her words over and over so many times now that they’ve finally helped me to realize that I played a part in this story too.
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I like that story. You got married in your late teens/early 20s? That’s a conundrum for me. Marriage to have sex. What if the sex is not good? Granted, how would you know what was good vs. not good? Too much pressure!
My two sisters and I were given no guidance by my mother (or anyone) in many avenues of our growing up years. It’s interesting to me too as I think back to those years. We caught my aunt and cousin talking on tape about “how wild those girls were” and we laugh because 3 unmarried women in that family had babies.
And 5 in the backseat makes me laugh! We sometimes had 4 in the backseat, and it was usually someone’s boyfriend! One of us would sit in the foot well (we were small throughout our teen years)!