A new term has emerged in the last decade, it is a political term called "Family Values". The reality of family values in this new century is pretty grim. It is a world where people have more reasons to share a bed than to marry. A world in which a child has no place. There is no family for the child and he is designated to the default. To have a babysitter when he is young, to have pre-school classes, and schooling that basically represents nothing more than a hybrid babysitting. To enter his or her life with no values and no examples. Nothing from the "family" to help him through the hard times. Nothing to keep him or her from making all the big mistakes in life.

The child has nothing to connect him to his family. His mother and daddy have no time for him. The best family time that he can have is the few times a year when the parents don't have something better to do. Times when he can obtain some values from his parents. If values they really are.

The problem begins way back when there is just a boy and a girl and a gleam in their eye. The assumptions are all wrong. The girl too quickly accepts that she has to provide a living for her family and too quickly begins to plan what kind of new car she can get. The understanding with marriage these days is that they will try it for a while and if they fall out of love they will split up. All too often the boy still wants to be a boy and go out with all his boy friends and spend his time with them. Both of them try to outspend the other.

Everything is so completely wrong that marriage does not have a chance!

To look at the correct marriage, the boy and girl should reserve their pleasures for their marriage. This signifies the marriage as their contract to become a family. If you ask any people what commitment means they think it means to last a few weeks or so.

This author did things a bit differently and not to say that our union was the perfect marriage but we perhaps by accident learned what was good and what was not. I committed my entire life to the girl that I wanted to marry. She also committed her entire life to me. Not a few weeks of fun in the sun. This meant that we would stick together come what may. Any momentary concept of "falling out of love" might be found a few times a week. We came to ignore these silly adolesent thoughts as the quality of our commitment meant more to us.

Real love was to grow out of that commitment. Not the pleasures of the moment but a lifetime of sharing.

I recall the first time that I mentioned "sharing". My better half did not know I was talking about. She had it all figured out. She would go shopping and spend money while I complained about the dirty house and so on. Needless to say she saw no value in pulling wet Bermuda grass out of a garden spot. No value in fishing or hunting. In fact I saw no value in shopping so we had basically nothing in common except getting married!

I give her credit. She listened long to my concepts on sharing. I remember saying something about we can each learn from the other. I will go shopping with you and you will get up early and go fishing with me. Something like that. She listened and she agreed. I think she really never gave it any chance but here we go, off to a new life of sharing.

It really turned out funny. I went shopping with her, we worked on the house together, and she went fishing with me. Later on we added more things but she had to admit the silly thing worked. She hated to admit, but she learned to love getting up at 5:00am in the morning and going fishing with me. She got good at it too, and she could see the beauty of the morning on the lake. Not something a person can do from their couch.

Our life took on new meaning and for the first time we had more in common and we liked it. I have seen these women who after a lifetime of raising a family are only what they first set out to be. They love to shop, spend money , have a new car and most of all eat!

What a different life it would have been to share marriage. To see two people really become one.

Of course I learned things from sharing too. Especially I just liked to spend time with her even walking through the ladies clothes department(a thing I loathed!). We just learned that we could spend time with each other and give each other something special when you felt all spent and out of love. We learned to give each other "love on credit". That meant that even though we felt far from it and it may have felt like love was dead we would still provide a loving environment for each other which helped us get back in tune.

There is no such thing as "falling out of love". A successful married couple will tell you that you could be falling out of love every week. That is silly, it is the value of our commitments that matter. We cannot forget or lose our commitments over an argument. The only value of such a commitment is that it last always. That each of you keep it. That is the precious, solemn promise of the marriage ceremony.

I suppose that is the problem for some. For ourselves, we derived the values of commitment from our Christian faith. Even if you have no faith you should be able to understand the value of commitment in such an undertaking as a marriage.

I hate to mention this but I see a terrible problem with people who have had the experience of divorce. The matter has to do with trust. It seems that trust is a precious small thing and it is easily lost. Once a person feels defiled or is cast over for another the small bit of trust is tossed aside and it is lost, maybe for all time.

We need trust to live. Without it we cannot function. If you have lost your trust it may take many years but you must set about to recover it. You have to work very hard to trust again. Most people marry now and have no trust between themselves. Without it the marriage will fail. A failed marriage sets up the mental attitude of failure again and again. If you think you might leave your marriage partner and find another, you cannot, you will never be the same and life will continue to head downhill for you.

One more little thing I will mention about our own lives. We agreed that I would work and she would stay home. I had the car because with a smaller income we could only afford a pretty cheap car, not two. I have always believed that life should be begun as a person walking upstairs. The first step of marriage should not start with a $350,000 home and two BMW's in the drive. That is bound to fail. Failure is expensive!

We started with my take home check from work of ninety seven dollars and fifty seven cents and put it in the bank. It took us a year or two to get stabilized and learn how to spend it. Now we are much older. I am retired and we are living in an upscale neighborhood in a good home with a four car garage. We own a nice new motorhome and we have enough money to enjoy our quality time. The power of compounded interest has a very positive effect over fifty years!

I should mention a word on money managing here, it seems that is such a big problem. We only financed one old used Dodge truck and a small home which we quickly paid off. We never used any form of credit cards that caused us to pay interest. Interest works for you if you collect it but never pay it! It can and does cause a person to become enslaved to their debt and ensures that when they retire they shall have basically nothing. Success means always going another direction than the masses. You don't do what they do and you ignore their telling you to do everything like they do. You must have strength to walk your own path.

For all those of you who say it cannot be done I say "we did it - so can you". Did I also mention that we took time to care for my invalid mother with Alzheimer's in our home for half our married life. We gave her food, shelter, and care sometimes 24 hours a day all that time.

A family should take care of its own! Children should be home raised and perhaps home schooled. Elder parents should have a room in the home and know that they will be cared for. It is a simple matter of everyone committing to each other. Giving quality time to children by both parents and grandparents. A whole family not the soiled version that exists today. Today children are ignored, elders needing care are tossed from their homes and left alone in a nursing home until death claims them. There is NO value to that kind of life!

Can you see the difference? Do you want the real thing or the cheap imitation? It costs everything alright, and that kind of commitment is worth more than gold. You need the commitment, trust, and lots of love and understanding. When you feel "out of control" then just try to get by a day at a time. Life is hard! You can win! Winning is worth the effort.

I include this paragraph to help you understand. The reason that we took our marriage and commitments seriously is that we took God's word seriously. To ignore his word and live in sin and leave our marriage or have an "affair" would not permit us the reward of well spent lives. Quite the reverse. You see we believed that living in sin will send you to hell too. That is NOT something you have to believe in to go to. Our serious nature and belief has helped us to have a wonderful life together.

Oh, I can see, you say that sure, you had all the breaks. Well, maybe I should tell something about my early life. When I was supposed to take my place in the workplace as my peers did, jobs were mostly manual labor and a job for the big guys. When I graduated I was not yet over five feet high. I weighed far less than ninety pounds and I had all the problems that came along with it. Ever try convincing a prospective new boss that you are not ten years old?

Anything is possible, just dream that impossible dream and live it.

The OldSalt