Growing old discracefully

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  Paradisepair

  14 years ago

  And they're pretty good. My iPad & RHP's failure to keep up with technology is going to make my answer one big paragraph so I'll focus on the first couple for now. Yes, i've shifted... I was openminded & had some very sexually liberated friends when I was younger (17+) & but I chose standard manogamy which meant I missed on many a special party invite. What changed my mind... Temptation, and frank discussions with a serial cheater... And having the confusing thoughts I was having quantified by discovering Dan Savage & his philosophies.

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Yes my values have shifted…. big time, on life, love and lust. I know now more who I am….I think my experiences in life have helped me to see what is really important and what is not. My big change came after seeing my husband die in front of me in an instant….he just dropped dead, this was 14 years ago in November. Yes it changed me….I never looked at life the same. I can’t handle bullshit and I can’t handle people who don’t see life as real as it is. I am a tough woman, I had two children and no real job and not good English ….my written English is still a bit poor. However I am an absolute happy person…I love my life….I would marry again yes when I would fine a man who is a beautiful soul, because I had a great marriage. No I would not marry the same type of man again, because I changed. Could I change something, yes for sure, my husband WOULD BE STILL ALIVE. So, now comes the great part of being on my own….I learned about my strength. I am more sexual then ever….I say, ok I am round, that’s me, you don’t like it, ok go away. I am still shy sometimes, I have men when I want them, I have the men I like. I am growing old happiely. Look at my face....when I still smile like this with 90 and still have the occasional orgasm.....yeep hee yaaa. hahahahhah. Even in the nursinghome we can have sex..............cant we?

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  I think I have spent about the last half hour contemplating this, and in my mind I have waffled all round the shop. My reply could easily be a book.In the interests of keeping it short though, yes some values change and evolve over time and some remain constant.No one event or person, just the progression of events, Deaths, unrequited loves, births, great and enduring love,social injustices, tradgedy, unrealised hopes dreams and ambitions.I'm not sure I would change anything, everything that happens, good or bad we learn from and shapes who we ultimately become and what we represent.My one great hope....Kj and my boys outlive me, I don't know if I could deal with that, and I can't imagine how those that have had to deal with it, ever get through it.The last paragraph of your post, is far to much of a sweeping statement to make any comment on.Cheers Felonius

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Too many deep and meaningfuls here Hesione. Might need a bottle or three and a mellow mood to answer all of this. Live and love is ever evolving and changing. It is the nature of the beast. To have no change means to stagnate. We must keep moving forward. . Married men the happiest? Then why the hell are they all on here whinging about not getting sex? Married women the unhapiest? Now that I can beleive because their husbands are all on here looking for more sex, more kinks, just more! . I am single. Well there is no ring on my finger but I am in a committed relationship. There are many advantages to singledonm. just as there are to coupledom. It is a matter of what we choose to do at this particular point in our lives.

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  .....YES! Bring it on. I want it now. I want it tomorrow. I want to do new things. I want more sex. I want more of the good things in life.Say no to what??? Looking forward to my childhood but this time the playground has changed.

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Baby at 19, married with 2 kids at 21, and I was a prude, hated porn due to Hubby having a bit of an addiction to it, killing my self esteem etc..Coming into my own around 27-28, I started seeing and feelings things I hadn't before, and started seeing the world differently, and started realising there was a whole world I'd never seen, this all came too when I realised my marriage was over.Granted I'm only 30, but I feel like I've lived a lifetime already, and I feel in my 50's. I'm hoping to turn into the biggest slut this little town has ever seen.

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Have my values shifted? Hell yes… Having faced death on more than on occasion, and having lost some pretty important people in my life, I now know what is really important to me… I have learnt to value each day as far as not only what I can achieve in it, and can do for others, but now it’s also about what I can also do for myself. Sometimes that means I have to put myself first for a change, having been a mother all of my life, (even my mother says I raised her) I just want to be a woman, and possibly a sex goddess for a change…so here I am… Have my views of life, love, and lust changed? Was there a person or event that contributed to this shift? Absolutely, when I was 20, a male friend at work spoke to me out of the blue about relationships… “Honey, can I give you a piece of advice?” He said…. “Don’t you ever get married, just have lovers.” It’s taken several stalkers, being raped, one abusive marriage and a second failed marriage that just went cold (both mof which were pretty sexless...!!!!) for me to understand exactly what he meant and that he actually wasn’t calling me a slut…He just saw something in me that took another 21 years for me to recognize… ...That once men have you, they often stop doing what it took to get you…Unless you learn quickly enough how to make them aware of what they have got before they lose it... and not after your passion has already left the building and all they are doing is too little too damned late…The way that I am, I need freedom, I don’t need to become yet another person’s mummy…unless of course I am acting out the domme role, which gives me a weird release from all of that LOL If you could change anything in your life what would it be? Dear Chocolate...we have to talk... All that I am is all that I have…all that I have been is part of what I am now…I am that I am, I am all and nothing…Every experience I have lived through, transformed, learned from…is all part of the tapestry of my being…I love chocolate, a nice salad, some m&ms, and a good bottle of Moet, and perhaps I would have had more salad and less chocolate, and more Moet. But chocolate makes you feel so good when things as less than fun. What would you do differently knowing what you know now? I would have created more balance in my physical routine and not been so badly over exercising earlier on, and as a result I now exercise far less. Physical consistency is what I would have done more of... had a lot more holidays...And I also would have told a whole lot of people to “fuck off,” a lot quicker, but that is just me. And I'd also have had a whole lot more sex... What are your hopes for the future? NOTE:- For all of the below sentences in this question, or possibly the rest of my entire answer, just add the words “and having a lot more sex” at the end of each before continuing on to the next sentence…got that? OK, so here we go… Living in either a small apartment in the city and walking through the nearby park and having a simple quiet life…. Alternatively, in a small cottage tucked away behind a lot of trees… Feeding my magpie and cockatoo, possibly mountain king parrot friends, or whatever birds I have as I could end up living in remote china for all I know… Only being responsible for myself for the first time in my life…. When / if there are grandchildren, being able to go all gooey at the sight of these blessed looking little beings, and hand them back to mummy and daddy!! Visiting my children for months at a time and then nicking off for months at a time. Going through Europe as a globe-trotting, back packing grannie… May climb Mount Everest, but that is becoming a bit too mainstream… Not climbing Ayers Rock, Uluru, and especially not allowing a toilet to be placed at the top of it… Going to university, doing the three separate degrees I have always dreamed of... Living in a zen buddhist monastery at least once for at least a year….May end up chopping a lot of wood and peeling a lot of potatoes in the monastery… I wonder if I will live long enough to live out all the things I desire… Do I think it is true that married men are the happiest group and married women the unhappiest? Absolutely!!!! Vows, I feel, are not broken first by the person who left, or necessarily who “cheated...” The vows consist, remember of “to love, honour, respect” or some such similar concept… Often the first person to leave the marriage was not the first person to 'check out' of the relationship, or truly break the vows… taking the other person for granted is in fact a form of breaking the vows… Often people think “You married me, so I own you, and you have to stay, so now I will sit back here and stop putting in effort, take you for granted and treat you like crap and if you leave I can even blame you for breaking our commitment....which logically fails that whole “love, honour and respect” aspect of the wedding vow commitments, and takes it to an own and possess ideal.” Pure love does not seek to possess, it just is. I love a guy who loves me. We share each other’s lives, as close friends, and will never seek to possess each other, never get cranky about the shortage of milk for coffee, because we don’t live together and we see other people. Most people in mainstream society couldn’t understand that type of relationship, unless they had our separate experiences. Frankly, in my own experience, (doesn’t have to be true for anyone else), my friend and I found that married love is the most expensive thing on earth…financially, emotionally, and mentally. We both agree that our sanity, happiness, and quality of life is far more important than making someone else feel secure by allowing them to 'own' us. As I said, the first person to actually get up and leave often was the last person to have ‘checked out’ of the relationship… But that is my observation....I didnt ask anyone to agree before we all get started.... Some will stay in an unhappy marriage because they feel they have no other option whether its financially, self-esteem, abuse, fear, any number of other reasons, and the man will have no idea or comprehension how and why she feels it…Perhaps even after she has walked out the door. Same can be true or untrue in reverse. There are some cultures around the world…throughout history and some still existing today where, as long as the husband gets the first “go” with the wife after marriage, anyone else that she is agreeable to afterwards can play, and vice versa. The women live in the women’s quarters- with the kids, the men in the men’s quarters. The village pitches in together to raise all the kids, and feed everyone, and relationship jealousy? Nup…what for, everyone is getting some, and they all live in the same village, restrictions on availability of an individual aren’t there…so nothing to fight over. Might go live there…after the monastery… AND HAVING A LOT MORE SEX…

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  regressing

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Quoting 'Dark_Moon_Lilith' Have my values shifted? Hell yes… Having faced death on more than on occasion, and having lost some pretty important people in my life, I now know what is really important to me… I have learnt to value each day as far as not only what I can achieve in it, and can do for others, but now it’s also about what I can also do for myself. Sometimes that means I have to put myself first for a change, having been a mother all of my life, (even my mother says I raised her) I just want to be a woman, and possibly a sex goddess for a change…so here I am… Have my views of life, love, and lust changed? Was there a person or event that contributed to this shift? Absolutely, when I was 20, a male friend at work spoke to me out of the blue about relationships… “Honey, can I give you a piece of advice?” He said…. “Don’t you ever get married, just have lovers.” It’s taken several stalkers, being raped, one abusive marriage and a second failed marriage that just went cold (both mof which were pretty sexless...!!!!) for me to understand exactly what he meant and that he actually wasn’t calling me a slut…He just saw something in me that took another 21 years for me to recognize… ...That once men have you, they often stop doing what it took to get you…Unless you learn quickly enough how to make them aware of what they have got before they lose it... and not after your passion has already left the building and all they are doing is too little too damned late…The way that I am, I need freedom, I don’t need to become yet another person’s mummy…unless of course I am acting out the domme role, which gives me a weird release from all of that LOL If you could change anything in your life what would it be? Dear Chocolate...we have to talk... All that I am is all that I have…all that I have been is part of what I am now…I am that I am, I am all and nothing…Every experience I have lived through, transformed, learned from…is all part of the tapestry of my being…I love chocolate, a nice salad, some m&ms, and a good bottle of Moet, and perhaps I would have had more salad and less chocolate, and more Moet. But chocolate makes you feel so good when things as less than fun. What would you do differently knowing what you know now? I would have created more balance in my physical routine and not been so badly over exercising earlier on, and as a result I now exercise far less. Physical consistency is what I would have done more of... had a lot more holidays...And I also would have told a whole lot of people to “fuck off,” a lot quicker, but that is just me. And I'd also have had a whole lot more sex... What are your hopes for the future? NOTE:- For all of the below sentences in this question, or possibly the rest of my entire answer, just add the words “and having a lot more sex” at the end of each before continuing on to the next sentence…got that? OK, so here we go… Living in either a small apartment in the city and walking through the nearby park and having a simple quiet life…. Alternatively, in a small cottage tucked away behind a lot of trees… Feeding my magpie and cockatoo, possibly mountain king parrot friends, or whatever birds I have as I could end up living in remote china for all I know… Only being responsible for myself for the first time in my life…. When / if there are grandchildren, being able to go all gooey at the sight of these blessed looking little beings, and hand them back to mummy and daddy!! Visiting my children for months at a time and then nicking off for months at a time. Going through Europe as a globe-trotting, back packing grannie… May climb Mount Everest, but that is becoming a bit too mainstream… Not climbing Ayers Rock, Uluru, and especially not allowing a toilet to be placed at the top of it… Going to university, doing the three separate degrees I have always dreamed of... Living in a zen buddhist monastery at least once for at least a year….May end up chopping a lot of wood and peeling a lot of potatoes in the monastery… I wonder if I will live long enough to live out all the things I desire… Do I think it is true that married men are the happiest group and married women the unhappiest? Absolutely!!!! Vows, I feel, are not broken first by the person who left, or necessarily who “cheated...” The vows consist, remember of “to love, honour, respect” or some such similar concept… Often the first person to leave the marriage was not the first person to 'check out' of the relationship, or truly break the vows… taking the other person for granted is in fact a form of breaking the vows… Often people think “You married me, so I own you, and you have to stay, so now I will sit back here and stop putting in effort, take you for granted and treat you like crap and if you leave I can even blame you for breaking our commitment....which logically fails that whole “love, honour and respect” aspect of the wedding vow commitments, and takes it to an own and possess ideal.” Pure love does not seek to possess, it just is. I love a guy who loves me. We share each other’s lives, as close friends, and will never seek to possess each other, never get cranky about the shortage of milk for coffee, because we don’t live together and we see other people. Most people in mainstream society couldn’t understand that type of relationship, unless they had our separate experiences. Frankly, in my own experience, (doesn’t have to be true for anyone else), my friend and I found that married love is the most expensive thing on earth…financially, emotionally, and mentally. We both agree that our sanity, happiness, and quality of life is far more important than making someone else feel secure by allowing them to 'own' us. As I said, the first person to actually get up and leave often was the last person to have ‘checked out’ of the relationship… But that is my observation....I didnt ask anyone to agree before we all get started.... Some will stay in an unhappy marriage because they feel they have no other option whether its financially, self-esteem, abuse, fear, any number of other reasons, and the man will have no idea or comprehension how and why she feels it…Perhaps even after she has walked out the door. Same can be true or untrue in reverse. There are some cultures around the world…throughout history and some still existing today where, as long as the husband gets the first “go” with the wife after marriage, anyone else that she is agreeable to afterwards can play, and vice versa. The women live in the women’s quarters- with the kids, the men in the men’s quarters. The village pitches in together to raise all the kids, and feed everyone, and relationship jealousy? Nup…what for, everyone is getting some, and they all live in the same village, restrictions on availability of an individual aren’t there…so nothing to fight over. Might go live there…after the monastery… AND HAVING A LOT MORE SEX… This is the kind of post is what makes the forums here enjoyable.....Peace and love

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  And to all that have contributed so far, thankyou for sharing...and Dark Moon Lilith - a beautiful brave post...xx Litonya (and your English is very good) - I lost my husband 11 years ago at the age of 36 - and nothing as you say can prepare you for the loss of a partner (or god forbid - the ultimate grief) the loss of child...until you experience loss like this, you truly do not know what true grief and heartache is. I work with death every day. Each day a peron will look me in the face and their question (at times unvoiced) as they look into my eyes...pleading for a answer is "Why ?" - "Why did my love one have to die now at this time ?" - I cannot tell them that it is Gods Will - I gave up on God a long time ago (its a Jewish thing..we constantly wrestle with this..) and I cannot tell them that there is reason that everything happens (Ive always believe that this statement is offered up by people whose lives have improved given they have been thru some pain but life did improve as result of that painful situation - for many, things do not simply improve)..and trust me a parent whose child has just been raped and murdered (which is the kind of people I see on a daily basis) well those two statements will not cut it...not even close......All I can do now is tell them the truth as I see it, because they are asking me...is that "I dont know". I am a scientist and constantly I come from a questioning point of view, but no - one with a religious, scientific , medical, philisophical background can tell you the why of anything.. ...it is what it is...death - in the end will touch us all...and as the saying goes..for those who have faith no questions are necesssary, for those who do not, no answers are possible...for any given situation.. Am I jaded and cynical and hard now ? yes..of course. I have seen the worst of what man is capable of doing to another..Ive been to war and even as a civilian Ive pretty much seen it all..... .....but in saying this, Ive never lost hope...I still see the beauty in a sunrise, in the bloom of a flower, and in the smile of a child....and when one has hope... then anything is possible So to answer your questions Hesione As you grow older have your values shifted,your views of life ,love and lust changed?Was there a person or event that contributed to this shift? Yes Yes and Yes..and Im so glad they have !! - thank god with age came wisdom and knowledge.. I know this..that all that does matter, in the very end..is did you love ?, and were you loved ?...life is what you make it, life will happen, it is random and there is very little you can control, except your reactions to a given situation. And we forgive people because we still want them in our lives.......lust is fleeting but so required, love is a gift that we do not treasure enough. My lesson that is still to be mastered, is to accept and let go graciously. Every day is a event, that steers my direction, and every person I meet contributes to where Im going, but ultimately, yes many events - the random conversation witn a professor leading to my career choice, a chance weekend not planned where I met the love of my life, the answering of the wrong Iphone (we both had one) and finding out the truth- little acts that altered everything....yes there was one person who contributed to and actually in fact was the catalyst to where I am and who I am today...it was a child (not mine) of my ex husbands and her death at 8 years old changed my path both professionally and personally and ironically the first time I met her, she was on a morgue slab..who would have thought that almost 25 years later, she was a major player in my life..and the decisions that I made as a result of her passing.... If you could change anything in your life what would it be? What would you do differently knowing what you know now?What are your hopes for the future? What would I change..? I would have settled for what I already had...which was contentment and security..instead I followed my heart - demanded love, passion, lust and happiness to fill my world....knowing what I know now.. I was fortunate to have what I had and its a state I wish to return to. What I would do differently now ?...I would show restraint on my heart and listen to my head....what do I hope for the future ? - not to grow old alone.. If you are single, is that the state you wish to remain in ,and what are the benefits of singledom? There are DEFINITE advantages in being single and the list is long from watching your code of footy on TV (and not his) , to not having endless arguments on what the thermostat temperature should be !!! ....Im ok with it, being single..been on my own for a while now... but I also know that I operate better whilst part of a relationship, I need my space but I would like the comfort of a warm body beside me and someone to plan a future with...but I also wish for peace in the Middle East in my lifetime...I wonder which oneof my hopes is achievable ?? Do you think it is true that married men are the happiest group and married women the unhappiest? Sadly I do....as I do quick mental check of all the marriages/relationships I know, I believe this statement is a true reflection of couples I know who are partnered....as their children fly the nest and they are left with eacth other, as crippling debt is still affecting them, that ill health is just starting to creep into their lives.... many of the women are saying .."So now what ?" Is my glass half full or half empty ? - its just is a glass full of ???

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Velvet Blue... Just helped me with something huge.

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Everyone for amazing responses.... My basic values haven't really changed much from when I was fourteen and a history teacher gave me a copy of Emile Zolas' ''Germinal'.This book opened my eyes and was the beginning of my developing a social conscience. A teenager when I married I quickly realized that a conventional life was not something that suited me.I was far too independent of spirit and thinking. Having a child and tripping over Tibetan Buddhism are very significant milestones for me.Motherhood literally grounded me,singlemotherhood from the beginning, something I struggled with but we both survived and now she is twenty-eight,a teacher and wonderful human being. I regret not finding or experiencing great love or passion,for some of us it is just not in our stars,doesn't mean I have not experienced love or had great moments of lust and passion. I have always been an opportunist and either fearlessly or stupidly jumped in with both feet.I have travelled extensively ,had amazing opporunities,met extraordinary people,lived in two states of Oz , USA and Bali for short periods of time. I live in an amazing place,not unlike the cottage and garden that Lilith speaks of,I am still passionate about people who are disadvantaged and try to make at least a small contribution to enhance the lives of a few children who struggle with mainstream school. I live a small, fairly contented life,but there is always room for more chocolate and of course passion.x Hugs H

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  RHP User

  14 years ago

  Although I know not what I wrote that touched youim just glad it did You are a very brave courageous woman and my hat goes off to you To my dearest Hesione ..... You experienced the greatest love of all that between a mother and child . What unselfish love. I myself was too gutless and selfish to go there. The great love between a man and a woman may be a love to be envied but rarely has a happy ending and is over rated It is what it is xx

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