So many people make the most important and far reaching decisions of their lives when they are least prepared to make them. Society seems to be built around this process of encouraging you to take on responsibilities that you know little about, that are really not at all what you expected to be doing with your life, but now there seems to be no other way and still be accepted by family and peers.

The freedom of youth

You are young, strong and free. You have a very carefree life and love how it is all going along for you. The job you landed is okay, not great, but you have your own money and some independence. Friends from your school years are still good company and life is good and your prospects are unlimited.

The fateful meeting

Then one day you meet a girl and she seems different somehow. You think you like her so you finally gather the courage to approach her and say Hi doing your best not to look like a dork. To your surprise she smiles and you make small talk. Amazingly you find that she had very similar attitudes and feelings about most things as you do and generally seems to have a positive outlook.

So you find opportunities to spend more time with her, and she seems to reciprocate this interest, which starts to be very exciting. Maybe she actually likes you more than just a friend, and that is frightening and at the same time intriguing which keeps you wanting to carry the friendship further and see where it goes.

You see her, and she turns and notices you and flashes a tiny smile and for some reason this gives you a feeling of elation. This is weird because you have never faced this feeling before and so have no idea how to deal with it or what is the right way to behave.

Could this be love?

When does friendship stop and being loving partners start? Generally it starts before you even realize that it has happened because you are still in the process of accepting that just maybe you are actually good enough to generate those same feelings in another person. Is it highlighting your own personal insecurity? Do I really have low self esteem? I didn't think so, but then again, I was never the one who scored the winning goal, hit the ball over the fence for six, or come anywhere near the top of any class.

So this person that you find so engaging and attractive being interested in you is scary and you wonder if this is real. For all your life so far you have received little or no information to advise you of what all these feelings mean and how they could all come together to affect your life.

One day it happens. You believe all your feelings and experiences in her company to be love, or at least what you think fits what you know about that emotion. Of course, you have love for your parents, and your siblings, and that kind of love has always been there and comes with as much respect as it does with love. Your family have always been there for you and you know without doubt that they always will be there for you. But this new kind of love, this external feeling is very different.

This must be it.

I must now be experiencing those feelings and emotions that all the love songs and beautiful poetry are written about. So what do you do about all this? Do I profess love for her to her face and risk rejection? That would be catastrophic for my emotions, but without setting up some framework there seems no way to move forward with this whole new relationship thing that really is entirely experimental for me but definitely something that I was wanting to move into.

Formative years

This is Australia in the 1960s, a nation growing up just as I was growing up. We considered ourselves to be in the lucky country with freedom and opportunities which was largely true, but still there were some things considered taboo to talk about. Religion of course, no one dared to criticize anything said or done by clergy. Politics was not talked about so much except for how the government had given good guidance during the war years so they were all beneficial to for everyone and no one insulted the authorities. Then the big one... sex. In those years sex was the big taboo subject that was best just left alone and not to worry, the teenagers will figure it out when they get married and must pretend that it doesn't exist until then.

In this prevailing culture, it is expected, even demanded, that you find a suitable female, fall in love, and proceed to marriage, making vows you will be expected to honor for the rest of your life, and proceed to procreate and issue into the family culture the new generation that we will indoctrinate into our ways. Our children will be required to love what we love, hate what we hate, and preserve the status quo and even be prepared to die for their country should the need arise once again.

Making plans based on information at hand

With this background training you start to talk with your love interest about the future and consider making plans to cement their relationship into the more permanent and socially acceptable marriage covenant. Temptation for some physical experimentation is very strong, but she was raised with the same taboos and warnings of the dire consequences of straying from parental expectations so any hanky panky was out of the question. It is a very scary and binding path to go down, but with our upbringing and the encouragement and optimistic expectations of all our father's generation of family, we feel the need to proceed to the next step, and marry. The knowledge that the forbidden sex would instantly become a requirement and engaged in as often as possible to the approval of family holds no small part in the decision making process here.

The road travelled without alternative considerations

Nothing less than a white wedding with all the trappings of bridesmaids, groomsmen, best man, matron of honor, bridal bouquet, Christian Church service with an ordained minister grandly professing "What God has joined, not no man put asunder" letting all those gathered before God for the ceremony know that this was all God's work and we were fulfilling God's plan so it would certainly work out perfectly.

The reality is that two people, barely out of adolescence and under pressure from their parents and wider family, church, and community, end up making vows of monogamy, commitment to this one individual no matter how much things change, and enduring through till death do us part. Such vows seem unlikely to be given much precedence once the initial excitement and hormonally induced enthusiasm have been worked through to a faded inevitable conclusion.

Love or lust now irrellevant, biology takes over

The rush of physical attraction in a time of our lives when our hormones are raging and evolutionary prompting is to procreate to ensure the survival of our species is such a clouding aspect of any young relationship, why would anyone be surprised when at least half of these marital constructs set up on the expectation of enduring love fail once the erotic fascination fades and new opportunities for outlet of those base urges become available.

But then it happens...... all the biology classes and reproductive instruction that you thought were mostly for guidance only, turned out to be more like a pre-arranged process that will take over any plan you had for your life for the next 20 years at least. It's a whole new world once the baby bump that is so cute for friends and family becomes baby bulge up to huge pregnant belly. The body that was so exquisite transforms into a biological machine for the creation and nourishment of new flesh and turn it into another human being.

Then the doctors visits and bills, maternity clothing, buying baby furniture, setting up home nursery, crib and bottles, creams to protect her skin, massages for her back pain, all of which are entirely your problem because, of course, you are duty bound to carry all that responsibility and it is even demanded that you be happy about it. She is carrying your child, how wonderful is that! Well, yeah, up to a point, but all the well wishers don't have to be kept awake all night trying to deal with all these new duties that you never even considered at the outset.

And so your identity is molded for you

By the time you wake up and look around and take stock of your situation and prospects for your future, it is all WAY too late to see how it could have been such a great life had you made different decisions back there when you really didn't know much at all about anything. You are done, you are now a husband and father and plugged into the system for working hours to generate income for support and needing to provide a home and sustenance for all their requirements.

Then the biggest hit of all, you have no alternative but to sign up for a mortgage and pledge the next 30 years of your income to the bank while you try your best to make do with what is left. Get a second job, sell insurance door to door, work weekends mowing lawns or being a handyman. In this situation, every penny is spent well before it is earned. Good luck with all that, you are going to need it!

Epilogue

For lots of people, it works out fine. But divorce rates show that at least half the time those early decisions are regretted, vows made cannot be honored long term. The above story comes out of my own experience and knowing the outcome for many others of my generation. We can only hope that the current generation in the digital world will get some of the good information and avoid ocean of disinformation that swamps the internet.