Also, I really wanted more control over the experience . . .to change positions if I wanted, to get up, to have my family there in a more natural setting. I just wanted to be the one calling the shots and I didn’t want anyone telling me how I should be having my baby and pressuring me into things that I really didn’t want. I really feel that when you are in so much pain, it is really easy to allow yourself to give up personal responsibility for your own care, and when you are lying on your back, I found later that this is the most painful position to be in for childbirth.

On my fourth pregnancy, we had no health insurance. I told my husband that I could do this to help our family avoid the debt that we would certainly have if we had the baby at the hospital. At least $,5000 and possibly more. And so he agreed. I found a midwife who only charged $800, and paid my sister’s airfare so she could come act as doula.

I thought I would be scared, but I had so much peace in my decision that I was able to really relax and I spent my time reading about childbirth and educating myself about childbirth herbs and what to do if there was an emergency. I already had some knowledge, because I had wanted to do this before, but I wanted to wait until I had my husband’s blessing, and not have it be something that would cause a rift in our relationship.

I had three children previously with epidurals at the hospital. The water birth was so much easier on me that I was able to nurse the baby, who practically scooted up to my breast and was rooting very strongly — something that none of my other children did because of the medication in their systems — and then get up and take a shower right afterward, which is something i had never been able to do before. Also, the water birth only took 3 hours compared to my shortest labor of 6 hours with pitocin (something I would never have done if there was not so much pressure while I was in pain at the hospital).  I actually had to hold back because I was worried that my husband would not make it home in time!

The water when kept hot, was very soothing, and kept the pain to a minimum. In the hospital, I had to have oxygen to control the pain induced nausia. I dodn’t need this with water birth and I actually had more pain with the epidurals than without while I was in the water. This along with using pressure points and vocalizing to control the pain during contractions made the birth much less painful.

There was also the unexpected psychological benefit that I experienced from having a natural childbirth . . . I felt like I had really accomplished something and the whole experience was very empowering. Almost as if I had a rebirth of my own. I was more able to stand up for myself and I had a new sense of personal power and self confidence that I had not felt in a long time. I credit this experience for my being able to stand up to my husband on some issues that I feel ultimately saved our marriage.

I can honestly say that if I had had my first child at home in a water birth, I would have never gone to the hospital for any of my children’s births, and I highly recommend it to anyone in good health.

On the same token, experimentation with illicit sex or sexual material of any kind is NOT ok, and is not a normal part of being a teenager, and it is not a normal part of being male. Experimentation with these types of things does not have a good track record in producing healthy happy people. Illicit sex with multiple partners is known to cause many different types of painful and incurable diseases, and behavioral problems that can permanently cripple a person’s ability to have a healthy intimate relationship.

A more subtle and deceptive argument is that sex is a natural and normal part of life, and so we should be able to indulge in as much of it as we like, and that because pornography is just a picture, you cannot get a disease by simply looking. Sex is a natural and normal part of life, but research has shown pornography to be just as addictive as drugs like heroin. The difference is that once the images are in the brain, they can be instantly recalled at any moment, and can never be completely erased or ‘detoxed.’ Pornography may not be able to give you an STD in the ‘traditional’ sense, but it can cause mental illness ranging from mild personality disorder to obsessive/compulsive and predatory sexual behaviors.

Others argue that pornographic images can be used as educational material for couples who want to enhance their sex life or who a more exciting sexual relationship. The problem with this argument is that this is like trying to learn collegiate wrestling from the WWE Smackdown. Pornographic movies or images do not portray realistic sexual activity between loving married couples. They display only the sexual side of the act and none of the emotional exchange. They debase the participants by reducing sexual intimacy to the act of sex, objectifying human beings. In his testimony at the May 19, 2005 summit on pornography and violence against women and children, Daniel Weis pointed out that “pornography turns people into commodities. Men and women become sexual objects to be bought, sold, used and discarded. The last time the United States recognized human beings as consumer goods, it took a civil war to end it.”

When a man begins to see his wife as an object, bad things begin to happen to their marital relationship, whether she knows about his use of pornography or not. The fact is that pornography can destroy a marriage without the wife ever knowing anything about her husband’s use of it, because pornography causes several significant behavioral changes in those who view it. Let me illustrate how this can happen:

First of all, there is a seed of anger planted because of the simple fact that pornographic depictions of sex are unrealistic; creating sexual expectations or fantasies that cannot be met. The husband who views pornographic images looses his ability to be satisfied sexually in his marriage relationship because of his desire to fulfill an unrealistic sexual fantasy. He will often become obsessed with sex as it is displayed in the images and try to pressure his spouse into sexual activities that she either cannot duplicate or that are uncomfortable or distasteful to her. Because he has objectified her, he may have little regard for her feelings, and become angry with her when she does not wish to participate even if her participation causes pain or injury to her. If she does participate he soon loses interest and moves on to another sexual fantasy.

Husbands who look at pornography also become more and more critical of their wives. Because they are dealing with feelings of embarrassment, guilt, and self loathing, rather than stop the behavior, they will try to place blame on the wife for her imperfections. If she weren’t overweight, unattractive, nagging, etc., then they would not feel the need to look at pornographic material. The imperfections in his wife’s body will be magnified when compared to the airbrushed images of a pornographic model. He will become more and more irritable and less patient and loving. His outlook will become more and more selfish as his focus shifts to obtaining an unattainable sexual fantasy.

He will spend more and more time on the computer and less and less time with his wife and children. He will become more secretive and demand more privacy. He will be defensive and get angry and possibly even violent if you question him about what he is looking at on the computer. In his article Dealing with Internet Addiction, Stephen O. Watters cites Dr. Kimberly Young, a pioneer in Internet addiction research. If you suspect pornography addiction, “she encourages spouses to look for changes in sleep patterns, demands for privacy, evidence of lying, personality changes, a loss of interest in sex and a declining investment in your relationship. One way to determine if your spouse’s activity is drifting off into inappropriate areas is to simply ask them, “What are you doing while you are online?” If they seem defensive or deceptive, you may want to get a more accurate idea by reviewing the history files on your browser.”

Other things to look for are if he password protects his computer and is reluctant to tell you the password, or only gives it to you after he has had a chance to erase any incriminating evidence; he may carry external storage devices with him, such as an extra hard drive, an ipod, a thumb drive, digital camera with a removable storage card, or other external mass storage device, even if he doesn’t need them for work. He may spend more time after work, coming home later and later than usual, or he may even go in to work earlier. He may lose interest in intimacy, or he may have a sudden increase in sexual desire.

You may notice an excess of spyware, malware, or virus infection on the computer, where the computer’s internet connection may seem slow or bogged down, and/or you may be inundated with all kinds of advertising pop-ups for sexually related products, virus protection software, gaming sites, gambling, or even pornographic websites while you are online.

If he isn’t very computer savvy, you can check the history in the browser, but often he is skilled at covering his tracks, using browsers that do not cache images, such as Firefox, or he may install some type of shredder that completely destroys any evidence of his browsing habits. You may find folders containing hundreds of boring images, the same image over and over again, or even just black squares with added noise. These could be encrypted files masking other files, images, or even movies.

If pornography continues to affect him in this way, it WILL destroy the marriage and if you want your marriage to last, you need to get help FAST! He may eventually have an extramarital affair, but not necessarily. The wife may never be able to quite put her finger exactly on what went wrong, and she may blame herself for the failure of the marriage because from her perspective, he simply lost interest in her and nothing she ever did was ever good enough, she was never perfect enough, never able to satisfy some need that he had.

But pornography is more than just a silent destroyer of marriages. According to Daniel Weis, “pornography is also a significant factor in sexual violence. The FBI reports that the most common interest among serial killers is hardcore pornography. Another study found that 87 percent of child molesters were regular consumers of hardcore pornography.” Ted Bundy admitted that pornography fueled the fire that led him to murder several women. Pornography creates serial killers, rapists, child predators, and sexual deviants. The earlier in life that a child is exposed to pornography, the more likely it is that he will have sexual problems as a result of pornography.
According to Pornography’s Impact on Marriage & the Family by Jill C. Manning

“The research indicates pornography consumption is associated with the following six trends, among others:

• Increased marital distress, and risk of separation and divorce
• Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction
• Infidelity
• Increased appetite for more graphic types of pornography and sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal or unsafe practices
• Devaluation of monogamy, marriage and child rearing
• An increasing number of people struggling with compulsive and addictive sexual behavior.

“These trends reflect a cluster of symptoms that undermine the foundation upon which successful marriages and families are established. While the marital bond may be the most vulnerable relationship to Internet pornography, children and adolescents are the most vulnerable audience. When a child lives in a home where an adult is consuming pornography, he or she encounters the following four risks:

• Decreased parental time and attention
• Increased risk of encountering pornographic material
• Increased risk of parental separation and divorce and
• Increased risk of parental job loss and financial strain

“When a child or adolescent is directly exposed the following effects have been documented:

• Lasting negative or traumatic emotional responses
• Earlier onset of first sexual intercourse, thereby increasing the risk of STD’s over the lifespan
• The belief that superior sexual satisfaction is attainable without having affection for one’s partner, thereby reinforcing the commoditization of sex and the objectification of humans
• The belief that being married or having a family are unattractive prospects
• Increased risk for developing sexual compulsions and addictive behavior
• Increased risk of exposure to incorrect information about human sexuality long before a minor is able to contextualize this information in ways an adult brain could
• Overestimating the prevalence of less common practices (e.g., group sex, bestiality, or sadomasochistic activity)

Pornography addiction, just like any other addiction, devalues human life and promotes self serving behavior. A person who is selfish and who does not value his own life, or the lives of those around him cannot be happy. There is no place for pornography in a healthy happy family life.

Some other more subtle things that can cause addictive behaviors and unhappiness in family life are excessive computer use, gaming, and television viewing. While not necessarily bad activities, these need to be limited, as research shows that excessive amounts of these activities can lead to patterns of addictive or antisocial behavior and excessive violence, insecurity, or depression. According to How TV affects your Child in KidsHealth, “in one year, the average child spends 1,023 hours in front of a TV.” That is 4 or more hours a day, or most of the remaining time after school. “despite its advantages, too much television can be detrimental:

• Research has shown that children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight
• Kids who view violent events, such as a kidnapping or murder, are also more likely to believe that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.
• Research also indicates that TV consistently reinforces gender-role and racial stereotypes.

About television violence, the article states “the average American child will witness 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18.” And that “many violent acts are perpetrated by the ‘good guys,’ whom children have been taught to emulate.” This gives a skewed perception that problems can be solved through violence, and even if you teach your children not to hit, the TV is telling them it is ok to hit “if you’re the ‘good guy.’” See the link to the article below for more information on this, and tips and tricks for limiting your kid’s viewing time.

As far as video games go, I strongly discourage them with my children. Devices like game boys, and game consoles such as the X-Box and the Nintendo Game Cube bring out addictive behavior problems with my boys even with playing as little as a few minutes a day. For some reason, my daughter doesn’t have this problem with video games, and research verifies that this is more of a problem for boys than it is for girls. There is so much we do not know about human development, and I feel like this is one that falls into the category of “it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

According to CBS news article Detox For Video Game Addiction? Experts Say Gaming Can Be A Compulsion As Strong As Gambling, “too much gaming may seem relatively harmless compared with the dangers of a drug overdose, but Bakker [Keith Bakker, certified interventionist; and director, Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants] says video game addiction can ruin lives. Children who play four to five hours per day have no time for socializing, doing homework, or playing sports, he says. “That takes away from normal social development. You can get a 21-year-old with the emotional intelligence of a 12-year-old. He’s never learned to talk to girls. He’s never learned to play a sport.”

“In older addicts, compulsive gaming can jeopardize jobs or relationships. Howard, a 33-year-old project manager who asked to be identified only by his first name, started playing an online role-playing game about six months ago. He plays for three to four hours almost every day — more on weekends — occasionally putting off meals or sleep.”

Kimberly Young, PsyD, clinical director, Center for On-Line Addiction; professor of psychology recommends that parents watch their kids for signs of video game addiction, carefully observing their reactions to limiting gaming time and problems that result from video gaming. If they object to limits and constantly obsess over when they can play to the point that they can’t think of anything else, they may be addicted to video games.

Keith Bakker states that “because video game addicts can’t avoid computers, they have to learn to use them responsibly. Bakker says that means no gaming. As for limiting game time to an hour a day, he compares that to ‘an alcoholic saying he’s only going to drink beer.’” If your kid is an addict, you may need to take steps to eliminate video games from your home. Get your kids out of the house and expose them to lots of fun, healthy activities, such as geocaching, sports, art, photography, or other physically active or mentally creative activities.

Whatever choices you make, the most important thing to remember is that human life is a gift, our bodies are special, and if we want to be happy, we need to respect that. Human beings are more than commodities, and we need to keep ourselves free from addictions of any kind or behaviors that depreciate the value of human life. This is a critical part of happiness and if we are truly seeking a happy family then this is an absolute must!

For Further Reading:

Drug Abuse and Addiction: Understanding the Signs, Symptoms, and Effects at HelpGuide.org

Talking to Your Child About Pornography at focusonyourchild.com

Talking to Youth about Pornography By Dan Gray, Licensed clinical social worker

The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research by Jill C. Manning, M.S.

Pornography: Harmless Fun or Public Health Hazard? Testimony by Daniel Weiss at the May 19, 2005 summit on pornography and violence against women and children.

How TV Affects Your Child at KidsHealth.org

Detox For Video Game Addiction? Experts Say Gaming Can Be A Compulsion As Strong As Gambling by Sherry Rauh, CBS News, Web MD

I understand that sometimes divorce is unavoidable. I also understand that unforeseen situations such as the death of a spouse can unexpectedly leave you single when you had not planned on it. In these situations, being a single parent or re-marrying cannot be helped. If this is the case, then the parent or parents who are in this situation must work even harder to achieve happiness in their family relationships. Why make things worse than they have to be by bringing in a cohabitating partner? In the study Family Structure and Child Well-being: The Significance of Parental Cohabitation finds that even “children living in two-biological-parent cohabiting families experience worse outcomes, on average, than those residing with two biological married parents,” referring to both financial well being and emotional well being. In other words, children living with cohabitating couples are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems and to live in poverty.

I have had the opportunity to observe both married and cohabitating couples (who hasn’t now days? You know who is married and who isn’t in your social circle. Take some time to really observe their relationships and the outcomes of those relationships for yourself. And please, be totally honest with yourself about those observations. It’s your kids we’re talking about here and the happiness of your family, so for heaven’s sake, PLEASE, be honest about it!) The results of my observations are this: (I know that these are basically oversimplified, but as an observer I can only report what I see. I obviously don’t know everything about what goes on or went on in these relationships, but in many of these cases I have had long conversations with one or both partners in the relationship. I have to go off of my observations and what I was told by both parties involved which was sometimes conflicting.) Of the people I know who are in my social circle who married with no fooling around beforehand, only two of those relationships have broken up. One is on shaky grounds, due to admitted extramarital activities by both partners (by this I mean any sexual behavior outside of the marriage such as indulging in pornography and/or infidelity)

The people I know who were married and divorced without any fooling around beforehand are divorced because (in my opinion) they did not choose carefully enough and married people who they discovered later to be abusive and/or had sexual problems such as an unnatural attraction to children. (How is anyone supposed to know beforehand that their would-be partner would have such problems? They aren’t going to tell you. This just means you have to be extra careful in choosing a partner nowadays. See my guide to choosing a spouse.) Of one of these couples, one partner came from a home where there was alcoholism, abuse, infidelity, and divorce. There are two marriage relationships that ended due to infidelity and/or one partner in the relationship had deep seated emotional issues that could not be overcome in the relationship, likely due to childhood abuse and low self esteem. Both of these relationships had premarital fooling around and limited cohabitation before marriage and in both of these relationships, regular church attendance was not part of the routine for one or both partners. Three marriages where there was fooling around beforehand survived and are doing well, but these couples had a harder time getting to a point of stability than the people I know who abstained from sexual relationships before marriage. All of these couples are regular attendees at church services.

Of the cohabitating or just fooling around couples I know who did not marry, all are now broken up and either single, dating, or in new cohabiting relationships. None of these are regular churchgoers, or at least were not while they were cohabitating. Of the people I know who cohabitated and then married, one long term cohabitating relationship only lasted a week after the marriage ceremony with a huge fight on the honeymoon night in which the marriage certificate was actually destroyed. Another lasted a few months before they broke up. They also were not regular churchgoers. Two sisters I know who cohabitated with partners for a period of 10 years or longer confided that they were never really happy in their relationships and one woman even suffered long term abuse from an alcoholic partner. Both of these women are now regular church attendees and have broken off their cohabitating relationships. They are happier now, but most of their children are now either cohabitating, are single parents, are currently divorcing, or are already in a second cohabitating relationship.

Three women and one man admitted that breaking up from the cohabitating relationship was just as traumatic if not more so than a divorce that they went through. The cohabitating couples I know had instances of infidelity, drug use, and alcoholism in their relationships. Their children have had more emotional and economic problems in their own relationships than married people that I know who came from stable married parents. Children know more than you think. Children can sense the added security when they know that you are fully committed to each other, and it enhances there feelings of security and emotional well being. If you are cohabitating, stop now, and FULLY COMMIT to the relationship and GET MARRIED! If you don’t think you need to, then maybe you aren’t really all that serious about having a truly happy family life. This has little to do with my religious beliefs, and has much more to do with my observations of healthy, happy, stable relationships, and what is being put into them.

Another thing to think about: studies consistently suggest that cohabitation is associated with an increased likelihood of divorce. For example, Paul Amato, confirming earlier indications, (Larry L. Bumpass, James A. Sweet, and Andrew Cherlin, “The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage,” University of Wisconsin, Center for Demography and Ecology National Survey of Families and Households Working Paper No. 5, 1989, pp. 913–927.) reported that couples who had lived together before marriage were 59 percent more likely to divorce than those who did not. (Paul R. Amato, “Explaining the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce,” Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 58, No. 3 (August 1996), pp. 628–640.) This means if you are cohabitating, and you decide to commit and get married, you are going to have to work harder to make it work.

Coming from a broken family, and knowing first-hand how damaging it can be to the children, my personal feelings about divorce are that it is wrong except under certain extenuating circumstances. For example, if the husband refuses to support the family even though he is capable and able bodied, either by flat out refusal to work or through irresponsible and wasteful spending that he refuses to control. (If the husband is disabled and cannot work, then the roles would obviously be reversed, and the responsible spending applies to either partner.) or if there is a serious pattern of spousal or child abuse, or if one partner refuses to fully commit to the relationship and is unfaithful or unwilling to compromise on important family issues when needed, making choices instead that are damaging to the family.

I think that divorce and re-marriage should be considered only as a last resort, since there is a growing body of evidence suggests that even stepfamilies may not tend to benefit children (Coleman, Ganong, and Fine 2000). According to research, living in a stepfamily is associated with low well-being compared to living with two biological parents, as indicated by a wide range of child outcomes including educational attainment, sociability, initiative, internalizing and externalizing behaviors (e.g. Amato and Keith 1991; Astone and McLanahan 1991; Cherlin and Furstenberg 1994; Coughlin and Vuchinich 1996; Hetherington, Bridges, and Insabella 1998; Pagani et al. 1998; Sandefur, McLanahan, and Wojtkiewicz 1992; Thomson, Hanson, and McLanahan 1994). Research by developmental psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington and colleagues provides some of the strongest evidence to date that children in stepfamilies tend not to fare as well as those in intact two-parent families, and at best, do no better on average than those living with single-divorced mothers (e.g. see Hetherington and Jodl 1994, for a useful review).

I am not saying that once divorced or widowed or otherwise left single, that you should never re-marry. I am simply saying that once you are faced with the situation of being a single parent, you are going to have to work harder, and choose a new partner even more carefully than you would have otherwise. And once remarried, it is going to take even more work to keep your family happy than if you were happily married to the biological parent of your children. Note the phrase happily married — obviously, if you came out of an abusive situation and into a stable marriage, things will get better, but speaking from the experience of living as a child in a step family, especially if you have recently come out of an abusive relationship, you are going to have to work overtime to make things work, if only because you are working through the effects of an abusive relationship.

If you feel that your marriage is on the brink of disaster, and you do not fit into one of the categories I stated above as acceptable grounds for divorce, please reconsider, especially if you have children. If you just feel you have grown apart, that isn’t good enough, and there are things you can do to fix your relationship. You can start with the following suggestions:

Choose to love each other: Love is a verb, not an accidental occurrence

Focus on your partner’s positive traits and not on the negative ones. Remind yourself of these traits by making a list and then thinking about them at least once a day. Add more as you think of them.

Make an effort to make eye contact and appear pleased to see your partner when he/she gets home or comes into the room and be cheerful about it.

Look for something positive to say first, even if it seems trivial. If you consider it long enough, you can find something positive about almost anyone. Refer to your list if you have to.

Make an effort to “be the adult” in the relationship even if it is her/his fault. Stop worrying about being right and just think about being happy. Winning an argument doesn’t bring happiness; just smug satisfaction that is short lived and unsatisfying.

Refuse to take the bait when a verbal attack is launched at you. Make up your mind that you will not fight. Wait until tension is diffused and then bring up topics in a non threatening way. (Did you want to talk about such and such? I got the impression that you were worried about . . .)

Plan and ask your spouse out on a date. Have a “date night,” ideally once a week.

Show affection to each other (within reason) in front of the kids. (If your kids see you argue, let them see you forgive each other as well.)

Be monogamous and leave no room whatsoever for irresponsible sexual behavior of any kind, including voyeurism, masturbation, and/or pornographic material.

Have regular family activities, at least once a week.

Go on family outings as often as is possible.

Allow your partner to make mistakes and forgive each other.

Say you are sorry and make restitution for any wrongdoing.

Don’t throw fits. It’s ok to be angry, but it’s not ok to act out on anger in a negative way.

Show gratitude to each other and nurture positive attitudes

Look for opportunities to serve one another.

Put your family first. Children feel most secure when they see that you have a strong relationship, so in order to put your family first, you need to first and foremost nourish the marriage relationship.

Prioritize and make time what is really important.

Set goals together and act with the end in mind. (read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective Families together)

Study scriptures and pray together daily (Or at the very least on your own). If you think you don’t have time, make the time and then do it. Allow the children to take turns reading and praying as well – it is good for them and helps with academics as well as with self esteem.

For Further Reading:

Overview of Cohabitation Research by David H. Olson and Amy Olson-Sigg

Cohabiting Couples Higher Risk for Divorce by David H. Olson, Ph.D. & Peter J. Larson, Ph.D.

No-fault divorce, cohabitation harmful to families, by Bryan Fischer

Cohabitation: Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?

Premarital Sex, Premarital Cohabitation, And the Risk of Subsequent Marital Dissolution among Women

The Facts behind Cohabitation

Children and the Stability of Cohabiting Couples by Pascale Beaupré and Pierre Turcotte