Tag: Marriage

Young Girl

May 15, 2025

Not all classic music is palatable in every aspect of consideration. “Young girl” is one of those. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap was a pop music group in the 1960s and 70s. I enjoy their music. There is a problem with this song, though.

It could sound like a dirty old man who is chasing a young lady. When I was in college I had this problem as well. However, I was only nineteen. She was fifteen. According to Missouri State laws I could be prosecuted for having sex with her until she turned eighteen.

Listen to the lines of the song. He thought she was old enough. I knew that Cindy was not. I did not tell her to hurry home to her mother. I did not need to change my mind. I could not get her out of my mind even if I wanted to. I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to get to know her better. This is the normal course of dating.

Our culture has changed since my days. Young people were taught to wait until they were married to have sex. It is better to concentrate on other things as your relationship grows. My love for this girl was not out of line. My desire to just have sex with her would have been.

When we got married, she was seventeen. Her Mother signed our marriage license. She was still in High School. I was twenty-one and had graduated from college two weeks before. The previous summer I spent ten weeks away in Pennsylvania working as a student pastor for a church through the summer missionary program of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board.

Upon returning, I decided that we needed to be married as soon as I graduated. I did not know where God would lead me. I did not want to have to leave her behind again. We were already engaged before I had left for the summer. I knew after a few months of dating her that I wanted to spend my life with her. Not just one night.

We planned the wedding for May. I began working at a part-time job. We decided where we would live. We purchased a car of our own. Our families helped with expenses and preparations. We planned for a minister, church, flowers, cake, maid-of-honor, best man, and everything else. We even decided to go to Branson for our two-day honeymoon.

Right after graduation, my part-time job became a full-time position in a management program. Two weeks after the wedding I was told that next Monday I would be in Joplin and would serve as a manager at a new location. I was reminded of why we needed to get married when we did.

This year we will be married for forty-nine years. If anyone said it would not last, I think we have proved them incorrect. All our kids got married while still in college. When I told them they should wait like I did, they reminded me that Cindy finished high school as a married woman. Now you know why I always said they could start dating when they were thirty.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

For better or for worse

July 12, 2024

I’ve officiated at several weddings over the years. I remember the first one in the fall of 1976. Cindy and I had not been married for a year. My store manager at Wendy’s asked his girlfriend to marry him. When she said yes, he asked me to marry them. I used standard traditional vows for them. Love, honor, and cherish till death do you part. The line, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse was also included in the ceremony.

As the years went by and other weddings, I noticed that some brides and grooms did not want these words and those traditional vows were changed. One couple gave me a ceremony they downloaded from the internet that included their children from other marriages. Their pastor had declined to marry them because of the vows.

Think about what the phrase for better or for worse means. The best situations you can imagine are the better. No one wants to think about what the worst could be. What if the plane crashed as you were flying home from your honeymoon? What could be worse? It crashed on the way to the location.

What would cause you to get a divorce? Adultery? Finding out that your spouse had a million dollars of debt and no intention of ever paying it off? They were married before and forgot to tell you. And they also neglected to get a divorce. As you move into your first place together, the police pull up and arrest your one and only for rape or murder.

Would you stick it out in these situations? What is the worst you can think of? Do you know that often it is the best thing that causes a marriage to fail? Children can be a bone of contention for some couples. Women may transfer their love for their husbands to their children. He would be torn between his love for them and his need for companionship.

Wedding vows only work when you commit to each other for life. No matter what. Our marriage has lasted for forty-eight years. My Mom and Dad never made it to forty. He died when he was sixty. Mom could have found many reasons to end their marriage. She did not.

Commitment is difficult. Do not run from it. Run toward it. Fight for it and each other. I find it interesting that many couples refer to each other as a fiancé. They haven’t even set a date and have been living together for years. I’ve seen these relationships break up shortly after the wedding.

Good and bad are relative. All it takes is for circumstances to change. Hang in there, baby. The best and the worst you can imagine will change. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Challenge yourselves to become better than you have ever been.

©Copyright 2024 by Charles Kensinger

Marriage

October 4, 2023

Once again, I would like to give you my definition of an expert. Let’s break the word down. Ex means former or has been. The difficult part is the spert. It should be spelled spurt and is a big drip under pressure. That means that an expert is a has-been big drip under pressure. I don’t want to be one.

I will simply claim to be a long-time practitioner of marriage. I do not have all the answers. I’m not sure that after forty-seven years I know half of the questions. I think the key to keeping a marriage healthy is like anything else. Give it what it needs.

When Cindy and I became engaged, it was because I wanted to be with her more than anyone else. She was having a bad day and said that she did not believe anyone loved her. This feeling had not been caused by me. Later it would be my fault. This night it was not.

I told her that I loved her. She did not seem to believe me. We had been dating for a few months and this was not the first time I used that particular four-letter word. It is easy to say. It is much more difficult to prove. My evidence of my LOVE was to tell her that I wanted to marry her and spend my life with her.

She hugged me and kissed me and said yes. Today couples sometimes have elaborate proposals. They have engagement parties and lavish weddings. Many have already been living together and should know each other. I know couples who married after a child was born.

None of these things are any better than our way. We have stayed together this long because we are willing to work for it. Another of those dreaded four-letter words. What I mean by work is that we give each other what we need. We both need support, approval, companionship, and understanding. These things are not easy to do.

I must put myself in her shoes quite often and try to decide what I am doing wrong. She does the same thing. Neither of us can expect to have our own way. We make decisions together and most of the time we agree. If not, we make compromises.

We gave our daughters an example of how to do this thing called marriage. They seem to be figuring it out as well. I warned those men about what they were getting into. They can’t blame me that their wives act like women. I also gave the girls the best advice a father could. I told them that boys are scum.

Facebook won’t let me post that. I am the editor of my web page. I allow it. With this explanation. I did not want them to marry a boy. They needed a man. Maybe like me or maybe not like me. That was their choice. He needed to be a grown-up. And they did, also.

If you are having trouble in your marriage. Are you both acting like adults? Childishness can be fun. It can’t last our entire lives. Give your spouse what she or he needs. Start with those four; support, approval, companionship, and understanding.

If you have more to add to this list, do it in the comments. I will continue this conversation with you later. We all need to contemplate our strengths and weaknesses. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

©Copyright 2023 by Charles Kensinger