Things were a lot different when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s

I need to start maybe at age 12 when I understood a lot more than before (about the same age as the boys in) Stand By Me(1986).

That movie is almost exactly the kinds of experiences I had around that age too, including being threatened by a knife from older boys in a scarier way than in the movie. My wife watched that movie with me a day or so ago and called us then "Little Soldiers" because we had to deal with life threatening events all the time back then. If you were a boy you weren't protected like now you were vulnerable to attack anywhere from the schools to the playgrounds to the bathroom, on your way home from school, anywhere. And you had to be a "little Soldier" to survive these encounters and many did not survive.

Boys just were not protected like they are now from violent behavior from almost any source, especially from PTSD soldiers returning from World War II and the Korean War in 1960. So, if you didn't know how to protect yourself either through self defense or knowing when to run and where to run to you didn't survive. And Girls were not protected like now either and had to put up with a lot more than they do now.

It's important to consider both boys and girls of the 1950s and 1960s as being mostly respectful victims of adults some or all of the time.  People tended to be not that psychologically healthy then which reminds me in some ways to now after the Coronavirus. We might think it's all over but from my point of view we have just moved to a different phase here in the U.S. than the rest of the world. But, as long as it is anywhere we will still be affected by it in many ways.

I had a vision this morning that healed a lot of the pain I was carrying from the late 1960s and I was grateful for being freed from the past in many ways.

I realized once again that I had made a right decision but I realize once again that often the RIGHT decisions are impossible to live with. Because often these decisions are regarding the lives and futures of other people and once again I realized I made the right decision that nearly cost me my life between 21 and 25 because I couldn't live with this decision at the time. But, eventually my life began again and I created a new life and moved on.

Often in life we are confronted with decisions we don't want to make because either way the outcome is going to be awful. But, often the easy decisions we make instead of the hard ones ruin people's lives. In my case this decision ruined my life in the short run by saved my life in the long run. But, that saving me was going to be about 5 years later after a lot of suffering trying to stay alive.

One of the many difference then was that people got married much earlier than now and it wasn't unusual to see kids get married at age 16 or 18 years of age. It's true this still happens sometimes but not as often as it did then. Even kids that got pregnant at 14 or 15 were in shotgun weddings simply because abortions were not legal ANYWHERE in the United States then. So, if a girl got pregnant the boy often either got married or got shot. This is just how it was then.

And even poorer girls living with a man from ages 14 or 15 years of age if the man was 18 to 50 years of age wasn't unusual then either. As you can see life was just very different in the 1950s and 1960s than now in almost any way you can imagine.

So, I felt a lot of pressure to be married by age 20 or 21 but I knew I wasn't grown up emotionally enough for this and I realized it just couldn't work.

Maybe one of the most important things in life is "Timing is Everything" in life.

And people who don't realize this often suffer their whole lives because of this.

Forcing people to get married is a bad idea in any era because "Timing is everything".

Otherwise people fail at marriage and if there are children that can be a financial disaster too for the mother and children. So, choosing not to get married until you are grown up enough for that is a much better thing.

If someone gets pregnant that's a different thing. What I'm saying is if no one is pregnant people shouldn't feel pressure to get married or that relationship might be in trouble either in the short or long term.

Marriage only works if both people are grownups to begin with. I would say that  long term relationships aren't really just based upon love they are based upon friendship and companionship. If the person you are getting married to is not also your best friend then watch out.