What Did They Teach You About Love, Sex, Relationships?

Did your parents, guardians or other adult mentors teach you anything useful/meaningful about love, sex and relationships?

Personally of the three adults in my life each of them gave me one definitive sentence:

1. Never get married, never have kids
2. You don't ever have to tell a boy if you're a virgin
3. All boys want is one thing

Neither of these really helped me at all. As a matter of fact they confused me completely. I decided to follow and use the first sentence as my motto until I got into my first real relationship. At that point all I learned, I learned the hard way.

My goal is to be able to give my kids real advice when they get to that age of needing to know. I think it's a mistake to shun relationships just because you're a single parent. In fact I think I would like to be married and deeply in love by the time my kids get to puberty so I'll be qualified to actually give them useful advice throughout their love lives. I know this kind of thing can't be rushed but I think it's important to be able to give kids this kind of advice, where else will they learn it and who better to tell them than their parents, if the parents are truly interested in helping?

 

All I got was bad advice, but my mom meant well.
She was very religious so she told me to
never withhold sex from my husband,
always defer to his advice,
my job was to support and help him,
no matter what my husband does,
I can't go home to my parents, etc.

I didn't know then about the possiblity of mixed gender traits, so I assumed I was a normal female.
I partially identify as male, and see men as pals-not romantic objects.
When my best male friend begged long enough, I married him, because men defer to pals.
I never withheld sex or punished bad behavior, but obeyed my mom's directions (men obey females so I obeyed my mom).
With no controls, my husband bullied, cheated, stole my money, lied,
then (thankfully!) ran off with a young woman.

I finally noticed my male nature when I fell in love with a transwoman and found myself in the male role.
I discovered true female control weapons when they were used on ME.
Females (with strong female traits) don't confront males directly-they simply withdraw when displeased,
until desperate male partners do whatever females want.
(Females run romantic relationships since males often need someone to curb bad behavior.)

I could then see that my female relatives controlled their mates that way.
I was the one who had angrily confronted my husband, or played victim, yet was ignored and walked on.

I have too much female independence to take orders from a female partner,
which is why I am now happily single! :2thumbsup:

The only advice I gave my kids-
don't get married and/or have kids until you are 30!
Until then, you don't know what you want in life, and relationships are transient in the 20s.

So, my daughter traveled the world and started her own business, my son moved to LA and started his own businesses.

Neither seems in a hurry to be married.

 

My parents taught by example. I got to see what true love and respect for each other was on a daily basis. I watched the dynamics in their relationship. I saw how they settled fights. I saw them love and kiss each other. They taught me to never settle for less than what I deserve and I deserve the best. They taught me to respect myself and to not settle for anybody that didn't respect me as much as I respect myself. My parents loved each other with every cell in their body. I also had to watch my dad pick up the pieces of his life when she died. He literally almost didn't survive that. He almost killed himself a couple of times because he didn't want to live without her. Thank goodness he thought I was worth living for. I couldn't have handled losing both parents at 15.

One of the only things I remember my dad specifically telling me was...
"I don't want you to have sex until you are ready but if you are going to please tell me and I will get you condoms"

 

My mother pretty much taught me to lie to her about all my relationships - as they didn't approve of dating whilst I lived under their roof. Which led to me making some pretty stupid decisions because I had nobody whom I could ask for advice. Naturally, it isn't all my parents fault - I am mostly to blame for all the stupid stuff I have done and am currently doing.

Some other gems are
1.) If he is studying something that will eventually lead to a doctorate OR plays for the national team in an appropriately masculine sport - he is good
2.) If he works a well paid job but hasn't studied - the lack of a degree immediately makes him bad.
3.) Only bad men have beards or tattoos
4.) All men with a high muscle tone who do not have beards or tattoos are good men

 

Hmm...I see that you're 18. It's never to late to find someone who can advise you. Here is some good advice....if you operate under any of those 4 assumptions you made, you will probably be disappointed later. I think a little more experience is going to show you that.

 

That's more or less what I was going to post. My dad and stepmom had an awesome relationship and I learned a lot just by watching them every day. I think my own kids hopefully learned a lot by watching my wife and I. I tell my daughter that guy deserves her if he doesn't treat her at least as good as I treat her.

 

My mum and dad were married 49 years when she died...a minth befor she died, she told me, she hadnt loved dad for years..but she did what was expected of her.....never knew it, we all thought they had a perfect marrriage! Seems you cant tell...but you believe what they want you to....so sad.

 

I didn't learn a lot from my dad, I had 2 married relationships that I grew up with and one single parent. Neither of those relationships were easy for me to relate to, nor did they look to be very healthy or functional, but I can say that the way my dad treats me, sometimes anyway, is very gentlemanly and I expect that at least from a man...it's not enough, anyone can play a gentleman and not be that in reality, but it is at least a start.

 

Maybe she didn't love him in the sense of being in love with him, but the ability to keep going and without anyone noticing means they at least had respect for each other and the future they planned together. It doesn't sound sad to me, sounds like they came to an agreement that worked out for them the way they wanted it too. At least there wasn't a lot of fighting and they still acted like they loved each other by making a compromise.

 

This reminds me of something I read recently about the kinds of relationships a lot of us encounter in life.

One is the type you're in. Someone who teaches us something we desperately wanted to learn in our youth. More than likely someone older and more established.

There's also someone who fulfills a certain fantasy.

Someone who makes you appreciate your body and your sexuality.

Those are the ones I remember. I do think you can also have platonic friends with guys who aren't looking to get you into bed, but sometimes I think it takes having a relationship like the one you're having first to attract a plain old friend. That's my experience anyway. I mean, I had male friends throughout school but I wasn't available for anything more than friendship at that time and it was as if none of those friendships mattered anymore once I got to college so I had to learn again, while in my first real relationship that men can also be just friends.

 

nope.

My mom had the usual christian perspective and was very controlling and overbearing. No useful real-world advice ever from her, just I'm "not allowed" to be alone with boys.

 

Hmm..... I can say I grew up in a very loving family environment, perhaps due partly to the fact that our family is a small, tight-knit unit. I guess my "all you need is love" type outlook on life comes from my family just as much as the lyrics of the famous song itself. I DO think that my mother is pretty old-fashioned when it comes to certain matters, and for the most part has a conservative outlook on things like sex. But that's alright. Over the years, I've become my own person and have developed my own perspectives on things like love and sexuality and relationships and so on. Now we just joke about how she's the conservative, old-fashioned one and I'm this rebellious one, lol. It works out for us like that somehow.

As for sex education, I think everyone in my family tried their best. Oddly enough, my grandmother was the most verbally blunt and straightforward when it came to the sexual matters, lol. But we all thought that was funny. They taught me the basics, and I basically explored on my own from there. I know I want to be more open than my parents were about the sexual matters when I have my own kids, but that's just because I've grown to be more sexually liberal over the years. But all in all, I now appreciate their efforts to provide me with information and whatnot when I was growing up.

My mother and father aren't in a perfect marriage by any means, but that fact never made me reluctant to get into relationships of my own. All I know is that, save for the short period in my late teen years where I wanted to lose my virginity ASAP, I've never wanted to be with anyone I couldn't connect with on the emotional level. I think that's one of the things that my family has taught me over the years, that the "heart-to-heart" type connection is what brings happiness in a deeper sense.

 

My mom was pretty laid back. She taught me to:

1. Find someone who loves and respects me
2. Have safe sex
3. Don't have sex unless you really care about the person
4. Don't date someone who doesn't work or have ambitions of any kind
5. Communicate

 

My mom taught me to be independent and never depend on a man for anything. I haven't exactly learned the correct way to handle arguments or compromise in relationships from her but I have learned how to stand on my own two feet. I think I've often appeared selfish in relationships as a result but men usually find me desirable at the same time because I'm very independent. I know my partner wishes I would depend on him more than I do and he wishes I would give affection a little more freely but he also respects me and he knows he isn't going to ever get sick of me or get annoyed at me for being too needy.

My dad passed away when I was young, he was an alcoholic and while he was a really good man when he wasn't drinking he was a belligerent abusive person when he was drunk. I know its a horrible thing to say but I think my mom was a little bit relieved when he passed away. She dated a little a few years after he passed away but never really bothered with a serious relationship again. She's the most independent woman I know but my view of her would have turned out very differently if my dad was still alive.

Throughout my teenager years when i was dating she was very strict about not blowing off school work to hang out with my boyfriends and she always encouraged me to choose to hang out with my friends over hanging out with a boyfriend. To this day i think I place more value on and get more satisfaction out of my female friendships than I do romantic relationships.

 

No, I never got any advice or pointers, since I was the oldest child and my parents were very hung up about sex. I had to learn it all myself and that was painful.

 

what do all boys want wanttobe honey

 

little different take...
I've learned that it is not so much what you've been taught but how you take it.More than anything it's how You look at it - your own perspective - you see each can take whatever is 'taught' and come up with something other than, that they 'learn'.
My own perspective is to sift through anything that I'm 'taught', to try to find my own learning. Holdingfrom taking anything as real unless it sqares with what my own common sense and experience has shown me to be as probable...yet being open to acknowledge that my own take on it could be lack of awareness.
Some understand that to be vulnerable while yet standing on your own ground (knowing that your final arbiter is yourself), is the greatest stregth one can have....while some have faith in and depend on what those who came before. Personally I don't like what I see as the world tumbles toward oblivion and would rather see people looking outside the box for solutions.

 

Nothing that was of any value.

 

my parents never explicitly taught me anything about the subjects.
never had "the talk" with them

but you learn from what you see
so I'd say they taught me to make sure you love a person in all their states if you want to be with them your whole life. my mom certainly doesn't like half of my dad
it's enough for her I guess

 

Well, I think that despite whatever a person learns or absorbs from their surroundings, they will of course need to make some mistakes and get at a deeper understanding of things through their own experiences.

At the same time, I think it's negligent of a parent to put their children through so many years under their roof and rules and not teach them about relationships outside of the family. If for instance, the child didn't grow up seeing a marriage or long-term relationships/friendships in action, as a parent, I think you still need to go a bit out of your way to talk to your child about their goals, preferences and questions and be available to talk about that stuff with them.

Where else or how else will they learn? And if you didn't put in the effort to talk to them about it (even if it was modeled) then you have no right to judge them on their mistakes when they're older and trying to learn.