my ideal family setup

[openeyes]

to have a family in the US I'd go for the following criteria (otherwise it'd be better to stay single and focus on close friends, as I do now):

I’d need to be able to spend most of my time with my family (kids/wife), no job keeping me away from 9-5 or longer. Establishing mobile, low maintenance sources of income is one of the main aspects I’m working on right now. 30-50 grand a year would be fine, it’s the free time that’s important.

Have similar views with my spouse on parenting and relationships, such as waterbirthing, attachment parenting, home schooling, nudism and open marriage/polyamory (at least to the point of being able to kiss/cuddle with close friends without jealousy). No diamond rings, no big wedding, and maybe no “official” marriage at all. The type of woman I’d be into may be fine without the piece of paper, keeping the government out of the picture.

We’d live outside the city with a permaculture farm filled with fruit trees, hens roaming about, and maybe a couple goats for raw milk, along with a small house, one we’d built ourselves with little to no mortgage. After a while we might move into a nice walkable town, like where I live now.

Minimal tv (maybe some movies). We’d mostly get by on nature, the company of friends/ourselves, and other countercultural things we find enjoyment in. Voluntary simplicity. A typical hippy’s dream. All of this may sound farfetched, but the one happy marriage I grew up seeing followed the above almost completely (though I wasn’t thinking of them when I wrote it, it’s simply what I would want, and then I realized it’s also what they essentially did), and after more than two decades together, now working at home with kids grown up and out of the house, they’re still like newlyweds.

I’ve actually already met and dated women that fit much of the criteria I’d want in a wife (not fully stated here, where I focused on what I'd want in a family lifestyle), it’s mostly an issue of establishing a level of financial stability (to make sure finances aren't an issue that would disrupt things), which has a good chance of being accomplished within the next few years.

The main girls I seriously deal with are kind, supportive, in good shape, pay for themselves and sometimes me as well, often do volunteer work, not big on “partying”, and college educated, which in itself means their potential divorce rate is less than 25% and they make great friends. The marriage situation for the college educated class has been improving, while for others in the US it can indeed be a raw deal, as discussed a bit here: National Marriage Project Home Page

[InJoy]

Seems to me that by just writing this out in such detail you have started the ball rolling. You might want to consider letting go of the "can't happen until" attitude you seem to have toward the financial side of things. Perhaps the lifestyle you desire will itself bring about the necessary means to live it!

Keep thinking about it and visualizing it to the point that you feel joy at the prospect. I bet you'll get just what you want.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by InJoy

Seems to me that by just writing this out in such detail you have started the ball rolling. You might want to consider letting go of the "can't happen until" attitude you seem to have toward the financial side of things. Perhaps the lifestyle you desire will itself bring about the necessary means to live it!

Keep thinking about it and visualizing it to the point that you feel joy at the prospect. I bet you'll get just what you want.

Thank you. Your post has helped get my mind going, making me consider things I wouldn't have in the near past. About 30 minutes after my original post I had a date with a very sweet Polish-American girl that I feel I could care a great deal about (somehow I've been blessed with a number of sweet girls in my life).

For a while now, I've actually tried not to "fall in love" with anyone, but rather just to love them as friends, as I didn't think my life was in the right place for anything else. Hence I'm 22 and haven't been in a long term relationship since I was 18. I'd decided to wait until I was actually ready to consider marriage as a possibility.

Otherwise/until then I'd focus on close friendships, and at this point I now have several excellent friends, so my time hasn't been wasted at all. It may be time to let "falling in love" be a possibility again though. Waiting for everything to be perfect before taking action may be a copout (okay, I know it is).

With the girl I'd seen yesterday we ended up discussing a lot of what I'd posted here, and it's funny, the parts that I left out, she filled in. We'll be seeing each other again within the next couple days. I don't know what the outcome will be with this particular girl, but I'm open to giving it a chance now.