₦airaland Forum

Incognito403:
1. Remind me please. How old was mother Mary when she wedded the carpenter?

Nobody knows for a fact what her age was. What we do know is the following:
➜ There was nothing traditionally Jewish about what we are told happened to her that would cause us to believe the events fit into our traditional models of what happened to average Jewish girls or women at the time
➜Even the woman mentioned as her cousin was an older woman, whom Mary spoke to not in the way a much younger woman would to an older woman, but more in the way a woman would speak to her peer, or someone closer to her age group
➜Joseph's acceptance of the burden that was Mary and her baby was also unconventional
➜ More importantly, that we have the case that the average Jewish woman around that time was engaged during their teens DOES NOT imply that there existed no exceptions.

2metrelaurie:
➜ The Bible doesn't not call prebuscent girls women. Mary was probably in her teens and Joseph was either in her late teens or early 20s That's when people in Judea married then.
➜ For your info most of Jesus Christs apostles were teenagers.

Yes, pre-adolescent girls were not referred to as teenagers; however, the age given for Mary by so-called Christian scholars is also wrong. This is wrong information propagated by those clearly desperate to force tradition on the events that took place. An unmarried woman became pregnant, and then a man of the Levite clan was caused to marry her in that condition. To add to that, this woman had a cousin whom she addressed in a manner that most young women of that time would scarcely address even their own mothers.

This leads me to believe that, contrary to the narratives we have been fed by so-called Christian scholars, Mary was likely much older than speculated. Also, Joseph, for all we know, could have been an older man in his 30s or older, or maybe a widower. There is no proof that he was a young man in all of this, too.

2. I disagree with this notion as well. There is no evidence from the gospels that suggests this. Why do we need them to be teenagers? This is my first question. Why couldn't they be adult men like Jesus Christ of Israel Himself(or maybe some years older)?

irumole1975:
I didn’t know what to say so I just left her on read. And I liked one of the msgs where she prayed for me. I wish her well tho

. She says she deserves better. So, yes, let her go, and you, too, can move on to finding yourself a woman well within your range. Work on getting a woman you can afford, or better still, put all of your energy into building your financial capacity and strength so you don't run up against the same issue again.

Mothers and children
Of course, divorced moms aren’t just focused on their sexuality. They focus on their children, too.

According to a 2019 U.S. Census Bureau report that culls numerous studies in the States and overseas, divorce laws can hugely benefit divorced moms, who often invest more in their children’s schooling. They also have more time to spend on leisure as well as work, and spend less time on chores.

That’s what Lyz Lenz discovered, in part because she had 50-50 shared custody with her former husband, as an increasing number of divorced parents in the United States do, according to a 2022 paper, “Increases in shared custody after divorce in the United States.” As Lenz writes in an essay for Glamour magazine:

I had more time to write and more time to work. I started making more money. I was able to do things I’d never been able to do before: a set at open-mic night at a local comedy club; drive to Minneapolis to see my friends. I had less housework, and I didn’t have to worry about having a fight if I made vegetarian food for dinner, or just didn’t cook dinner at all, or if I swore, or if I wanted to stay out late at a book reading (yes, all real fights we had). I had more friends because I could be a better friend.

In a 2020 study, “Families in Later Life: A Decade in Review,” sociologist Deborah Carr found that although divorce has long been described as among the most stressful of life transitions, more recent studies indicate that many older adults adapt and even thrive post-divorce, from finding new romantic partnerships, to spending more time volunteering, to strengthening ties with their adult children.

Typically, it’s the mothers who have more contact with their adult children after divorce. For dads, later-in-life divorce cuts the odds of frequent contact by nearly half, at least for a while, especially with their sons, mostly because adult children often blame their fathers for the divorce. And while a father’s re-partnering often contributes to those fractures—they’re seen as “swapping families”—a mother’s re-partnering “has no appreciable effects on their relationships with their adult children,” according to a 2022 study.

As Carr shares with AARP, despite some emotional bumps right after a split, most older adults eventually “fare quite well”​ after a few months. “Whether you’re depressed or not depends upon what the relationship was like and the context in which it ended. If it was a conflictual marriage and not emotionally satisfying, there are fewer symptoms of depression and loneliness.”​

Lenz believes divorce is a cause for celebration. She celebrated hers by burning her wedding dress—“a reminder of all my failed dreams”—that had been hanging in her closet for the 12 years of her marriage.

“In response to news of divorce, people often reply, ‘I’m sorry.’ But I think we should say ‘congratulations.’ Congratulations for prioritizing yourself. For being brave. For the self-knowledge to know when to leave,” she writes in the Washington Post.

Gadoua thinks rather than celebrate divorce—although individuals are certainly free to do so—what’s really needed is a way for former spouses to honor the exit from their marriage.

“It’s a personal choice to celebrate,” she says. “I do think that we lack in our culture a rite of passage out of marriage. The women who come to my retreat are so grateful to have a sense of closure and some kind of ceremony around honoring what they had but looking forward to what is in front of them.”

Boomers grew up in an era when there was little to no help for parents going through a divorce, or their children. And the influential books penned by therapist Judith Wallerstein—1989’s Second Chances and 2000’s The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce—convinced millions that divorce was more harmful than previously thought and with lifelong consequences for young children caught in the crossfire. Her methodology and research, however, have since come under scrutiny and been criticized.

“The idea that divorce is bad, and kids are going to be damaged, those are really outdated beliefs. We have the choice to have a different kind of divorce today, for people to think, ‘Oh, I have the power to make this a good divorce,’” Gadoua says. “It can bring out the worst in people, but it doesn’t have to.”

Coming back to life
Still, mothers who leave their marriages while their children are still young, as Barrymore, Bündchen, Ratajkowski, and all the memoirists did, are often judged harshly.

“Mothers in almost every culture are programmed to bury their needs in the greater needs of family. Acting on their own desires, following their hearts, searching out their own private happiness—all of this is still perceived as transgressive and profoundly selfish,” British author Lily Dunn writes of her decision to leave her husband for another man while her two children were young.

As famed therapist Esther Perel writes in her book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, “Home, marriage, and motherhood have forever been the pursuit of many women, but also the place where women cease to feel like women.”

Which is why divorce often kickstarts a woman’s libido.

“For women who appear to have ‘low desire’ in long-term marriages, many times when they get divorced they’re sleeping around with everyone,” sexologist Tammy Nelson and author of The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity, tells me. “People confuse the loss of sexual interest with the loss of sexual interest with a specific person.”

And for some heterosexual women, a divorce leads them into the arms of another woman for the first time, as described by authors Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle in their bestselling memoirs. In fact, some 36% of women in their 40s in a same-sex relationship had been previously married to men. It’s higher for women in their 50s and older.

“[M]any women report feeling a ‘second adolescence,’ with many of the associated feelings and behaviors. She is not crazy if she suddenly has sex on the brain all the time!” writes Nancy C. Larson in her 2006 study “Becoming ‘One of the Girls’: The Transition to Lesbian in Midlife.” Larson herself came out as lesbian after 19 years of marriage to a man.

No one would promote divorce as a path to sexual pleasure. Still, a 2018 study of middle-aged hetero, bisexual, and trans divorcees found that while some of the women had regrets about the end of their marriages, divorce got them out of their comfort zone and opened them up sexually.

“Women sometimes have to break rules to find sexual pleasure for themselves in a society which is not consistently supportive of female sexual pleasure,” the researchers wrote. “It also takes seriously women’s right to seek pleasure and to overcome barriers to pleasure even if those barriers are socially sanctioned.”

Continue reading...

When Is Divorce Good for Women?
Recent research and memoirs have a message: Ending bad marriages can dramatically improve women’s mental and even physical health.
By Vicki Larson | April 22, 2024

Divorce is having a moment—for women.

For example, Actor Drew Barrymore, who recently divorced for the third time, shared on her talk show that divorce is liberating.
I had so much shame around divorce and, for some reason, something happened, and I said, “I’m no longer willing to feel this way.” And it just lifted from me. When you find yourself in a situation that isn’t working out the way you hope and want, you accept it and improve the quality of life by moving forward. And for me, divorce is no longer a reason for shame. I am totally free.

For her part, model Gisele Bündchen says it takes “courage to leave an unhealthy relationship” and sees her divorce from football star Tom Brady as a new opportunity for her—“when a door shuts, other doors open.” Model Emily Ratajkowski marked her recent divorce from Sebastian Bear-McClard by turning her engagement ring into a divorce ring and praising how transformational a divorce can be, especially for women.

Women, who are overwhelmingly the ones to initiate divorces, actually are feeling better about it. In fact, they are celebrating it. A few years ago, those celebrations looked like divorce parties, divorce cakes, divorce registries, and divorce selfies.

More recently, Gen X women have turned to writing memoirs that put their marriages, as well as the institution of marriage, under the microscope and magnify just how toxic heterosexual marriage can be. These memoirs, from Australian author Clementine Ford (I Don’t), and American authors Leslie Jamison (Splinters) and Lyz Lenz (This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life), not only skewer heterosexual marriage but also praise breaking free.

As someone who has been divorced twice—once after a short-lived marriage when I was in my early 20s, and once at midlife with two tween children—and who has written extensively about marriage and divorce, I know a thing or two about both.

I don’t regret either of my divorces. As weird as it may sound, divorce was the best thing that happened to me (besides having my children). In fact, I would never have become an author if I had not left my last marriage, which lasted 14 years.

Divorce is much more commonplace and accepted nowadays—a recent Pew Research Center survey reveals that 55% of Americans believe unhappy spouses tend to stay in bad marriages longer than they should. But should we be celebrating divorce, especially if young children are involved?

The answer can be yes. There is a positive, research-based case for divorce—if the split happens under the right conditions.

What can be good about divorce?
Paul R. Amato is a sociologist at Penn State University whose research focuses on marital quality, divorce, and family issues. In his 2000 review of research on the consequences of divorce for adults and children, he notes that numerous studies have found that many people flourished after divorce. They experienced higher levels of autonomy and personal growth once untethered from their marriage. Many women had a boost in self-confidence and a better sense of control. Divorced moms tended to see improvements in their career opportunities and their social life, as well as an increase in happiness.

While most studies of the past tended to focus on the negative consequences of divorce, he writes, “If more studies explicitly searched for positive outcomes, then the number of studies documenting beneficial effects of divorce would almost certainly be larger.”

Some more recent studies have done that.

“There is a societal assumption that divorce is always negative,” says Connie R. Wanberg, a professor at the University of Minnesota who recently co-authored a study on how divorce impacts people in the workplace. Still, even Wanberg was surprised by how many said they were better at their jobs after their split. “Some of these individuals had been in very dysfunctional relationships,” she says.

Like the recent divorce memoirs reveal, women tend to thrive post-divorce, not necessarily financially (in fact, many women suffer unnecessary financial hardship in a divorce), but emotionally and physically.

Women are “significantly more content than usual for up to five years following the end of their marriages, even more so than their own average or baseline level of happiness throughout their lives,” according to a 2013 study from London’s Kingston University.

One reason women feel happier than men after a divorce, despite the financial repercussions, could be that “women who enter into an unhappy marriage feel much more liberated after divorce than their male counterparts,” according to Yannis Georgellis, director of the university’s Centre for Research in Employment, Skills and Society, who co-led the study.

Women are more likely than men to get mental health support while divorcing, more likely to depend on supportive relationships, less likely to rely on drugs or alcohol post-divorce, and more likely to turn to experiences that enrich them, such as travel, researchers observe.

San Francisco Bay Area therapist and author Susan Pease Gadoua has been offering groups for women in transition since 2000, mostly to divorcees and soon-to-be divorcees. For many years, a consistent theme she heard was how ashamed they felt, as well as experiencing a sense of failure.

If “until death do us part” is how society measures a successful marriage, a union that ends in divorce, instead of death, is seen as a “failed marriage,” even if the marriage was loveless, sexless, lonely, and full of anger and perhaps contempt.

While some gray divorcees—boomers in their 60s and older, a cohort that is divorcing faster than any other age group—Gadoua counsels still feel those pressures, most of her younger clients do not.

“There’s definitely less stigma, and it’s not uncommon to hear from women who come to see me that they’re on their second divorce, even third. That’s quite prevalent. Those numbers don’t seem to matter anymore,” she tells me.

Continue reading...

ManuelNate1:
➜I rili don't have an issue with me not being able to recognize them in the nyt, but my inability to quickly ask who it was that called my name. Like I cudnt remember to ask or query atal atal... The thought of it makes me feel sick in the head. More like a very very poor memory, low I.Q, dumbness... Just name it.

Was it that you didn't remember to ask or that you completely missed the fact that one of them recognized and called your name during the exchange? Slowness in connecting things is still memory-related, not IQ-related.

OP, if it bothers you that much, then please go see a doctor about your concern.

ManuelNate1:
➜Shudnt a gud memory translate to a gud I.Q?? If my memory is bad, I assume my I.Q is bad too ** Crying**

Not necessarily! A memory issue can be temporary and easily resolvable. Sometimes it can require you merely changing up your diet, while your IQ would remain unimpacted by it.

Not seeing the person in the dark sounds more like an eye-related issue, and not a memory issue. Slowness in recognition, on the other hand, would be a memory problem and not necessarily an IQ issue.

IQ? A possible memory or bad eyesight issue has nothing to do with IQ.

Chilipepper:
My dad wants me to claim the pregnancy he is responsible for: man seeks help

Your dad literally hates your mother and you as well since he is all too willing to have your own reputation messed up for his sake, yet you come here to ask us wetin? Do you hate yourself and your mother that much?

Brahamimo:
There is a saying that, "If you no go, you no go know". I have just read a sad story on this forum of how an uncle threw his late brother's children out of the house. And now the children are stranded and how nowhere else to go.
This was what informed my post.
I'm suffering same. As a matter of fact, I don't have a home. In the last 15years, I have no had a family reunion with my siblings because we are scattered around. Nobody can understand this particular pain I'm talking about. Nobody!
In my case, the said uncle took my father's land and built on it without even consulting us first. We were very young when we lost our parents. Other uncles of ours were against his decision to take that land. They had told him that these children will grow up one day and would want to build their own house. Where will they now build by the time they grow up?
But this particular uncle never listen. He is a very diabolical person and everyone Knows. He doesn't know anything or anyone like God. He's a traditional African man. He has charms everywhere— And I really do not know what to do. I have been advised to let go of the land, because if I drag it, He might harm me with his charms.

Now that you are older, have you filed a case against your uncle? Have you contacted Brekete or any of the pro-bono lawyers out there for help on the issue? Or what have you been able to do about this since then?

I personally don't know the particular steps to take in this situation to resolve the issue, but I think if you could consult with ChatGPT, you should be able to get information on the necessary steps to take in trying to resolve the theft, even at this point.

OP, just so you know, marriage is not by force. A good portion of individuals out there are not married and will never be, and that is OK. If you can find peace in your life as it is today, there is no need or reason to need to change it or feel burdened to add marriage(or even children) to the equation.

ChybuzzDD:
✓ You talked about calorie reduction, and, at the same time, failed to know that intermittent fasting will also help in calorie reduction.
✓ You don't know that majority of the body's calorie comes from eating

Wrong!

Intermittent fasting does not help with calorie reduction. The only focus of intermittent fasting is reducing the frequency of meals/day, not calories per day. If you were to consume 2500 calories a day meal on intermittent fasting plan, your body would still recognize all of those calories consumed as 2500 calories. 🤔

2. Huh? Do you know what calories are, to begin with?

gtassure:
➜I'll bet is 90% diet! Food kills!

When it comes to mental illness — aka stress-heavy issues — it is not just the food. That is why you can find pictures of literally starving individuals(children included) whose stomachs look as big as though they were pregnant. Cortisol is a hormone that regulates fat storage in the body.

darichlife:
Am still really confused, you do fraud for a living but you are looking for true love, haa

Men wey no fit even make $1000 in total each year believe say dem dey entitled to an in-home cook, bangmaid, babymama, and housekeep. Why Yahoo Yahoo man no go fit dream of true love put? 🤣🤣🤣

omoadeleye:
➜Don't take alcohol, you will be saved from pot belly

Wrong! Alcohol does not cause pot bellies. They are caused by stress resulting from a generally unhealthy mental life.

Lilosama:
This story funny…….. lady slaps her boyfriend for proposing to her, when she already told him about distance and other things but what the boy revealed is shocking Pls like and subscribe for more updates

Stop spreading misinformation. He was not her boyfriend but a stalker who disrespected her at her friend's wedding while she was trying to make a toast for that matter.

gtassure:
➜Jumping the gun as usual! Potbelly is rampant in Nigeria because of our diet! We eat too much starch and simple carbohydrate e.g apu, eba fufu, rice pap etc
These class of food does not nourish the body, they only turn into sugar/ glucose, and just a small amount of it is needed by the body the rest are turn into fat and store in the fat tissue and that is why you have potbelly!

Again, it is not just the diet, but more to do with stress levels in their lives. That is why you will find skinny men and women who have substantial amounts of belly fat out there, too. And then you also have children who also struggle with belly fat.

Haydens:
➜💯💯 Highly supported this opinion. OMAD( One meal A day) / intermittent fasting goes a long way too. Potbelly is a disease that needs to be fought with all might. It makes one to look unstructured.

If you eat 2000 calories a day with that one meal a day plan of yours, you will still not find yourself losing any weight. The total daily caloric intake needs to be reduced to achieve weight loss.

Emeskhalifa:
✓ Enjoy? Oh so you finally admitting that women are just meant to be enjoyed? Thank God no be man talk this one so

You mean women do not equally enjoy being in relationship with men? We just went through the the woman in this case was at least able to enjoy the boy's money untill it rain out and then she found there was nothing left for her to enjoy in him.

That aside, if you think women have nothing to enjoy in relationship with men, what do you think that says of you as a person? 😮😮😮

flexyrule:
Pot belly is not a gender thing again.
Nigerian women have protruding bellies too.
So, I wonder why the topic is focusing on men only.
I think it has to do with our type of food. I have visited other African countries where eba, fufu, Amala, Tuwo, pounded yam, etc are not consumed, and majority of their men/women have very flat stomachs...
But mehn... Take Senegal and Gambia, as example.. They eat bread and rice every Godamn day. I mean, every Goddamn day.
Not even sliced bread oooo... One long strong bread like that...
Meanwhile, there's a lot of ignorant folks on the first page of this thread.

None of this is it. Belly fat is primarily about cortisol levels aka the stress hormones. And yes, it impacts both men and women alike. 🤔🤔

Yes, the average African diet, primarily laden with carbohydrates and not much of the other essentials is not particularly healthy. However, so also is the stress-heavy lifestyle that equally deprives many of good sleep.🥱🥱

Dynamicboss:
Those ones be big men o

They are instead men who are under a tremendous amount of stress. The reason much of that weight piles up on their belly is due to severe stress; there cortisol levels are almost always on the high levels. 🤔

Meedon:
✓ What about intermittent fasting? Can it be of help?

Not that I know of. To lose weight one has to pair good sleep habits and exercise with calorie reduction. 🤔

Montana23:
➜I was actually asleep when I got your message..who are you to determine my mothers life or destiny , who are you to judge the life one has chosen, is ur life perfect..please reply with good message without having to ridicule anyone..
➜ be matured..as a woman own up to your hustle and forget what a man is doing..
➜ if you got real things to handle you won’t be jumping over what a man’s doing same goes for man too..respect yourself

I was not the one who determined her worth, you were.

Montana23:
➜my mum had about 4 house before she died, my dad always cheated but she never left..after she died my took care of us in every way he could as a father but if she has moved out their will be no one to guide me and my siblings.

You told us that your mother deserved the adulterous marriage your father gave her and insisted that it should be so for other people's daughters. 🥱🥱🥱

2. So, your mother continuously had her heart broken and betrayed by the man she refused to let go of. She probably became a shell and took to working through all of that pain until her death because she could not see herself leaving the man who was the source of her heartache— she was not brave enough. And that is what you believe it means for a woman to be mature? She had to endure heartache and power through it nonetheless? Your mother probably worked herself so very hard because she was afraid she could not trust the man she held so tightly to keep anything for the children she had with him. Do you realize how pitiful that really is?

You say you were guided by a man who literally hated your mother since he spent his time with her cheating on her— breaking her heart over and over —, and now you are telling me I am to blame for calling this all out for what it is?

3. You mean a woman should have to be able to work through the chain herself to a man who brings her nothing but pain? That is what you learned from your mother's experience, abi from your father? Your mother was not a human deserving of a life free from pain and heartache, abi?

SEGLIZ:
✓ what else would have the sole reason if not money?

You should also see from this that what this means is that boy himself likely brought nothing else of worth to the relationship.

We are all humans and if someone brings nothing to your life except money -- their presence alone is worthless --- you have no reason to burden yourself with them when the money is gone. We all do it with our work relationships. When the paycheck is no longer coming -- company goes bankrupt or something -- we mostly all find our way. Why? Because the only thing of worth in that relationship to us is the money we earn after all the work we put in. Rarely will you find people willing to work for nothing but the name of personality of their bosses.

Emeskhalifa:
✓ If y'all get tagged ask gold digger, hope you won't take it personal[

Na mostly poor men dey tag all women as gold diggers. 🥱🥱

When the boy had his yahoo money, he saw her as nothing but his girlfriend. Now that his money is gone --- poverty is now his lot --- he blames her. Wait till he gets money again, he will likely run after the same girl so he can get back all that he used to enjoy while he with her.

Meedon:
✓ Potbelly na stress ooo
Sometimes I starve myself for five days intentionally so that I can maintain my flat tummy.

Your are correct to insist that it is stress induced. I don't think starving oneself is the way to go. Combining getting of good sleep with walking and better eating(cutting down of calories) will go a long way in reducing stress, reducing the fat stores and also helping build better and lasting healthy lifestyle to combat stress in total.

Lilosama:
Girlfriend dumps her yahoo boyfriend after he went broke and got her phone swapped by a new guy. Boy narrates how his girlfriend left him for another guy after he went broke

Easy come, easy go! Seems the money may have been the sole reason for the relationship. With the money gone, what did he expect? Tell him he should make money again if he wants to get her back.🥱🥱🥱

lilsmart:
If your children don't look to you for guidance and see you as a mentor, it may be time to reflect on your relationship.

This mentality here explains why the average Nigerian youth remains a spitting image of their fathers and we all see where that has put the nation as a whole. 🥱🥱

Montana23:
I saw everything I needed, im from a polygamous home

Polygamy reduced you to seeing a your own mother-- a human being -- as merely a cog in the wheel that is polygamy and nothing more?😩😩😩

lilsmart:
✓ My position is that a child's (sons) primary residence should be with the father, who serves as a crucial mentor. I'm not advocating for separating the child from their mother that relationship is vital. However, a child needs a stable, guiding figure who has firsthand experience with the challenges they will encounter. While a mentor can be anyone, a father who is present and engaged is uniquely positioned to provide that guidance. Therefore, the child's main address should be with the father, from where they can maintain a strong relationship with their mother.
✓ Critical thinking everybody's entitled to his/her opinion

A child needs a parent, not a mentor,during the formative years and it is best when both parents are involved regardless of whichever one of them is the primary parent. Obama was raised by his mother alone throw out his childhood. Are you insinuating he was not raised well because his father was not in the picture? 🥱🥱🥱

Anyway, if you wish to serve as a mentor instead of as a father then you probably want to wait until the boy reaches 16 or above. Be certain you at least are running your own company at that time so you at least stand apart from the average joe on the street calling themselves mentors to boys whose heads they then fill with the usual gobbledegook.

Critical thinking ability requires you at least know not to elevate what are opinions to the level of facts which are instead universal truths.

Obapluto:
lol.
I know u are bittered already.. We ain't talking about toxic marriage but divorce and who's suppose to be in custody of the kids.. I said my own opinion that even if it happens to me.. I will give the kids to there mother.. I don't understand your own

A lot of times, one can immediately tell those commenting from a place of delusion or denial. 🥱🥱🥱