To Date or Not to Date, That is the Question

good morning Dwayne here Dry Creek Wrangler School we've been out working horses this morning we got some fra stuff that we're getting miles on and now we just sent out how many horses we send out one two three four five six s all the young people that are here working and helping they just went out on a ride and uh so we just sent them out so I'm going to do a video real quick I'm going to do a dad video is that okay will y'all let me do that okay I've got I've been noticing

a trend in the comments from young people for quite a while on one particular subject that I get asked a lot about and so I want to I want to address that this morning now when I say this is a dad video this is not a there's this is just my you Mom and I raising seven kids we've dealt with this a number of times and so I just want to give you our take on it there's not a there's not a set anywhere out there this is right or this is wrong this is just

how we've dealt with it with our kids I get a lot of young people on here that are just devastated with breakups 14 15 16 17y old 18y old 20y old 21y old and my girlfriend just broke up with me me and my boyfriend just broke up and and they're devastated about it and and I I've gotten a lot of questions Dwayne what do you recommend so I'm going to tell you what I recommend all right I'll tell you what we did um I recommend that you stop okay our children were not allowed to date

until they were grown all right and by grown 18 19 years old um and but there were on there were two let me I'm just getting my thoughts together there were many times where young men came to me 15 16 year old by the way let me step back we had a rule no young man could write letters or nowadays text email any of my daughters without coming and talking to me first and I'll go into detail about that and there were young men that came to me and I said no uh and then they've

come back you know a couple years later how about now and I said no both those young men are now married to my daughters and they have good strong marriages and I believe one of the things that has helped them have good strong marriages is the fact that I said no um and both of these young men I told him I said look I you've you've you're a young man of good character I don't have any any personal problem with you who you are with what you are okay my problem with you is is you're

15 years old or you're 17 years old when you're that age when you're a young person you are not most the time almost all the time you're not emotionally mature yet all right and nowadays I know in society you know there's kids have boyfriend girlfriends 8 years old 9 years old 10 years old I never allowed that the reason I never allowed that is because you start setting a precedent a life Habit in your mind this is my boyfriend this is my girlfriend now we're not getting along so we're going to break up and we'll

find a new one and so you start setting a life habit a mindset that a relationship is disposable and you start setting that mindset you start setting that life habit while you're still young and impressionable and forming who you are okay I never let any of my children when they're at home once they're grown and gone they they do what they want but while they're still in my house no one was ever allowed to date just for the sake of dating their boyfriends and girlfriends were not allowed dating for me is a path to marriage

and so I I've asked sometimes you know they've come to I'm like are do you think this is who you're going to marry are you ready to marry this person well Dad I can't marry them I'm 15 years old then you can't you can't date um because you don't know who you are you're not emotionally developed yet your identity is not set yet and so it that adds an emotional uh relational burden to you that you're not developing enough to handle and a lot of the young people I believe that contact me and say I'm

devastated because my girlfriend broke up with me my boyfriend broke up it's inevitable it's inevitable because it's not natural okay now this is just you asked me for my input so this is just my input okay dating should not begin until you have a certain level of maturity that includes you you have a job you're making some of your own finances you're making financial decisions you're starting to look in decisions about providing your own housing but if you're living at home with your parents and they're feeding you and they're housing you and they're clothing you

you are not mature enough to date okay so my recommendation is stop the dating you stop the dating until you're at a point where I believe this is someone that I want to spend the rest of my life yet with and I'm mature enough to start figuring that out because I'm mature enough to start figuring out who I am and they are mature enough to start figuring out who they are and so now we can start making logical decisions about is this going to work is this not going to work and so dating should simply

be a a time to make double and triple sure that this is someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with it should never be something where this is someone I have a lot of fun with and we like hanging out and so we want to hang out with each other exclusively until we don't because I believe myself years of experience with other people and with my kids I believe that the abysmal divorce rate in this country in large part is affected by the dating practices in this country because we start developing

a disposable relationship attitude relationships are disposable if they make me mad uh if they don't pay enough attention to me if they move on if this happens this happens no harm no foul there is no divorce we just get a new one we just dispose of this relationship and we get a new one and that becomes a life habit and so now people get married and they treat marriage to a degree after a while they treat it just like they've done their whole life with dating that I'm not happy with this anymore and I don't

I don't feel the need or the desire to put the work into this to make this thing last because I never have there's a million fish in the sea I'll just go find another fish that begins in childhood while you're developing okay so if if you're a young person and you just went through a bad breakup you said Dwayne what do I do now don't go find somebody else all right you learned a hard lesson and now figure out okay this dating thing when I find someone that we are compatible that I decide I'm willing

to do whatever it takes to marry this person and then to vow a vow how many dates you ever been on how many people have you ever dated where you stood up before God man and vow a vow until death do his part it's never been a part of the equation all right and you shouldn't marry until you're mature enough to make that decision and strong enough to stick to it both of you it takes two of you okay so a little short video today but I just want to address that it's just this is

just like I said this is just a dad video all right this is this is how Dad this is how I as a father of seven children children and my children that are married have they have good strong marriages all right uh they did not develop a life habit of disposable relationships before they got married all right and uh so I think that has a lot to do with helping and uh and you said Dwayne what about the heartache right now the heartache right now just say Okay that was a bad choice and I don't

mean it was a bad choice to that person that was a bad life choice to I'm trying to figure out my college I'm trying to figure out my major in college I'm trying to figure out my career I'm trying to figure out who I am I'm trying to figure out what I am and then you're trying to juggle somebody else who's trying to do the same thing okay that wasn't wise I should not have done that and I have probably escaped a really bad situation so just turn your focus away from trying to find a

boyfriend or trying to find a girlfriend turn your focus away from that turn your focus on I need to mature I need to grow I need to improve myself and I need to make myself into the person who will become ready to become that forever husband that forever wife okay stop focusing on drawing your strength drawing your personal identity drawing your emotional stability from someone who's no more mature than you are okay it just doesn't it doesn't it doesn't work it doesn't make sense okay little short Syle video and and I'm first one to say

up front this is this is Dwayne's opinion all right and so you take it how you want uh or don't take it if you don't want and but maybe this view of things will change your outlook and maybe it'll help you a little bit in the future okay all right so I just want to help you that for those who are ask who want to know this is a savenelli 320 Trevy um with um what I got in here Carter Hall just simple Carter Hall and just enjoying pipes today and because we're out in the

wind a lot Springtime and Wyoming and pipes are more protected and they do better in the wind than cigars do okay so anyhow hope this helps you a little bit be logical be reasonable and if you're not yet mature enough to be logical and be reasonable don't start making decisions that require logic and reason be logical be reasonable be safe and have fun all right and give yourself the time it takes to grow up before you start to do adult things we'll catch you guys next time