Apart from the marriage part I agree wholeheartedly with Brianna.
It really comes down to your situation and environment.
Marriage can be a trap needs "Economical independency" clausal agreements written into them depending on both your situations. We cannot know enough about your current whereabouts and possibilities to be able to advise you wisely on the matter.
Too many factors we don't know to be able to mention it as a possibility or know about the consequences and repercussions for you to be able to give sound advise.

My advise:
Sit down and spend several hours talking with one another uninterrupted and, for the sake of all you hold dear or holy; listen!
Only the two of you will know what is right for you.
You already know what that is, but probably haven't realised it yet.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:04, Sun 21 July 2013.

Indeed.  I learned in England that you have a saying, "there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing".

But when the weather is so hot that the only appropriate attire is "None", and then it gets hotter still...

I have no idea what a Brit is supposed to do, then.

Carry on and keep a stiff upper lip, I suppose.

It is like this for me, for sure :(

I like Summer, I like the feel of it, the more happy atmosphere, I can even dig the heat... Just to an extent, that's all. I have learned that 28 is probably my upper limit... Because usually the temp is like 10-15 usually and I can deal with down to 0 before I feel really cold... I think I just deal with cold better because I can wrap up or get the fire on etc...

In reply to cero1 (msg # 53):

I dont like the cold.  Its cold here for about 6-9 months out of the year, so when we actually get a summer, I love the heat. :)

We've been in the 90's this past week and I have loved every minute of it.

I just need a car with AC in it now.

Just told my grandparents, Im alive to post so I guess it went well.

Good for you, Andrew. Hows your fair lady doing?

WTG Andrew.  I hope it goes as well for your lady also.

This message was deleted by the user at 13:19, Wed 24 July 2013.

Im happy for the both of you, Ericka and Andrew.  ^_^

Dont worry about your friends.  They will come around soon enough.  Happy times are ahead of you ^_^

In reply to Andrew:

Just to clarify.  Happy times are always ahead of you.

The rough and desperate times are learning experiences.  Times where you question yourself are valuable.  Do not squander them but learn and correct.  This is especially true when a child is on the scene.  I could go on but nothing I can say can prepare you.  All I can say is that there will be suffering and misery.  But there will also be love, happiness, and rewards unlike anything you have ever experienced.

A child does not need money.  It needs love and attention and those are things you can always afford.  Keep it simple and you will be fine.

Consider this, you got pregnant for free.  My wife and I spent five years, multiple surgeries, and around $250,000 out of pocket to have our first child.  The second child was twins and that only cost us around $80,000.  The way I see it, you lucked out.  Kids change your life.  If you do it right they make you better.

In reply to Tlaloc (msg # 60):

I agree heartily with everything you just said.

To also just reinforce it, kids need love. Be there for them as much as you can be. Be the parents you wanted to have growing up yourselves and you shouldn't go far wrong. Also remember, a kid may disappoint sometimes, but they gotta learn somehow, don't hold it against them. Kids act out, but they're just being what they are. Accept they aren't going to be exactly what you want them to be, but everyone wants happiness and to know someone is happy for them. I hope that as they grow up, you remembering that will make you that much more proud of the things they do achive, because they will achieve so much. All people do in their own way.

*nods sagely*

Glad to hear the reaction from the grandparents was in the neutral-to-positive side of things.  Grandparents...even aunts and uncles, for that matter, can be that way.  My extended family is fairly close-knit, and I come from a conservative social background with a strong religious influence...but a lot of the choices I've made in my life, especially in the last decade, have been options that felt right for me, but stuff that I was sure my family would be less than thrilled about (like doing costumes for a burlesque troupe...)  I never tried to keep it a secret, I just didn't go out of my way to tell anyone in my family about it, but so much of my family is on Facebook that it's getting to be fairly well-known (a couple of my nieces think it's fantastic, as I seem to be one of the few people in the family that they feel they can relate to, owing to my apparent 'black sheep' status...)

My uncle, who is now the sole surviving representative of his generation of the family, is the one person who I would potentially expect to frown the most on it.  He's a very spiritual man (I phrase it that way because so many people I know take 'religious' to mean 'preachy about religion') and has actually had several positions of importance in his church.  Every year at our family reunion, he takes me (and several others) aside for a little one-on-one talk...not necessarily in private, but just apart from the group enough that what he says is basically for your ears only.  His words to me?  "I'm proud of you...you've grown to be a fine man and you're doing good things with your life."

So very NOT what I expected to hear from him when I started this particular chapter in my life...

So, I'm glad to hear that Ericka's grandparents, at least, seem to be cut from the same cloth in that regard...you don't have to be perfect to be loved and valued by them.  Whatever choices you make for your lives, be they together or separate, I'm impressed that you took this on the way you did and I'm happy that it's turned out as well as it has.  I hope it keeps going smoothly.  There will be a lot of tough roads ahead...best of luck in traversing them...but know that you are also setting out on creating one of the single greatest joys known to mankind.  I've got several friends who could go on and on about all the things in their lives that they're happy to have...but without a single exception, whenever the topic has come up around them, their kids have always been the top of their list.  (One friend has gone so far as to tell her daughter, on several occasions, "I made a lot of mistakes in my life...but the one thing I did right was having you.")

About five years now.

Erika and Andrew,

Alright I have not paid complete attention to what is going on, and I am glad that your grandparents didn't blow a gasket (I find that people's reactions are seldom as bad as you fear they are going to be so its often better to just bite the bullet and come out with it).

And I am going to take a minority response on this subject, if nothing else than to play devils advocate, but frankly I feel that you both are screwed (please note that I am a middle aged man who does not have, has never wanted, doesn't like, and is quite happy that I never had any kids).  Once you have a child that child becomes your life.

And frankly you have to take a moment and look at your lives, figure out where you are at, where you want to go, what you have to do, where your lives with each other are (because regardless of if you stay together in a relationship you will still be bound), where a child would come into play, and if you even want a child (together, right now, in your lives).  Because I feel that if you don't know or are unsure about any of those things then maybe alternative options should be looked into.

But that's my thoughts and my opinion.  I personal don't think having a kid, especially an unplanned, unwanted one, is a great thing.

If you are happy and excited about this turn of events then I am glad you are happy and more power to you.

I just felt someone should mention the possibility of alternative options.

My first year of my marriage, we got pregnant, and I really wasn't sure I was ready for kids.  I was fresh out of grad school and working at a pizza delivery place.  I didn't have insurance, although my wife did through her job, and then she lost her job.

But she really wanted a kid, and I'd always wanted to be a father, so we had a baby.  I found a job (a durian good one that I didn't deserve) with health insurance, and our little guy was born four months later.

I wouldn't trade the moon for him.

Saint's right, make sure you're really sure about this, because having a child is probably the greatest responsibility one can take on in this life (unless you're, say, the captain of a nuclear submarine or something).

But oh, children are marvels.

So glad the big revelation went better than you feared!  Not just for the moment, but because having your families' support is going to be HUGE in the future.

Just to clarify, I was not suggesting that you should get married, just that you need to discuss, and present a united front on, the subject.  A lot of people, not just ones my age, are likely to consider that you should, and though it's none of their business, it will be easier to deal with if you know what the other thinks.

While you certainly should consider other options than keeping the baby, I see nothing from either of you that suggests you don't want it, or that you aren't committed to raising it together.  As others have suggested, this is a truly life-changing event, in ways you can't even imagine right now.  LOL I always say children/parenting can be accurately described by pretty much every adjective in the language, from ridiculous to sublime, catastrophic to wonderful, but among the things you can't imagine until you feel them, are the joy and the love you will have toward that miraculous little creature, a whole new being with a mind and personality of its own.

And think of it this way - having a child so young means you will still be relatively young when it is grown!  ;-)

I would like to thank everyone who has read my vent and in reading what you had wrote in response it had very much so made me feel alot better.

I just need to get my friends on board with this.

This will be a test of which are your true friends, I expect, especially if you are the first of the group to be having a baby.  That's a big change for friendship too, both in their relationship with you, and in what they think and feel about themselves.  I remember one friend of my husband's who we never saw once I got pregnant, though the circumstances (and ages) were much different from yours.  Give them time, keep in touch, and let them adjust - or not.

It's actually about equal parts of both. Mandatory work training ensures that your manager doesn't need to stand over your shoulder every minute while you're at work, both because it makes sure that you can actually do your job and it makes sure that the company is protected against any backlash should you screw up. So, if you like the idea of being able to work for a few minutes at a time without somebody stalking you around the workplace making sure you don't screw the pooch, it's a good thing.

Your friend sounds like a sociopath. Little or no empathy for other people, even if those other people are so called friends. Sociopaths like to be the center of attention at all times, and they can't stand the idea that those they surround themselves with might pay attention to other people. Sorr to tell you this, but your best friend is probably not your friend at all.

I have a friend like that too and I am still friends with him though not nearly as close as we used to be. I don't think he's come around completely but he's a lot better now then he was like 10 years ago. There's some truth to the adage of 'time heals all wounds'.

This would be a *bad* thing? I'm of the opinion that if stupid people want to try getting killed in stupid ways, we should not deny them either the opportunity or the inspiration.  I'm also of the opinion that it should be well within our rights to watch and laugh our butts off.

In reply to rogar308 (msg # 71):

Well, empathy CAN be learned, but you need to WANT to learn it. It's one of those catch-22 situations. Sociopaths are not born, they are made. Usually by their parental situations as children, and usually when they are very young. Parents who are abusive or neglectful actually deprive children of their natural empathy, and teach them that there are certain solutions to every problem, mostly force and emotional manipulations. Sociopaths are MADE, so then can be UNMADE. They can LEARN to behave differently, but it's a long, painful process of self investigation and evaluation that most people are frankly to chicken to see through.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:37, Tue 23 July 2013.

I worry I might be a sociopath sometimes... Now would a sociopath worry about being a sociopath?

Professors at universities need to do their blasted jobs, or at least get a competent grad student to do it for them.

I'm proofing a friend's dissertation and this guy has been working on it for almost a year now.  It's supposedly gone through multiple reviews by his dissertation committee, yet there are glaring errors not only in format but in the subject presentation.

I've spent almost twenty-four hours fixing this thing with at least another four to go, and I'm afraid I have to tell my friend that one of the survey instruments he wants to use isn't applicable to his study population.  That's something his committee should have picked up on immediately!  Heck, I found out in ten seconds using Google Scholar.

And cero1: No, sociopaths don't give a strawberry tart what other people think about them.  That's part of the reason why they're sociopaths.  :)