Chiggles wrote:.....Wow, where to begin with all this? Manowar821 - you're obviously in a very difficult position at the moment and for that you have my sincerest sympathy as I'm sure nobody would envy your set of circumstances. I know it must be hard for you to understand why her parents are the way they are, but the sad reality is that there's probably more families out there that have screwed up conflictive relations compared to those that don't. To be honest, given the suggestions made by the community so far, you're going to end up making big sacrifices that could still hurt you in the long run, even with student loans, which I'll explain a bit later. But let me first just try to bring this thread back on track for everyone.
This started out to be a thread from Manowar821 putting his sorrow out in the open asking for advice on "please help me, what should I do?", and somehow it developed into a thread about "don't let your woman be a stripper" hate-thread of some sort. What the hell, people? How is that solving his problem??? Let's think a little bit outside the box a second and realize that his problem is NOT that his woman is considering working as a stripper, but that it's BECAUSE her parents are disrespecting her and it seems like they keep putting her in the middle of their arguments that she clearly doesn't want to be a part of.
That said, I'd like to give credit to jschrauwen, tw1st3d_cl0wn (Michelle, is it?), Nd4SpdSe, johnnyb, and especially to Chronicle-Rod for all hitting it on the nail. It's good to see there are some people on the board that get the point of the situation and are trying to help. What can be summed up from this, Manowar821, is that the first thing she needs to do is to try to chill out from that last argument and think with a cool head - help her realize that the best thing for her to do would be to make amends with her parents somehow. Johnnyb hit it on the nail when he suggested that she should explicitly borrow money from both her parents and I would take it one step further as to say she should also make it clearly aware to both her parents that she's borrowing an equal amount from each parent as well. The easiest way to fix this without hurting your feelings or hers would be to try to convince her that she and her parents should go as far as to consider going into family couneselling and have someone in a neutral position to mediate all the troubles that family has.
If family counselling isn't going to help or it's just that she or her parents are unwilling to seek counselling, than you'll be put into the next situation which is that is that you need to have a heart to heart with your girl and let her know that if she's going to make this decision to strip, that it's not for the WRONG reason. Getting back at her parents by taking this course of action is not going to make relations any better between herself and her parents - it's just gonna stir up more s--- between them. Stripping for this reason wouldn't have as much to do with the money as much as it's probably more out of anger and resentment against her parents as Michelle said.
Taking it from there, if she's sure it's for a financial reason and not mostly out of revenge, then that's where your guys' relationship will be put to the test and you have to set limits and make even harder decisions. Let her know and make absolutely sure she understands how srtongly opposed you feel about it, but as Jschrauwen said, don't use it as leverage against her. If you really do love your woman as much you claim, it would be wrong for you to threaten a break-up of some sort otherwise. "If she strips, she will be dead to me"..... that sir, is a strong statement in my opinion and should be spoken very carefully..... I don't think you mean it like that..... the hurt you may feel if that's how things end up will be hard to deal with, and the thought of that pain is probably what makes you think she might be dead to you, but if you love her as much as you say you do, you'll find a way to deal with it and still support her no matter what because you really DO love her that much. At the same time, I'd like to remind you that even if letting her know how you're opposed to it and that she still chooses to strip, you have to remember that she really would have made that decision with your feelings in mind still and that it was NOT out of any disrespect to you, nor would it be a selfish decision either. She is still her own individual, and you need to give her the respect she deserves and to let her make her own decisions for herself. You do not OWN her, she's still her own person - to act any other way against that would be abusive and controlling, that is not the stuff love is made of. As hard as it could be to deal with it, if you have the patience, your love for each other will help you cope with it over time, depending on just how strong your love for each other really is.
So what do you guys do if she decides not to strip but still needs money? If you both make the mutual agreement and decide that you will be the one to take on the finanicial hurdle, then your fastest way to big money outside of winning the lottery or taking a big risk by gambling on Texas Holdem' or something, would be heavy labour like construction or out in the oilfields as some sort of pipefitter/labourer, etc, or perhaps working for city transit. The catch with this though, is that depending on where you live and where work is going to be, a lot of these jobs tend to put you in a position where you're either going to be in a long-distance relationship or you're gonna be working long, late and opposite hours from each other. Either way, in the end, you risk growing distant from each other due to the lack of time spent together and it could end up weakening your relationship. Once again, another test of your love's strength.
Now, this brings me to student loans. Everyone else has said loans are the solution and could be an easy way out of your situation too. But the sad reality is that none of the banks, schools, or other institutions will tell you at the time how this will affect you in the long term, and they wouldn't provide that info for you freely unless you explicitly ask for it cuz they still want your business anyway. Banks still want to loan you money to make interest on you, and schools still want you to attend so that they can get your money too, that's business. What happens in the long term, and this is from what I've seen in my own personal experience, is that student loans set you back in life and keep you from being where you want to be at certain points in your life. If you ever set goals for yourself and say that you want to have a house by this age, or raise a family starting this time, etc. Student loans tend to be very large amounts and many times, the catch of paying them back when you're done with school will keep you from acheiving those goals later on in life cuz you're gonna be constantly strapped with debt. My own life is a perfect example of this and maybe it will help you better understand what I mean.
I went to a post-secondary school for about 2.5 years, then took what I intended to be a short term break cuz I made the choice to help my woman put herself through school and finish her graduate studies program. 6 years later, I still haven't gone back to school just yet cuz my wife's program took her longer than expected, but regardless, working where I do now and with her just completing her program this year and officially earning her title as a professor for developmental psychology, together we have a combined income of around $87000 or so (before taxes). Which isn't too bad between a couple, right. We both have great credit history and would love to move out of current tiny little 1-bed apartment and get a house of our own and start raising a family and such, but between the 2 of us, we have over $50000 in debt for student loans. What does that mean? It means that as much money as we make, by the time we pay off our household bills, food, etc, the student loan payments keep us from really saving up for anything. We could get approved for a mortgage possibly if it wasn't for the fact that we have so much debt. We both have good incomes and good credit histories, but the banks say we owe too much and that we currently would put ourselves at financial risk by getting another big loan for a house. I had planned to have a house by this time and to start building the financial stability with a career to afford raising a family within the next 4 years. I can't do that in time cuz I still need to get back to school, and somehow we still need to get our loans paid off in time before that. Why do I set a certain age for something to be done at, you ask? Cuz I don't want to be 65 and JUST having a kid that's starting his own university program and be dead before my grandkids are old enough to remember what I look like. At the rate of slow down that I have to deal with, I'm about 5 years behind where I want to be. It's not just a house and family thing too. I mean, if it weren't for loan payments, I might have been able to afford another vehicle as a winter beater so that I didn't have to put my poor MX3 through the hardships of winter driving, but I can't. My wife and I would have a bigger place to put all the junk we've accumulated over the last few years instead of stuffing it all into one tiny place and make our apartment look like a scrap yard (nearly every bit of wall space is lined with a shelf of something or stack of another), but once again, we can't afford it despite what we make. I could afford to maintain my car better and even get better upgrades for it, but I can't.
Sure, some of these are frivilous and unnecessary luxuries, but my point is that had it not been for student loans, my wife and I could have saved up so much more money so much more sooner (it's not like our incomes are small) and we could have started our family planning on time, but all of that extra money we could have saved is being allocated to student loan payments just so we can "catch-up" with our long-term itinerary for life that's slipping away from us. If I had known 8 years ago that student loan payments would cripple me like this, I would have worked full-time for a year or 2 instead to start off with rather than jumping right into university after high school like I did. But, I was young and innonent - how was I suppose to know this would bite me in the a-- almost 10 years later? And I'm not the only person I know in this predicament, others I've known since high school are going through similar snags as well. To those of you that have the luxury of living at home and getting freebies from your parents til you're done with college, consider yourselves the luckiest and most fortunate ones out there cuz you'll be right on track to where you want to be.
So yeah, Manowar821, if your woman can't find a way to get along with her parents, she's either gonna strip, or you work long-hours/long-distance, or you can take the easy-early-out with student loans and risk dealing with the financial burden later on. It's sad, but true. Your best interest is to still somehow get your woman and her parents to make amends. Good luck!!
That aside, let me take a moment to rant and defend the strippers. I'm not saying one way or another that she SHOULD strip, but there is nothing degrading about being a stripper. It's just the stereotyping of the lifestyle that gives them a bad rap. "Oh you strip, you must be a coke whore". Right, so noooobody else but strippers do coke?
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
To those of you so strongly opposed against strippers, what is it that you have against them and have you ever gotten to know one? There ARE strippers that don't do drugs and are just really there to pay for school or whatever. Seriously, choosing to be a stripper doesn't mean she chooses to do drugs. The fact that they choose to do drugs is why they do drugs - stripping has nothing to do with it. Yes, I realize that SOME strip clubs have drug users, but where do any of you see this being promoted? Did you walk into a strip club yourself and see a sign that read "Drug-use Approved Establishment, please sterilize your needles before use?" No you don't. The fact is that seedy people come around to some strip clubs, but MOST people there aren't seedy drug users/pushers and not EVERY club has people like that walking in; I see the same seedy people just walking down a street or hanging out at a pool hall or something like that. I shoot pool as a hobby and have played in the local city leagues for the last 3 years - does that make me a seedy drug user too just cuz those individuals happen to be in the same establisment that I was in? "Oh no, they're contagious run away!!" "Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated"
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
Being a stripper doesn't ruin a girl's life - if the girl's strength of character is strong enough to resist peer pressure or just plain simply has a smart head on her shoulders to choose not to get involved with drugs in the first place, she'll be ok.
I really don't get how some people can be so close-minded as to think stripping is degrading. If the girl chooses this path in life of her own free will and for the right reason, and she's sexy and she knows it, then why not show it off? What's so demoralizing about it that makes you think the experience will "haunt" her the rest of her life? I've known 2 or 3 girls who used stripping to pay for school as well, and they all started out as pretty shy, quiet individuals, but needed the money and gave it a try. At first it was awkward, but as they did it more often, with each time they got on stage, the more and more they became confident with themselves... not just about being on stage but in terms of their lives in general. Having guys cheer and stare at them made them feel powerful. They became more outgoing and energetic with things in life like dealing with the stress of exams, relationships, family issues and have moved on to bigger things. One was my cousin's girlfriend at the time who put herself through school, graduated with a business degree and now works for a successful marketing company. Another that I knew carried on stripping for a few more years (also a business graduate) and used the extra money she earned after putting herself through school to use it as capital to start her own nightclub, and the charisma and confidence she had developed from her experience as a stripper has helped her land a good deal of business contacts for sponsors and other advertising campaigns for her business. Neither of them ever got involved with the darker side of the business cuz they were better than that, nor did they ever get "involved" with customers (to keep things professional), and neither of them ever regret how they've grown because how the experience shaped them.
I'm with Chronicle-Rod on this one. Dude, you're right - it really is interesting how some people are trained to forgive and to compromise, and yet still be so much more judgemental than anyone else. Manowar821, if you indeed feel that you have such "higher" morals that you need to stand by and answer to, than that is a choice that both you and your woman will have to learn to compromise and accept, whether that means the 2 of you remain together or not even if she strips. Once again, this will put your love to the test. Doesn't it seem odd that what one person may have to do for love conflicts with what you've been habituated to believe?? This has always been a beef of mine. Not with Christians, but with the way the religion, despite all it's good intentions, teaches so-called "better" values that gives those of you a superiority complex that makes you so close-minded, arrogant, and judgemental. Just cuz some people don't share your values, it doesn't make yours better or yourself a better person. Whatever happened to just plain common sense and respect for your fellow man?? Robbing a bank is much more worse than stripping cuz theft is a crime and it's just plain wrong to take what doesn't belong to you. Stripping by one's own freewill choice is not a theft of someone else's property, nor is it an act of violence that causes bodily harm or death, nor is it a slander at anyone, nor is it a lie. If she's comfortable with her body, and she's hot and is aware that she's hot, and wants to show it off, so what? She's not injuring herself or anyone else in the process, nor is she taking anything that doesn't belong to her. Heck, there's not much more truthful than nudity, hence the term naked truth.
Do you realize in this day and age just how much business is generated by our sexuality? Be it in advertising, on tv, in movies, in magazines, on the web, etc., more than 80% of economic revenue as a whole is gained through sex appeal, medical aids, strip clubs, sex toys, porn, etc. Humans are still mammals - driven by sexual instinct - it's natural and normal. So why should stripping be so looked down upon when we're drawn to everything else sexual so naturally?? There's no need to hide from instinctive behaviour, so why not just embrace it and keep it real??