Thursday, March 30, 2017

Divorce

This week we talked a lot about divorce. America has the highest divorce rate in the world. This would seem shocking to people and some people might think that this could be because couples might not have proper marriage skills here in the US. That's what I thought. But, Brother Williams, my teacher in class, said that "the reason we have the most divorces is because we also have the most marriages." that made sense to me.
People should do their best to not get divorced. If a couple have children involved and want to get a divorce they should seek help from counselors and do everything they can to stay a family. But if being divorced actually helps the children, then they should get divorced. I was reading that nowadays many reasons for divorce consist of "we don't get along anymore, he has changed, I'm bored, etc" Those are very soft reasons to get a divorce and can be helped very easily. Hard reasons to get divorced would be anything that consists of the 3 A's. Adultery, Addiction, and Abuse. If any of those 3 A's is involved in a marriage, the divorce is justified.
After a marriage has been through many years together, it is easier to gain more loyalty to each other within the marriage. The most vulnerable time within a marriage is within the first 2 years of being married. There is a lot of adjustment within that time and any conflicts or pressure can cause a lot of stress for a newly wed couple. People have to understand that when they get married that things take time to get used to. Believe that if challenges come up within a marriage to not think about getting a divorce but to work through the problems together.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Fathers and Finances

It is common to think that the father provides for the family financially and the mother takes care of the children. In the discussion that I had in class this week and the readings, I learned that it is very important to have these roles be played in the family. From the readings, it showed that a mother who forgoes education to stay home with the kids is just as important than a woman who goes on to get an education. Because the kids that she raise are the future generation and can help generations to come. I know that in my family, my mother stayed home with us for most of our lives. We were brought up very well. But I think we could have been raised better if my mom had continued to stay home with the family rather then go out and get an education. I think it was a sacrifice, my mom has a great education and job that really helps the family now. She now is a counselor/therapist and really is able to help with any personal problems that I may have. My father has always been such a hard worker and has provided much of the family with the financial income. He has been a great example to me on how to be a great father.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Stress in the Family

Something that was taught this week in class that I seemed to learn really well was the teacher taught about how stress on an individual affects everyone in the family. He had a few volunteers in the class go up and hold hands in a circle. The teacher would then pull on one of the volunteers and say stuff like "work was hard today.... you don't have enough money to pay the bills....etc." and then he would go and pull on someone else in the circle and say stuff like "that girl at school is such a bully.... you failed that class.... etc" all the while pulling on that person in the circle. It showed that when one person is going under a lot of stress in the family, everyone else can feel stress too.

I feel like in my family we seem to handle stress very well. Or we just don't have many things to be stressed about. We don't do drugs, No one has any significant diseases, And I think we do pretty well financially as well which helps not have too much stress. A lot of times it's good to talk about the stress you are having with members of your family. sometimes they can help or they might be able to understand some of the difficulties you are going through.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Sexual Intimacy and Family Life

In class, I learned a lot of stuff. It was great. I honestly have the best major in the world. We covered a lot of info on sexual intimacy. Most of the time I feel like the stuff we cover about this subject or the stuff we hear about this subject doesn't apply to much to LDS people. There were plenty of statistics wich described the sexual involvement of college kids and teenagers. It was very surprising to hear about how many people would have sexual relations outside of marriage. That definitely is not the case here in the LDS community. I guarantee it is a lot less. I would assume LDS sexual relations are different than people that are not LDS.I feel like in marriage it would be hard to live with someone of the opposite gender. We discussed how males and females are extremely different in so many ways. My mom is a therapist and she told me of this LDS couple that got married. When they first got married, the wife loved to be intimate with her spouse. But after the first month of marriage, she didn't really want to be intimate anymore. This really made the husband stressed and frustrated. Part of it was the LDS upbringing, but most of it was that the wife was abused in her life and didn't feel comfortable being intimate. It sounds like there has to be a lot of talk and open discussion within a marriage and a couple regarding intimacy. Parents should be able to teach their children effective sex education. Children should be able to talk to their parents about sex and not get their information from unreliable sources like the internet or friends their age.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Transitions into marriage

In class this week we discussed transitioning into marriage. Some of the major things that a couple goes through in adjusting to marriage boundaries. I would think that a difficult part would be to leave your friends behind after you get married. I wouldn't want my wife to continue to talk to boys she knew before our marriage. If she did though, She would have to run by anything that she would think is questionable to communicate to someone of the opposite sex. It is better in my mind, to have a marriage have appropriate tight boundaries rather than lenient loose boundaries. Other aspects of a marriage transition that might be hard would be having to deal with the in-laws. You don't want to spend too much time with them and you don't want to not spend not enough time with them. It's important to find a balance. Many people think that its ok to talk to your family about personal trial or problems you might be going through. So the spouse might tell their mom or dad about their husband's drinking habit or how bad of a day at work their husband had. When the husband wouldn't want other people to know about that stuff about his life even if it is family members that would know.
Before a couple gets married, they should have some serious sit-down meetings about what is ok and what is not ok when they get married. That way there won't be any surprises when they get married and there would be fewer problems.

Friday, January 20, 2017

In my Family Relations class, we learned about family rules and boundaries. The rules in my own family consist of reading scriptures, doing chores, feeding the animals. Those are some common rules families seem to have. Rules and boundaries help a family remain more stable. I know that families that let their kids be free and do what they want tend to be more chaotic. Children in a home love the sense of security and boundaries. there is another set of boundaries that is related more to personal space. Between a couple, there could be walls that separate each other from coming closer together. We did a scenario where a man, his wife, and their son went to counseling. Their son had a problem with asthma and it brought a lot of stress into the family and into the little boy's life. The therapist did his best to bring down the boundaries/walls that the family had. He had them be open with their feelings for one another, and he made them feel comfortable. One particular technique that he had the family do was to comfort each other physically during their son's asthma attack. It brought them closer together and helped their son during his asthma attack. I thought the scenario was super fun and interesting! If there are any conflicts within a relationship, talk about it and be open with each other. IT can really help to bring down boundaries/walls.

none of us marry perfection we marry potential, marry potential, robert d. hales quotes, lds quotes, marriage quotes, lds quotes on marriage, lds apostle quotes, lds apostle quotes on marriage

There are many myths related to marriage and family relations. I've always liked this quote in regards to marriage. I feel a lot of people expect the person they marry to be perfect. No one is perfect. It's always better to look at the good in someone and to overlook mistakes they make. No one is "the best" or "your soulmate". Simply look at the potential of the person and believe that it will all work out.

Within family relations, people might also think that their relationships with their children, spouses, and siblings should be perfect. That is not true. I know that my own family is pretty great. But we are not perfect. We have to learn to get along and do the best we can with what we've got.