Marriage and Relationships

There are four steps toward marriage:

1. Dating

2. Courtship (dating exclusively) - Do we fit in a way that we are ready for marriage?

3. Engagement

4. Marriage

We need to make distinct steps for a healthy marriage instead of sliding through the steps.  While dating we should have fun and date lots of people. While dating we should take into account R.A.M. (Relationship attachment model).  We must know someone to trust them.  Trust them to rely on them.  Rely on them to commit to them.  And lastly commit to them to touch them.  Doing these steps will help us have and commit to a healthy relationship.  

Understanding Same-sex Attraction

In class we have been discussing same-sex attraction.  After watching videos and reading articles on same-sex attraction it has opened up my understanding a little bit more. Boys may have a little more interest in feminine things.  They grow up thinking they are gay because they might have been called a ‘fag’ or ‘sissy’ and people begin to judge them.  Their parents take their child’s good qualities and throw them out of proportion to make them look terrible.  These boys just want to feel like they belong and want to hang out with other boys.  Their body responds positive to a guys touch and they start to think they have been attracted to boys all along.  They may also have been molested and their body responds positively to that and they thoughts become confused.  This can be a possibility of why someone will turn to same-sex attraction as an answer. 

If we take our children’s qualities and turn them into positive attributes it can help to avoid confusion in the future for our children.  We need to love our children and help them understand these positive responses our body makes are healthy, but not to get them confused with wrong types of intimacy.      

Are all cultures equally valid?

In class we have been discussing whether we agree if each and every culture is valid.  We also had to write a post and come to class prepared to discuss.  In my post I said that each culture is different from another.  I still see this as true, but my view has changed a little.  Cultures have more similarities than we think; we may just show them in different ways.  For example, when traveling to Samoa I noticed how different things were from the U.S.  Now thinking about it, we are more similar than different.  We show love just like they do.  We may show it in a different way, but there still is the emotion of love.  By showing this emotion in a different way is what makes cultures so unique.  We are blindsided by how different we think it is, but we are forgetting to think how similar each culture is.   

“…the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

-The Family: A proclamation to the world.

Families are someone we may turn to at the end of the day that will take us in when no one else will.  Families give us different emotions of love, hurt, comfort, well-being, and a sense of satisfaction.  There are boundaries with family members that are clear, rigid, poor, or even diffused.  These boundaries help us to distinguish where we stand with another person.  Once we understand these boundaries we may can help better our relationships with family member and even fix broken relationships. 

Life Lessons

Let us continue, brethren and sisters, to work in the name of the Lord our God; gathering wisdom and intelligence day by day, that every circumstance which transpires may minister to our good and increase our faith and intelligence
-President Lorenzo Snow

This quote reminded me of the Learning Model we had to talk about for class.  Knowledge is something that I am very grateful that I can obtain each and every day through going to school, church, or just life in general.  I have learned lots through my parents.  They have been great examples in my life and have taught me all of lives little lessons.  I am grateful to have them in my life and look forward to the lessons I will keep learning from them.

Just started my blog for Family Relations class!  Here I will talk about what I am learning in the class and apply it to my daily life.