Adjusting to Marriage!

As you can tell by the heading we talked about the adjustments we have to make when we get married. Since I'm newly married I have defiantly seen how many adjustments you really do have to make. Don't get me wrong marriage is great! I love my husband dearly and I'm so grateful I'm married, but it is an adjustment. Lets look at the first month of marriage. Adjustments: sharing a bed, food, priorities, temperature in the home, chores-household, habits, schedule, fiances, and one that is huge is making decisions. Its not only you now that you need to think about when making decisions. When you make a decision it affects two people. One thing I found super important about making decisions is communication. To be honest, when I first got married, I was horrible at communicating! It wasn't that I didn't want to talk. Some things I didn't want to make a decision because I didn't want to make the wrong one so I said I didn't care or it doesn't matter. But it reality, it does! I felt like everything will figure it on its own. This does not work! I realized as I communicate with my husband we made decisions together. Our relationship became stronger. We also talked about adjustments within the first year. Some of them were: traditions, medical issues, and extended family. We all want to start traditions with our own families. What are they going to be? Are you going to do things that your family does or are you going to do some things his family does? Where are you going to go for holidays? These are questions I feel might come up as your starting your family. It's just something you can be open and honest about with your husband. It's important for you to talk to your spouse before hand about traditions. As you do this when holidays come up you know what traditions you are going to do and there will be less contention in the home. I think one of the biggest adjustments we talked about is when you decide to have a baby.

Something I thought was interesting was in the average American marriage, marital satisfaction, is high until shortly after the birth of the first child, goes down significantly after the birth of each child, then levels out before improving as the children leave home. I don't believe it's because they aren't excited about the baby. My teacher gave us some reasons this could be happening. There is a lot of stress when it comes to having a baby, the work load goes up for both parents, and guys don't believe that their wives agree with them as they did before, even though that is usually not true. We we as women need to make sure we involve our husbands during pregnancy and after. How do we do that? These are some of my thoughts on it: I learned how important it is to engage your husband. It is important for them to feel involved. I think if they don't feel involved there could definitely be problems. One thing women can do is to make sure their husbands are at each doctor’s appointment. Make sure to let your husband feel the kicking of the baby. Obviously, moms can feel that all the time. If the dad gets to feel it he will feel already a connection with the baby. When the baby is born, let the husband take care of him/her. I know moms are super protective, but as the dad changes the diaper, gives the baby a bath, or holds the baby the dad can feel more wanted. During pregnancy and after having the baby moms should be open with the dad. Make sure you talk to him. Let him know how the baby was that day. While you are pregnant tell him what’s going on. Tell your husband how you feel. The baby can take a lot of your time, but your husband needs to know what’s going on. Lastly, go on dates! I think a lot of couples forget about this. I bet it’s scary at first to leave the baby with your mom or a good friend, but it will be good for the relationship. The marriage can grow and become stronger as they were before the baby came.

LOVE

What does love mean to you? My teacher asked us all this question. To be honest, I didn't even know how to explain what love meant. Obviously, I am completely in love with my husband. What does that mean to be in love with him?  To my surprise there are many different types of love.There are 4 different types. The first is storge, it is love between a parent and child. It is an unconditional love. Second is pillia, this is a friend love, but it can be intimate and close. Next is eros, this is romantic love. Eros love is longing to be in that person's presence. The last kind of love is agape. Agape love basically means to have charity. I think all these types of love are important. Of course I want to have a relationship that has pillia, eros, and agape. I want my relationship with my husband to be intimate, romantic, to be best friends, and to have charity for one another. And when the time comes to have a baby I definitely want to have storge love. How do you find love? It all starts out with dating. A date is when it is planned, paired off and paid for. Usually its the guy that does those things, but sometimes it's the girl. Remember the Family Proclamation I talked about last week? So in there it talks about three things men need to do in their marriage. They are to: provide, protect, and preside. These three go hand in hand with the first three I mentioned about dating. Dating prepares us to get married. Obviously. I just thought this was so neat what my teacher said. Planned=Preside- planning for a date is important, just has a husband presides they help the family plan for future. Paired off=Protect- When you pair off in a date you are telling that person you are going to watch over them and make sure nothing bad happens to them. When you get married you are basically doing the same thing. The man is there to protect the girl. Paid for=Provide- If the man or women pay for a date it shows they want to take care of that person, preparing them to one day to take care of a family. I just loved how the first 3 P's went with the last three P's. Even when you get married you should never stop dating! Don't get me wrong I love just hanging out with my husband at our apartment, but I love date night! We go a date at least once a week! It makes me love my husband more and more. So I still have the question, what is love? I think it might be different for everyone. Love for me is someone I trust with my heart. It's someone who is my best friend. Someone I want to be with constantly. I want the best for that person. Someone I'm emotionally attached to. When I love someone I have feelings I can't even describe. Love is something I can never truly explain in words. 

"We badly need to raise our boys more like our girls."- Gloria Steinem

Do you agree with this above statement? This week in my Family Relations class we talked about gender. To be honest, I don't agree with the statement. Maybe its because I come from a very traditional family. I also don't agree because of my beliefs. Heavenly Father has has made man and women. He wanted each gender to have specific traits. We are either a man or a women. We should be proud of the gender we are. There are many people who people there are no differences between the genders. For class we had to read different articles and in all the studies we read about the results always came back and said, yes women and men are different. Thats how God wanted it. Women are nurturing, expressive, and sensitive. Men are competitive, protectors, and are there to provide for their family. I believe together we have it all. We balance each other out. Men and women need each other. President Gordon B Hinckley, the 15 prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints said, "In His grand design, when God first created man, He created duality of the sexes. The ennobling expression of that duality is found in marriage. One individual is complementary to the other. As Paul stated, 'Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord' (1 Corinthians 11:11). There is no other arrangement that meets the divine purposes of the Almighty. Man and woman are His creations. Their duality is His design. Their complementary relationships and functions are fundamental to His purposes. One is incomplete without the other." Being recently married, I have realized my husband is just plain and simple better at certain things. It doesn't mean that I'm weaker. There are just some things he is just naturally better at. The things he is better at helps strengthen my weaknesses. I think each of us just needs to be grateful for the gender they are. Be the best man and women you can be! Thats what Heavenly Father wants us to do. I think if people have more pride in the gender they are and what each of us has to offer we wouldn't feel like one gender is better than the other. Women need men, and men need women!                                                             

I challenge anyone who reads this post to look up and read, The Family, A Proclamation to the World

What is your FAMILY CULTURE?

In class this week we talked about family culture. What is culture? Culture is beliefs and values of a certain group of people. We all come from a different culture. Even families have different cultures. For instance, my extended family is very close. We are all in each others business and know everything about everyone. For every holiday we get together, I mean every holiday. Which is great! I love it! But it's not the same for everybody. For example, my husband never lived that close to extended family. He didn't know his cousins, didn't have parties every holiday,and not everyone was in his immediate family business. There is nothing wrong with the way he grew up! There is nothing wrong with the way I grew up! It's just different cultures. Family culture is what family traditions you have. 

Especially now being married I like to think what will our family traditions be? What are some traditions I want to pass on to my family? I'm grateful for the traditions my family have. Each Thanksgiving we all get together and have a huge dinner! Everyone is there! My aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are all there from my mom's side. After we eat, we all play Santa bingo! I know what you're thinking, Santa bingo on Thanksgiving? To be honest, I don't really know why we started doing that but I've played Santa bingo since I was little. Everyone loves it! We do it every single year. I didn't realize how many traditions my family has that I would love to pass on to my family! 

During the holidays think about what traditions you have. What is your family culture? What are the things you want to continue doing with your future family?

FAMILY THEORIES!

Have you wondered why there are disagreements with family members, roommates, or between our spouse that we love so much? This week in class we talked about three different theories that could explain some of the disagreements we have with the people we love. The first one is the CONFLICT THEORY. Its pretty easy to understand. When there are two more individuals there will be conflict. Simple as that. I loved some things my professor said. "Conflict is not always fighting, there are just differences. Conflicts aren't a bad thing." We all have different opinions. Thats just how it is. I know next time my husband and I are maybe not agreeing on something I need to remember its just because he has different interest, needs, and goals. I just need to try my best to understand them. Another theory is the EXCHANGE THEORY. Who has ever expected a roommate to wash dishes the next day because you just did them the day before? I know I have! And when they don't do the dishes we may feel a little upset. Exchange theory is if we do something for someone we expect them to do something for us. We have all heard the expression, "You owe me one."In the book we read for class it says, "If a relationship consistently costs us more than it rewards us, we are likely to avoid the person or break the relationship." The last theory we talked about is SYMBOLIC THEORY. A woman could be jealous of her boyfriend because she believes she is flirting with our woman. When in reality, she may be completely faithful. In symbolic theory there are misinterpretations. We all react differently in different situations. We just need to understand how are loved ones act in during these situations. We all have family members, close friends, or a spouse we may disagree with, but next time think of why you really are disagreeing. Are you not understanding their needs? Are you misinterpreting something? Do you think they aren't doing their part in the relationship? I bet if we take a step back and think of these theories there won't be as many disagreements in our relationships!