Family Relations Week 12

As we have been talking about divorce and blended families this week I have been thinking about my own family. I always consider my family nucluer family, but in fact I do have a half sister. I  believe I never think about our family as a blended one because my sister's dad died around the time I was born. He was never part of our lives and my sister was raised by my father. We never had to deal with custody battles or different parenting choices or fighting between previous spouses. From what I have learned this week creating a new and blended family can be extremely difficult. I am not grateful for someone to pass away so young, especially when they had children, but I am so grateful that somehow we avoided many challenges in our family. I hope this does not sound obnoxious at all or callous. 

Just a Note

Gay or lesbian is what they do or how they act, not who they are.

Family Relations Week 9

This week when we talked about communication, we talked about encoding. It is interesting to think that what we say isn't always as clear as we thing it is. We all have different ways of saying the same thing. It has been enlightening to pay attention to what I am saying and how I say it. I have noticed that if someone explains something back to me, they interpret it differently than I intended. It makes things more difficult, so how can we make things less confusing and interpret them correctly?

Also, I tried some advice that was given in a power point this week. The professor said when someone is telling you about something in your life, you repeat what they said back to them. It seems counter intuitive, but they think that you have solved their problem even though you haven't even given your opinion. I tried this with a roommate and her boy problems. Just like the professor said, she was satisfied with our conversation and felt better about a difficult situation. Sometimes we should stop trying to solve problems, but just listen. 

Family Relations Week 8

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to listen to a CES devotional address given by President David A Bednar.  The main thing he said multiple times was, "It is better to not shrink than survive." Often when there is a crisis in the family, we think, "I just have to get through this." How much better would life be if we identified a crisis and became determined to see it as an opportunity. If we decide to just survive a crisis, we don't learn as much and we may even harbor bitter feelings about it. If we choose to change our attitudes, we can look back and see how much we learned and how we grew. I often look back on different times of crisis in my life and I can't help but thank my Heavenly Father for the things I learned, the ways I bonded and the new people I met. 

I have been thinking about periods of crisis, but I don't know if there is a time where there is no crisis in our lives. Some trials make seem bigger than other and require us to work harder, but I feel we always have some crisis to deal with. As we talked about in class, as we identify our thoughts, test if they are true and then change false thinking, we can be happier in "not shrinking." As always, this process is not natural, it is divine. If we deal with crisis in a divine way, we can only get divine results. 

Family Relations Week 7

We talked about sexual intimacy this week. For someone unmarried, it has been awkward, uncomfortable, enlightening, enriching and a little terrifying. But most of all I have gained an understand and respect for the sanctity of marriage and intimacy. I have always though about intimacy as a physical desire, but that is only part of it. If only we were taught and in turn taught our children that intimacy is sacred and brings people closer together not only physically, but emotionally and most importantly spiritually. Saving yourself to experience the sacred act of intimacy with one person for eternity is so essential. You can't give yourself so completely to multiple people. As Brother Williams said, it hurts your spirit. Intimacy draws people together and links them so infinitely that it completes a marriage. I have come to know and understand more fully recently that it is not something that should be taken lightly, but it is something we should hold in the highest regard. After all, its divine.

Family Relations Week 6

I am not married. Therefore I don't know what I am talking about. Well I guess that isn't true, we all learn from observation. My point is, I don't have first hand experience, so here is what I gleaned about dealing with the challenges of early marriage. We talked a lot about challenges you may face at the beginning of marriage. Some of these are finances, coming together with preconceived ideas, living with the opposite sex and personal habits. These aren't all the problems that could arise, and they don't always come up. Anyway, too much explaining! Basically the thing that is a root to most of those problems is selfishness. And the key to solving many problems is selflessness. We want to be selfish, its all about me. But wanting what's best for the other person is what will make you free. (Rhyming.. got Dr. Suess on the brain.) When you listen to and try to understand what your spouse is going through, you will have a happier marriage. But not only that, miscommunications can be a big problem. So tell your spouse what you are feeling and wishing and wanting. All of this is not easy, its extremely difficult and against our human nature. Like Brother Williams always say, "Marriage is not natural, it is divine."

So how do you deal with your challenges in marriage? Do you think things would have been easier if you had talked about a lot of these things before marriage?

Family Relations Week 5

Propinquity. Propinquity is the word of the day. First its fun to say and second I have found it to be an interesting topic. We have been discussing dating and marriage this week and thus discussing why people "choose" one another. The idea of propinquity basically means we date who we live near. Why is that? I mean there is the obvious reason of convenience. But also we opposite do not attract, similarities attract. We get along better with people who have the same socioeconomic background as we do, have the same ideas, culture and social class as you do. Though it may seem obvious, differences breed conflict. 

So there you have it, propinquity. It really just needed to be said again. :) What do you think? Do opposites attract? Are we more likely to find happiness in a relationship with someone who is very similar to us?