Marriage is Hard

Although I have not been married very long, I have had a few people say something along the lines of, "Well, you're married now so everything is perfect and you don't have to worry about anything"! Wrong. So so wrong. Marriage is one of the hardest yet most gratifying things you will ever do. My husband an I are still in the honey moon stage so we haven't experienced any transitions aside from just getting married. Some of the hardest transitions in marriage are when the first child is born, and when they become "empty nesters". These are also the two most common times for divorce.

The birth of the first child can be especially hard. Often times, the new mother has put all of her focus and attention on the new bundle of joy because it is challenging and the husbands take the back burner. It is not because they don't love them, they just have a lot of stress with the new baby. The husbands can often feel under appreciated and unloved. This is also a time when husbands and wives will fin themselves disagreeing a lot more yet studies show that they actually agree a lot more than they have before. The problem is that they are not communicating. The husbands can sometime be a little ornery because they can feel unappreciated and neglected, In turn, the wives feel unappreciated. It is so important that wives keep their husbands involved with the pregnancy. Tell them what it feels like and let them feel the baby kick. make sure you keep them involved when the baby comes and do everything you can to give them the attention they need as well. Your marital happiness will thank you for it. 

The Second major transition is when the children all leave the home and the couple is alone again. Often, couples put so much time and effort in their children, that they forget about their marriage. After the children leave, they don't have anything in common keeping them together. It is so important that couples make time for each other and continue to date often. They need to keep up hobbies and activities together so that they still have things to do together after the children leave.

A lot of things can be trying in a marriage and times of transition can be particularly tough. If you keep good communication and keep your relationship strong and put each other first, you will be able to get through anything.

Awww...

1 year, one month and 4 days ago, I started dating my best friend. I didn't know for a while (although I had a sneaking suspicion) that I would marry him someday. On the first Sunday of the semester in September 2014, I had the idea to make cookies for about 24 apartments. It was an all day project, but I had hopes that it would pay off. My goal was just to make a lot of friends. I would take a batch fresh out of the oven, deliver to the apartment and talk to whomever was there. I did 12 girl apartments and 6 guy apartments. Jameson opened the door of one of them and seemd friendly enough and the rest of his apartment was super nice so my friends and I went to play games there often and we all became good friends. As the semester went on, the people started not coming and eventually it just became Jameson and me. We were both dating around but decided to just date each other. Because who better to date than your best friend?

We went on a lot of dates but some of the ones that stand out to me most are going to a funeral buffet and a Declan O'Rourke concert, going on a Frank Sinatra themed picnic in the school greenhouse, skipping stones on the river and just talking on the river bank, going to the sand dunes and watching the stars, and the time he played the guitar for me in a building on campus. In all honesty, most of the time while we dated, we "hung out", but we just decided to call them what they were - dates. We dated for 10 months before we married and every second of it was so important. During the winter semester 2015, we had some trials. Things just weren't going right and it made it hard for us. we saw each other at their worst and we came to love each other more completely because of it. We also were apart for most of our engagement due to job opportunities. We had to go through several hard circumstances and I am so grateful for them because, although they were hard, we were able to get to know each other more completely than many do before they marry (especially in LDS culture).

Dating is so crucial to preparing yourself for a good healthy marriage. And I really believe it is so important that every couple go through some sort of trial before they agree to marriage because it lets you see another side of a person you may not ordinarily see and you may not like. That what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Because of trials, our relationships can be strengthened.

Brace Yourself

This week I have chosen to talk about same-sex attraction and my stance on gay marriage and relationships. If this is something you are easily offended by, please move on to the next blog. There is no denying that same-sex attraction is real. I know a few people still under the impression the it is 100% a choice for every single gay person out there. This is not true. I do believe there are a few who did chose that lifestyle recently and I do not condone that. But most have become that way because of circumstances and family dynamics. I do not believe that they were born that way but instead, very small or sometimes big things that happen very early in their lives have lead them to become that way. In some situations, these boys have been raped or molested by male family members or other male roles in their lives. This can lead to sexual confusion when it was done at such a young age. Or if a boy does not feel accepted by his same sex through his father being unloving or un-involved, or boys at school not treating him the same. The boy could then long for that acceptance from his own sex instead of girls and if this happens at the wrong age, it can be confused as attraction and then develop into a long term same-sex attraction. Watch this documentary about gay men and their search for help. It has been very enlightening to me and I hope it will be the same for you.

From an LDS prospective, the Church has not denied that same-sex attraction does exist. Being gay is not a sin, acting on it is. There are plenty of people in the church that are openly gay and still have callings, still hold the priesthood, and still have temple recommends. There are many gays that are happily married to women and have children and have been able to be strong against temptation. It is possible to be a strong member of this church and be gay, you just have to control your desires and that is not easy for anyone. It's not easy for straight people to be chaste just as it is not easy for gays. Please visit this site to view the church's full stance on same-sex attraction.

We are Not Defined by Our Ancestor's Choices

In my last post, I discussed how the family helps mold us into who we become. It is important to understand, however, that our family does not totally define who we are to become. For my class this week, we watched a video called Tammy's Story. It is about a woman who lives in a trailer with her sons. She walks to Burger king to work every day and does not believe that it is her fault that she is poor because her dad is poor. Her oldest son Matt, has hopes and dreams of going to college and getting an education to break the cycle. The sad result is that Matt doesn't go to college. He doesn't even finish High School. the family is in the same place they were a few years earlier.Tammy talks about bigger dreams but does not fulfill them.

On the other hand, there are people like Dr. Ben Carson who was also born into a single mother home in poverty. The mother was also uneducated. The difference is that the mom had hopes for her sons. Although she was illiterate, she made her boys read a book every week and write a paper on it to give to her. Flash forward 50 or so years and Dr. Carson is one of the most accomplished neurosurgeons in the world. He has retired from John's Hopkins and is now running for president of the United states.

Although it is not easy to break the cycle, it is absolutely possible. If you have the determination and really work for it, you can get yourself out of any situation and full fill your dreams and make a better future for your posterity. 

Families: A System

Families are the most important social system we will ever belong to. They almost completely make us who we become. Whether you like it our not, your family has helped make you who you are and subsequently, you will find that you have the similar habits and values. From the time we are born till we are 18(usually) our family is who we spend the most amount of time with. We may spend some of the time at school or day cares, but at the end of the day, you go back to your family. Children learn a lot from observation. I remember when I was little, I thought all moms or female adults would walk or bend over with their hand resting on their lower back. So as a little girl pretending to be an adult, I would walk around the house with my hand resting on the small of my back, pretending to do something important. This is not actually a thing all adults do, just my mom. Another example of how we are molded by our families would be our political views. My parents and all my older siblings and I are part of the same party. because we all have the same values.

Even though, a lot of who we are stems from our family, we also have our individuality. For example, I am an animal lover. As a child I was obsessed with them and had a different power point every week on why we should have a dog. I never got one. I was the only one in my family who was passionate about animals. so where did that come from? It wasn't my family that's for sure. I don't believe school instilled a love of animals in me so where did that come from? Or my love of swimming? I believe that comes from our own personality that we develop that is uniquely us. It's what makes us different. If everyone was an exact replica of the family, there would not be as much diversity in the world.

I love my family and I am so glad that I have become who I am today because of them. Although no family is perfect and there are certainly qualities I have from my family which I am not grateful for, the good ones make up for it. And that's the beautiful thing about individuality, you can change some aspects of who you are.