Wow this week was full of a lot of information during our two class periods, but such crucial information that I would recommend continuing to read more about why your relationship with your spouse is so important to continually build. So what exactly is the biggest connecting units in a marriage? You got it bud, sexual intimacy. Did you know that more people who have sex with multiple people tend to feel more empty in their life? Crazy to think about, right? But not only that, but that leads to thinking about how many college students you know, casually hooking up with many people, do you think they are really happy? I mean if the average junior in college gets one date a year and over four hook ups, it makes you think if they are really happy. That one really hit home for me because I have many friends that feel that exact way, empty. I am not singling out if you have sex with multiple people that you will feel this way, but studies show that that is a consistent pattern. After all we all want that person that just gets us and commits to a relationship. So why is sexual intimacy so important to use in a sacred setting and not like how the world thinks, like it is nothing and can just be thrown around? Let’s be real here, everyone wants to feel loved, especially sexually. But if there is anything I have learned this week is that it is BEST when you are married, fully committed and uniting with your spouse to feel those beautiful emotions that are sacred. Sexual intimacy is so sacred and if we abuse that power then we won’t fully enjoy it later. For example, one thing I learned this week is that the more lovers someone has had the more difficult it is later to spark attraction for others. Imagine you finally getting married and then not even being attracted to your own spouse because you have already done all the sacred this containing sexual intimacy, that’s scary and takes a lot of time to repair to change. A Word on Infidelity I strongly believe that sex should be saved for marriage to grow that level of sexual intimacy. Marriage is so important to most people in the world. Everyone has a desire to share all parts of them with that one person that “completes them” and brings them together as one. Marriage is a beautiful, but today’s world tries to make it as if it doesn’t matter. Infidelity swarms the media acting as if it is the norm, like people usually cheat on their spouses. The sad thing is that it is starting to not even be looked down upon as much anymore, like it is so normal. The thing is that infidelity can damage someone so emotionally and it is NOT OKAY. I repeat INFIDELITY IS NOT OKAY. Okay, I am so glad we got that out of the way, but it really isn’t okay. So how can you prevent situations of infidelity? One thing we talked about in our family relations class was to NEVER be alone with the opposite sex, I don’t care how old or how young, literally this can lead to infidelity. It all starts with sharing how you feel about things then consistently relying on that person that you shared those things with. An example in our class that was shared was when two couples would always run together. One day one the wives got sick while the others husband was busy with work. The other two still wanted to run so they decided to run with the other spouses spouse, later those two ended up having an affair. Even though that was an innocent situation it led to more. So many marriages have ended in infidelity because of those moments where people think, “oh this isn’t a big deal if I do this alone with him my husband will understand.” I cannot say enough, IT IS A BIG DEAL. These are people’s marriages ending because of things that just aren’t that big of a deal. Let me tell you one thing, the worst things can happen if we don’t take as much precaution. All I am saying is infidelity is real. The need for setting boundaries with your spouse of what you will do to prevent infidelity needs to be taken. Be supportive of one another and always be honest. This week was amazing and class! Xoxo Bonnie
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Don’t worry, I know my title made you think that I got married, but sadly still haven’t met that goal in my life just yet. Let’s talk marriage! We all have a goal in our life to get married at some point, well at least most people. The first thing we talked about this week was the engagement. We discussed many topics, one topic that stood out to me the most was that during the engagement process we need to start planning our lives together. For example, it is important to discuss with your soon to be spouse money, goals, what they expect from the other, this is the MOST crucial part to make sure you know everything about the person. Take advantage of the time you have together, plan the wedding together, work as a team and include each other. I never realized how important it is to make sure you include your fiancé in the planning of your wedding. This can demonstrate how your marriage can go at times because if you are willing to work together, then you will be more likely to do that in your marriage and form that important bond of unity. During this time of engagement, it is to focus on the person you are marrying, making sure you both feel like you know all you can know to marry someone. I cannot express that enough because a lot of people during this time focus too much on the wedding only, when that shouldn’t be the most important part of it all, you are going to be spending your life with someone so you better focus on them. After you do get married, there are a lot of ideas that we have in our head. An example of this is that our wedding night will be perfect. Your wedding night won’t be perfect, things happen and that is okay. You have your whole life to be with that person. Another thing to note is that during the first month of marriage you will find many challenges. Some challenges may be finding a good schedule with your spouse on when to see each other because you may have conflicting schedules. Another is the intimacy levels could be different among each other, so you need to work that out. Marriage is not super easy, you must work at it every day and a lot of newly married couples do not realize that until it is happening. It is okay for things not to be perfect. Something to consider too is that as time goes on in your marriage you will continuously need to learn and love each other. The most challenging time in a marriage is when the first child is born. When I learned, this I found it so interesting. The reason I found it so interesting was because usually that is an exciting time, but then I did realize how much work is around raising a child. The husband can feel unloved at times because the wife is so busy with the child or the wife could feel as if the husband isn’t doing enough. All in all, it is important to let your child bring you together rather than have you both drift apart. One thing that stood out to me the most in class was the idea that it isn’t MY baby it’s OUR baby. This will help you as new parents understand that you are raising this child together and that it isn’t just one person raising it alone. When parents work together they can learn to build their relationships. So yeah guys if you are readings this, it is important to get up in the middle of the night as much as your wife does to help with the baby! All in all you can have a successful marriage. Focus on the important things such as quality time, dating and getting to know that person, even during your marriage, keep doing those things. Doing these things will lead to a successful marriage. XOXO Bonnie In all honesty, I think I speak for more people than one when I say I prefer meaningful dates than just “hanging out” or “hooking up”. Believe it or not dating is still alive and somewhat well. Even though our culture has gravitated towards only hanging out and hooking up with individuals there are still people out there who want to date, get to know each other through dates, and just have all-around fun. Remember, dates are planned, paid and paired off. (I learned this from a wise teacher named Brother Williams). So, what is the difference between hanging out and hooking up? Hanging out is when you are with someone who could be a potential person that you want to be girlfriend/boyfriend with, yet instead of going on dates you chill with each other on a couch or something, in general confusing the emotions. While someone who is hooking up gets sexually intimate with someone, leaving them the next day or just seeing each other to do some sort of sexual activity, not really having a real emotional connection with the person that could potentially lead to a relationship. In general, neither of these are good and can confuse, hurt and take away the true meaning of love in relationships. What we all want is to find our person. Someone who is a rating of a high 7 out of 10 that makes you laugh! I mean come on, I am on a right track? RIGHT?! Right. In reality, what most of us want is that fairytale dream, for prince charming to come along to take away all our problems and sweep us off our feet. But that is NOT reality. Reality is like you, perfectly imperfect. The person you end up marrying isn’t going to be perfect, have every single quality you want, or sweep you off your feet like prince charming. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are plenty of people that can sweep you off your feet, but that won’t last forever unless you work hard at it. Being in a happy marriage you need to work hard at it and not expect someone perfect. Bruce A. Chadwick suggests, “all Cinderellas and Prince Charmings to throw away their glass slippers. Following Satan’s encouragement, contemporary society greatly emphasizes courtship, the hunt, or the conquest. The rest of the story, the most significant part of the life story, is dismissed with six words: “And they lived happily ever after.”” This helps show us that there isn’t just one perfect person out there for you, but many. Looks like you won’t be needing that glass slipper after all or that perfect prince charming. In our lives, we want to work towards having a celestial marriage. What does that look like? Well if you want a celestial marriage you would be trying to keep the commandments and live a life worthy for you and your future family. So, what do you do when it comes to dating then? When you date others make the dates fun, get to know them and really show that you care about them. Keep sexual intimacy limited, making it more sacred and meaningful. This will help avoid possible mistakes that could lead to much heartbreak. Look for potential in a person, not perfection. Have the qualities you want your spouse to have because you need to expect more from yourself. Brother Williams in my Family Relations class stated, “In my experience the happiest of marriages are those who expect most of themselves rather than expecting more from the other person.” Expecting the most out of ourselves is good because it leads to being able to fully love ourselves and others. LOVE IS IMPORTANT. Isn’t it crazy to think that research has been done about love and that love is a necessity to everyone, male, female, heterosexual, homosexual and that it is in comparison a need such as the need for water and food. Crazy to think, huh? One thing that I loved learning about love this week was that there are three times of how people love. The first is secure attachment which are people that want to get close to someone and easily trust them. About 59% of people are this kind of love. Then there is avoidant attachment which is having distance from a partner still having control of your own life. About 25% of people have that kind of attachment. Then the last one is anxious/ambivalent style which are those people who have high levels of closeness which can lead to feelings of abandonment in certain situations. This style is about 11% of people. Which one are you? The happies style of love was the secure style because they are willing to understand each other. Whatever style you are it shows how you love. We all need to love and be loved. These are a couple of cool things I learned this week. J XOXO Con Amor, Bonnie Throughout my life, I have grown up being taught that being gay is a choice. I would always remember my father telling me, “Bon, you know that being gay is a choice.” This concept always gave me an uneasy feeling because in all reality I had no clue if that statement was real. I questioned it. Many of my friends have been gay, many of them are amazing people and whether it was a choice or not, it did not matter to me whether they were gay or not and it still doesn’t change the fact that I love them no matter what. Over time I have come across this thought process of if being gay was a choice or not. I finally came to a conclusion, but let’s get to that later. I mean come on, we got to keep you reading some way. Class ended on Thursday and I immediately called my mom,“Mom, you have to read these articles that my teacher gave me in class that cite many wonderful research behind whether being gay is a choice or not.” That day I couldn’t help but seem to feel so intrigued with the knowledge I had gained just in the last two days of classes, being able to share this knowledge with my mother to see if she agreed with my thoughts. I finally felt like understanding whether it was a choice or not had finally clicked in my mind. I felt like not only I was lacking knowledge, but the world isn’t knowledgeable on this topic based on the research and studies done. So, is it a choice or is it biological? Many studies have taken place to find out if being gay or lesbian is biological. One study that scientists have done is testing twins. If it is biological, then if one twin is gay the other has to be 100% gay too due to genes. As many tests and studies have been run on twins, many scientists found that when one twin was homosexual, they only found about 50% or less of the other twin felt like they were homosexual. Most of the time the other twin did not claim themselves as homosexual. I found this quite interesting because wouldn’t the twins need to both be homosexual if it was biological? Another stance on biology was the study that was given by a man with the name LeVay who did brain research. He took a very small sample of men that passed away, he tested these men and found that half of them who were homosexual had a bigger brain than the men that were not homosexual. He did not conclude in his research that his findings were proof of homosexuals having a different brain than non-homosexuals, in fact he felt like his findings didn’t relate. It was interesting to conclude from his research that most of those homosexuals died from HIVS and we do know that HIVS cause brains to enlarge, therefore not necessarily proving that homosexuals have a different brain. There have been many other studies taken by scientists to see if there is proof of being biological. Many scientists have first thought it was biological then have concluded that it isn’t after they have done research. In reality, I need to find more research done to fully comprehend the biological side, but what I have found so far based on my class is that nurture plays more of a role versus nature. And that many studies have shown that there is not much evidence when it comes to being homosexual biological. So, let’s take a spin reviewing the nurture side and the environmental factors of being homosexual. One thing that many scientist think is that being homosexual is a choice and that your environment does play a role. Studies have concluded that if someone is sexually abused or molested as a child, whether it is super young from an infant or when they were 12 they have been more likely to claim to be homosexual. During this class period when we learned this, we watched a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJhyzqdzpnM) that interviewed many young men who went to therapy for help to overcome homosexuality, many of them concluded that they had been sexually abused as a child. This was so interesting to me because there are some people I know that are homosexual now, that I do know that they too have been sexually abused. Something for all of us to really think about. As we discussed this issue in class, we talked about how many of the feelings from sexual abuse can get confused with real sexual feelings. It is more of a problem of intimacy and not such a problem of sexuality. Another thing that we talked about was that the most affected ages for a child to discover being homosexual is 5,8, and12. During these ages the child is very susceptible to a lot of things. Some examples that we came across were feeling not accepted by peers or if their father isn’t always around. Also, sometimes the father might be too masculine. Another factor that was noted was that sometimes if boys grow up having older brothers they have a more likely chance of being homosexual. So how can peers play a role? If children at schools such as boys having feelings of neglect from peers at a young age, they will want to find a way to fill those missing feelings, by filling them later in life to be homosexual. They begin to yearn for those feelings of being accepted by the opposite sex. I found this quite interesting because you would think that it would be the opposite, them wanting more to do with girls than with boys if they felt neglected by their male peers. This shows that our environment does play a role in future feelings. Another thing I mentioned above was the father’s role. Sometimes fathers can pressure their sons to turn towards sports or masculine things like the father, while the son might not have interest in those things and might be more artistic or something. An example of this is if a boy is playing with Barbie’s, the father could freak out and try to make him not play with them. The father is going wrong about this in so many ways, it’s not like the son is having sex, he is simply playing with Barbie’s. What the father can do here is play Barbie with him and be the Barbie while the son be ken, encouraging the son to explore and accept the child. Accepting the child is what the father needs to do. Also, same with older brothers they can pressure the younger brother that the things he is doing are too girly and he needs to be more “manly” or “like the boys”. Many scientists and therapists have said that feelings of intimacy can get confused with sexual feelings. As we discussed in class my eyes were opened that sometimes we have feelings that are normal that we do not understand and can confuse them with real sexual feelings because of that misunderstanding. I found this very interesting because I feel like many people confuse feelings all the time, for example, sometimes people do not know if they have feelings for someone as just a friend or if they have feelings for someone more than a friend that can lead to a love relationship. All in all, I concluded that being homosexual is a choice. I love and respect all my friends and family that have those tendencies, but I feel strongly that it is a choice. I feel that way even about heterosexuals, we choose who to love and that is that. Sometimes I feel like when it comes to love heterosexuals and homosexuals get confused on what love really is. Sometimes we all have misunderstandings of feelings and that is a learning process of itself. The Family Overall the family needs to be strong. My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. I feel that so strongly. Children need to have a loving mother and a loving father. This leads to my concluding thoughts of this blog post, let’s take a step into gender. Gender Roles Gender is so crucial to raising a family. Families need to have a loving mother who is nurturing willing to be there for her children showing them love and the nurture they need. While fathers roles are to be the providers, helping the family grow and being an example. In order for the family to grow and become children need these strong roles in their lives. I personally think moms should spend time helping their children, not saying they cannot work, but that their focal points are their children. I strongly believe that fathers need to provide, being that strong example for their children. Male and female cannot be without each other because their differences are so important for the family. Women bring qualities that men don’t have and men bring qualities that women don’t have. For example, men are good at fixing things and coming up with solutions to problems. Whereas women bring nurturing and already know the answers to their problems, but would rather want to talk about them. Oh, how interesting gender roles are. One thing that stood out to me about genders was the idea that we both have the same amount of emotions, but we just express them differently. So yeah, that was a myth that women are more emotional, more like they are more expressive! Conclusion The family needs to be protected because it is a beautiful thing. What a blessing we have to have such an amazing opportunity to create a family. The family is truly the gateway to success. XOXO Bonnie |
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March 2017
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