Transition to Marriage

One of the main things that stuck out to me in this lesson leaning on each other.  I've come to realize that I'm not that good at allowing my husband to "lean on me" in everything. Some things yes, but not everything.  I need to be a better spouse at allowing my husband to lean on me when he needs someone, that is one of the most important thing in a relationship and it opened my eyes.  This is something that I want to work on so that I can improve my marriage.  It made me think of my parent's relationship and how I've come to realize that I don't ever remember seeing my dad having to lean on my mother- I mean she did the bills and kept the house in order.  Is that really leaning on someone for the support that is needed in a relationship. I wonder because I was never really exposed to that, that I didn't realize that I do that to my husband.  I guess it may be time to break that cycle before this little one comes.

Preparing for Marriage

This class, I didn't feel like anything was new to me. It was interesing to hear about it is important to establish certain things as the relationship progessed.  So, I pondered when I was dating my husband and the things that we did as we were dating- because dating is an important step when forming a relationship.  I think we did pretty good, there might be some things that I would've changed.  

We talked about dating and hanging out.  Even though it was over 3 years ago that I dated, and I remember "hanging out." I remember then that it was advised by the church to not hang out but to date.  Anyways when I think about dating, I think that it goes both ways. It can't always be the guy, girls have to do the work too.  And I think that people these day hang out because they are shallow, they want to hang out so they don't have to spend the extra money if it were a date, or they could potentially hang out with another girl they really want or they are not sure if they would like this person.  Also, I think when people are dating- they go on one date and say, its not going to work out, they don't have the what "I'm looking for," or they aren't interested.  I think it takes more than one date to really get to know someone and their personality.

Those are my thoughts, not great but it's there. 

Gender and Family Life

As usual, the class discussion was great. We talked about gender and family life.  We talked about the roles in family and even in the society.  We watched a couple of videos discussing how different men and women are.  It moslty talked about equality and how women had to fight for equal rights and bascially said that men should bring their level of whatever to our level so that we are capable of doing the same things. But in reality most women can't or don't have the same capablities as men do.  This week in my family foundations we also talked about equality in relationship between a wife and husband, we are equal in the realtionship. We have marriage between a man and woman for a reason- it allows us to become one with our spouse and in everything that goes on in the family.  In class we talked about how mothers are to be nurturers and men are to provide, protect and preside.  We correlated it with the genetic attributes that women and men usually have such as for women are usually more expressive, emotional, and so on and for men they tend to be agressive, suppressive and etc.  It was interesting to put those together and it made sense but some men and women are not like that, they may be vice versa.
Thats where same sex attraction comes in.  I thought that it was interesting that most parents either freak out or assume that thier child is gay when they play with toys that tend to be made for girls.  I think that it's sad that some parents will just say that they are gay and just basically raise that way when the child doesn't even know what gay means.  Brother Williams brought up a case he had where he had a father come in freaking out about his son liking girl stuff and didn't like playing with boy stuff.  He basically told the father that he needs to play with his son, have a relationship and to show intimacy towards him so that he can develop that kind of relationship.  And then the kid grew up just being just fine.  Brother Williams brought something up that I thought that was really interesting and had never thought of it in that way before.  But when a parent sees their child playing with girl stuff and force them to play with boy stuff, basically trying to change them that those characteristics that they had such as sensitivity is the same attributes that our Savior has, why would we want to change that.  It's all about parenting and how you act towards your child.
Same sex attraction has been a topic for this class and my other class for the last 2 weeks and it's just really nice to have the "science" and the religion aspect of it and being able to correlate it together.  I now  have more of a understanding and more love for those who may have chosen that lifestyle even though it's wrong but the Lord still loves them regardless.  I just wish they could understand that thats not how they were born and it is a choice that they made even if they were abused/ mislabled or not.  I'm glad that we have therapists out there like Brother Williams to help those who are willing to ask for help.

Social status and culture

This week's lesson was mainly on social status and culture.  It's very intersting how social status is very important to people and how it can affect people. It's crazy how people automatically judge someone by their appearnce or the things that they have.  It seems like people are too quick to judge rather than getting to know the person.  I think it becomes a habit for some people to envy others or to think that they are better than someone that may be a lower social status. We should keep in mind that in the gospel, we are taught that we shouldn't be worldly and to be envious because that is what Satan wants us to do.  That we should be like our Savior, someone who loves everyone and doesn't judge them for what they don't have or what they do.  We are to be better people and to server them. In class, we were asked what social class we would want to be as a married couple and for our future children.  For the most part, most of us thought upper middle class or upper class.  I wouldn't mind being either of those as long as I show my children how it should be and not to be worldly.  I would want to set examples of working hard, being self reliant, and not to have everything just because you have money.  Also being in those classes, as parents wouldn't have to worry so  much about finaical strain and that would reduce stress and relationship strain as well. Someone in class mentioned how her parents were at the very bottom when they were first married and were going to school, and they were frugal and worked hard to get where they are now.  I liked that, because even though you may start at the bottom it is very possible to make it to where you want to eventually be, but it takes work and dedication.

We also talked about cultures and what it really means.  And basically we thought that culture meant values, beliefs, traditions, and behavior that is is in a group of people. Culture is a very unique and diverse.  I like that you can learn from other cultures and decide if that's somthing you would like to include into your lives or continue with your own. When I got married, I was knew that my husband and I had a lot of the same values but discovered we had different ways of doing things or had different traditions, so by getting married, I felt like we were intergrating cultures to make it our own.