Dating, Courtship, and Marriage

Sorry I'm a couple days late on this one! I had a hectic week last week and it just slipped my mind. It looks as if the craziness is carrying over into this week as well, oh no! Beside the hustle and bustle of a busy time in the semester, last week was great! In Family Relations we learned all about dating, courtship, and marriage, perfect for BYU-I (do), right!? Haha. We learned that intimate relationships should follow in that order and that difficulties very often, if not always, arise if one is skipped or if a couple "slides" through the stages. We were taught that touch develops a sense of closeness. In correlation to this fact, the Relationship Attachment Model was created. It portrays steps of attachment in levels that correspond to the others. Gathering from that, we should always know someone more than we trust them, we should trust them more than we rely on them, we should rely on them more than we commit to them, and we should commit more than we touch. Following this model will result in a healthy relationship and can help prevent heartache that results from artificial feelings of love and closeness derived from physical touch. We also learned about the "Know Quo" which are three determinants of really knowing someone. They are Talk-mutual self disclosure, Time- minimum of three months to begin to know someone, and Togetherness- participating in a wide range of activities with one another. Finally, we discussed how society is prescribing cohabitation as a preparation for marriage when in reality, it results in more divorce according to the statistics. This is because cohabitation brings two separate lives under the same roof instead of creating a union of two lives such as in the case with marriage. When, and if, the cohabiting couple gets married, nothing changes and their lives remain divided. Also, most women think of cohabiting as the next step to marriage when most men see it as a step away from or replacement to marriage. A majority of the problems that people are experiencing in dating, courtship, and marriage are a result of our changing society that is becoming more worldly and self-centered. We need to adhere to these teachings and those of the church to have happy, successful, and righteous relationships.