Marital Functioning

There are both positive and negative reasons for marriage.  Everyone has their own reasoning of why they want to get married and what they want their marriage to be like.  John Gottman's theory is interesting because it deals with the type of individual people, not the couple as a whole.  He discussed issues with conflict and how different people go about dealing with it.  There were 3 different types: volatile, validating, and conflict-avoiding. It made me think about which one I would like to be in a relationship and how I would go about dealing with conflict.  If its possible to choose, I would want to be in the middle of those 3 types, ideally more validating.  Dealing with conflicts, calmly, I believe is the best way to deal with it.  Jumping to conclusions and creating drama does not solve any issues.  Making a marriage a success takes a lot of work from both individuals involved and keeping the conflict and issues to a minimum is key! 

marriages

I think sometimes thinking about getting married can sound really scary. This class is really helping see the reality of marriage and what all comes with it. At times I feel like I am expecting my marriage to be perfect and that we will never fight. In reality that is completely untrue. I think it is super important to think about the qualities that I want in a husband in order to have the best marriage possible. When we talked about abuse especially made see how important that is. Sometimes people think sarcasm and negative speaking can be funny and flirty. While others can take that really offensively. These are all things to look for in husband or wife. I think the healthy tests that we talked about are good ways to find out if that person has all of the qualities. I am really looking forward to talking more about marriage because it is something extremely important to know about in order to be happy in the future. It is also good to know so you can help your friends as they are going through the same process of dating and marriage. It will make me better equipped to be a wife and a friend.

Mate Selection

I thought the topic on Tuesday was really interesting. Talking about how people choose a mate made me really think about what I look for in a guy. When we started talking about "games" that people play to test whoever they are with, it made me think about what I do. I have been told that I play hard to get and I agree with those people. I don't want to be one of those girls who just dates whoever asks. I want to test whoever wants to date me. I don't want to play the destructive games. I don't think its right to start a fight just to see what the guys reaction is going to be. I hope we keep continue talking about dating and mate selections because I find it interesting.

Relationships and Engagements

I have been in a relationship with a girl for almost two years now. We are both juniors in college and are thinking about what we are going to do after our senior year. Because of this we are also discussing about our future together and if we think we are meant for each other. I have decided that I do want to be with her and will ask her to marry me next year and after discussing the changes that we should go through in class, it really made me think about the issues that we might not have talked about yet for when we take the FOCCUS test (I know she always told me she wanted to take one when she was engaged). We have already determined that we would be happy with 2-3 kids, we want to stay here in Nebraska or move to the coasts later, we are both family oriented and get along great with each others families. I'm just trying to think about what else there is that couples will deal when they their lives are mixed together cause I know that hundreds of other things will come up that we didn't even think about. I guess I will find out soon enough though granted she says yes (and from the sounds of it she will).

The Purpose of Engagement

What is the purpose of engagement?  To truly get to know the other person.  This is at least what I've found thus far in engagement.  My fiance and I know that we are committed to one another, and now all of our tendencies are roaring their ugly heads. I'm not afraid to say something about the little things that bothered me when we were dating (like how he chews his food really loud).  He's not afraid to call me out when I'm being irrational.  We both disagree a lot more than we did when we were dating, but it's good.  We're learning who the other person truly is (not that we didn't find that out during dating, but now it's on a deeper lever) and we're learning how we function and how we're going to function as a couple. 

Defining engagement is important in professional development because some couples may define engagement differently.  I think it's important, though, that all couples know (like discussed in class) that engagement is time to prepare for marriage.  It's a time to talk about different expectations and values.  It's a time to communicate on a deeper level.  

Defining engagement impacted me because once I stepped back and realized what engagement is about - learning about the other person and learning how we will function as a married couple - it doesn't make it so bad.  Instead of counting down the days until the wedding and complaining about all the planning that has yet to be done, I can live in the moment and appreciate this time of getting to know my fiance in a deeper way.  

Cohabitating Couples

I have been really interested by the information about cohabitation and what impacts that can have on a marriage. I thought it was surprising that living together before marriage didn't improve the chances of a marriage being successful, because I think we so often think of that as being a smart or responsible idea. I think that if someone were working with a couple, it would be good to keep that in mind, because it goes back to the idea of structure versus function. It is most important that couples work together on factors like communication and time together, instead of becoming too preoccupied with living arrangements.

Marriage Incentives

When reading chapter 6 I came across an interesting section about marriage incentives. The idea here is that children do better in a two parent family and that if we promote marriage and "reward" people who are married, more people will get married and stay married. What a quick fix to all the problems in our nation! Some states went so far as to pay married couples $100 a month to get married and stay married. This made me think about two things we have talked about this semester. First of all the structure vs. function debate. We have been told a thousand times that it is not what the family looks like single, two-parent, etc. it is how that family works. Structure does influence function, but it is not a determining factor. So the idea that children fair better with two parents is not necessarily true. Think about the children of parents who are still married but fight all the time. A second thing, what kind of people will be encouraged to get married for $100. Sorry for me personally that would not be enough. Second of all if your only reason to get married is to get that money chances are your marriage is not going to be that great...problems in marriage will still exist.
In my opinion the only way we can fix all these "problems" with married couples and single families is with education. We should spend more time and money teaching people how to deal with conflict, better choose mates, and raise a family and less money trying to get a quick fix which ultimately can lead to new problems.