Marital Intimacy

I was quite curious how the topic of marital intimacy would be handled in a conservative religious college setting. It was an eye opening lesson because I learned so much and I felt that the situation was still kept very appropriate. I remember my bishop telling the young men in my ward when I was in high school that if they can only wait till marriage, anything goes. One of my friends who heard the lesson questioned whether or not this was true doctrine. Then I learned in my LDS marriage and family class that this was not the case. That there are still unwholesome sexual intimate practices within marriage. I was confused at what this meant and I was very glad that we addressed the topic in my class. Without being to graphic for just anyone to read, I would like to say that I agree with the teachings that there are unwholesome practices within marriage. You should never use sexual intimacy or any intimacy to reward or punish your spouse. Love withdrawal is mocking the powerful relations that God has given to us. We should respect our spouses and respect ourselves by using intimacy to strengthen the bonds of marriage and to express love and devotion to the partner. Other inappropriate uses of intimacy include coercion and unwholesome fantasies of your spouse. Sexual relations are very normal and very natural and a newly wed couple who has practiced abstinence until marriage should not be afraid of sex. It is something beautiful that God has given to us to express love, devotion, and create a union of souls within a marriage. How wonderful!! As long as a couple is respectful for what this divine part of us is, we should learn and grow so much closer to our spouses through sexual relations. On that note I would like to emphasize that sexual relations outside of marriage is a mockery of the real God given blessing that it is. It is absolutely inappropriate outside of marriage. I am grateful to have learned these things!!!

How children can affect a marriage

I recently did a paper on how having children changes the marriage relationship. As I researched I read a lot of articles in academic journals where the researchers' tests and hypothesis's were centered around the idea that having children can really wear at a marriage. As I researched church articles, they came from a different perspective. They talked about how to make your marriage grow stronger and how to adjust to the changes of having a baby. I like having the combination of the two types of articles because I could see what kind of challenges face new parents and what other factors determine whether or not having children helps or hinders a marriage relationship. My findings seemed to to be unanimous. Having children does NOT solve marriage problems. PERIOD!!! That is definitely a false notion if anyone has ever thought that. Also, it is important to continue to work on your marriage and continue to work on the things you were before having the child in order to keep proper balance in your life. Children take up a lot of time. Especially infants because you cant really leave them alone. This is no excuse though for putting off the time that you normally spend with your spouse. We studied a principle in my marriage prep class called parallel marriage. It is when the husband and the wife are basically living two separate lives under the same roof. If you feel the division of labor should be that the man needs to work to provide and the women need to stay home and take care of the children, make sure that there is enough interaction in the home that the two worlds are not separate. One way of making sure that your marriage does not suffer from the demands of a new baby and all the other responsibilities involved in the marriage, is to make sure that you have AT LEAST 5 hours spent devoted to improving your marriage and drawing closer to your spouse. It may even be more for some couples but I would put danger into anyones mind who things that they are an exception to the 5 hour minimum rule. Marriage does not just grow stronger over time without any effort. It seems most of the studies, both from academic journals and from church related articles stated that the effects that children have on a marriage greatly depend on how the couple takes in the new blessing in their lives. If they use it to grow stronger in their marriage and work together it can be the greatest blessing in the world. But when a baby takes the place of a spouse, time, love, and attention wise, the situation can be harmful to a marriage. What an incredible time in a young couples life to have the opportunity to become new parents!!! Don't let this time be damaging!!! Let it help nurture your love for each other as you serve each other and serve your little baby!!

Self Worth

I know that my Savior Jesus Christ died so that I may one day live again with my Father in Heaven. I know that when Jesus suffered in the garden of Gethsemene, He thought of ME and he took my sins on him and bled from every pore so that I could have the opportunity to overcome my sins. He felt every pain that my heart has felt, every sorrow that I have had, every thing that I have cried about. He knows my pain, even if no one else in the world can see it. If for none other than that reason, I know that I am a daughter of God who is of so much worth to someone that he would die and suffer all my sins and pains for me. He has helped me to understand that I have a divine heritage, a divine nature, and a divine destiny. We belong to God the eternal Father!! God knows us and he knows our shortcomings, or weaknesses, and our strengths. Because I know this, I know that I have self worth!! Even when I am unworthy, I know that I am still of worth to God. Jesus wasn't willing to die for my sins with the false notions that I hadn't commited any, so that huge act of love proves that we should never feel like we are worthless when we do commit sins. Guess who else should love us no matter what our shortcomings.... our spouse!!! We are so lucky to have the sacred entity of marriage. It is belonging to someone who knows that you are an incredible being with so much potential. Our spouses can help us realize our worth in the eyes of God even if we feel we aren't worthy of it. We can also do the same for our spouses!!! Being a support and a comfort is one of the ways we can become more selfless and less selfish. By becoming selfless the Lord blesses us in so many ways!! Now, being selfless is not always the easiest thing. There are two types of selfishness that we talked about in my marriage prep class. One is the normal view of selfishness. You only care about yourself and don't think of others. The other way people are commonly selfish is when they are other centered. Or in other words, you only care about what other people think. By doing this, you never really become the best person you can be, you become a pupet in the sways of society and you forget your true identity as a child of a loving God who is reaching his hand toward you so that you may learn his ways and return to him once again. Now it is good to think of ways you can improve yourself to help your spouse and even friends and other family, but this is not the same as doing whatever others want you to do. I know that I am a daughter of God. I know that he loves me and I am so greatful for the sacrifice of my savior. I know that I have divine potential and that motivation is what drives me to work on being a better person for me, not to improve in the ways of the world. I know that bettering myself also betters those around me because I am able to shine my light and let others realize their divine potential!! I love my savior!!

Effecting Change in Eachother

A lot of people, especially women, have the notion that once you get married you will be able to change the little things about your spouse that you don't exactly like. There is no way we can expect to pinpoint what we consider weaknesses in our spouses and change them. However, there is a way that we can influence them to change themselves! For instance, Tim knows that I am disorganized. It used to really frustrate me becauase he would try and go through all of my stuff and tell me what homework to do next and how to do it so that I would be more effective and organized in my studies. This drove me nuts! I certainly don't learn or study the same way that he does so it was frustrating to the both of us. The next time he tried to do that I politely declined and he didn't push it. I notice that he spends more time in the library studying than he does at home. When I tried this, I noticed that I couldn't get up every few minutes to chat with my roommates or to eat something or get distracted by the tv. It slowly became something that I could do more often instead of just when I was swamped. Also, Tim writes all his assignments down before he starts his homework and puts a star by the things that he absolutely cannot leave the library without doing. This helped me too as I was able to implament this into my own study habits. I also didn't feel like I had someone looking over my shoulder telling me what to do all the time. One thing about Tim that I saw as a weakness is he has a quick temper with his roommates. He isn't ever mean to them but he isn't really nice to them either. I started to ask his roommates how they were doing and if I was cooking for Tim at his apartment, I would invite his roommates to come too! I discovered that if I was engaging in good conversation with his roommates then Tim would catch interest too and felt closer to them because he knew more about them, so in turn he was nicer to them!! I know that as amazing as Tim is, I am sure if we got married I would find that there are a few more things that bug me about Tim and vice versa. We should take these opportunities to find how we can be a better influance on them to become better people. Letting the little things slide is also VERY important! If your spouse is grumpy, recognize that and be completely supportive of them. If they are grumpy, there are usually things you can do to lighten their load so that they can do something they enjoy to brighten up their mood. Everyone gets grumpy every once in a while! Learning to help eachother and be completely supportive in their growth and learning will in return help you to learn and grow too!

Relate test

We just took a relationship test in our marriage prep class. It was so interesting!!! I really found out alot about myself and I am so glad that I had to take it. I was kind of bummed at first because I had to pay for it, but it was so worth it. I realized that the way that I communicate with my boyfriend, is not as efficient as I thought it was. He was so complamentary of me and really put me on such a pedestal in all of the questions. I know he loves me and this really showed it. Guess what-- I love him too!!!! We were both a lot harder on ourselves than we were on the other person. Tim has so many strenghts and I am glad that he has strengthened me because of it! I made 5 goals to help me take the information that I got and apply it to my life. I made goals to improve myself in ways other than things that are strictly related to my relationship with Tim and realized that doing those things will help me prepare for marriage too!! I know that coming closer to God will help me in all aspects of my life as he shapes and molds me to be the best person I can be, and to make me more christ-like. I am grateful for the relationship that I have with my heavenly father and that he is always there for me through all of my problems and through all of my insecurities. I know that when a relationship is centered around God it is bound to be successful!! Another thing I learned is how important things like family background are in a realtionship. Tim and I both have a strong family background but I could see in places that we were different where our backgrounds affected us. Gender roles are very important in his family and I came from a family of all sisters so I don't have that same experience. In the end I was excited to see that Tim and I had basically all strenghts and only a few places that we needed to work on or watch out for. Yall should all take the test!!!!! It is on the website : https://www.relate-institute.org Have a great day!!!!

Marriage is the Key to Eternal Happiness

Marriage is something that God has placed on the earth to help us learn and grow and be the best version of ourselves that we can be. As we work together we can grow closer to eachother and to God, through all of lifes ups and downs, through sickness and health, through children and grandchildren, and through everything else that life throws at us. Because marriage is ordained of God, we need to respect it as the sacred ordinence that it is. Marriage is something that God holds in high esteem as he teaches us and helps us grow through it. The worlds perspective on marriage is becoming closer and closer to somthing that is there to enjoy as long as it is enjoyable. That is one of the reasons that the divorce rate is increasing so much. People are also starting to do more things out of wedlock that is disgraceful to our Heavenly Father. Things like having sexual relations and cohabitation before marriage. These things are sacred and we should treat them as such by waiting until we are married to do these things. When we let God be the third member of our marriage, we strive to grow closer to him as we strive to grow closer to eachother. This creates peace in marriage because God gives peace to all who seek it. With God as the third member of our marriage, not only do we help our spouses to grow closer to God, but we learn to rely on Heavenly Father when things are not good between us and our spouse. Heavenly Father will help us learn to be unselfish, and learn how to help our spouse so that we can keep our marriages strong. Marriage makes us think of someone else before ourselves, just like children do! Can you imagine being selfish to an infant? Telling it that you will meet its needs whenever your needs are all taken care of? Well we should not treat our spouses like that either! I am excited to get married so that I have someone to take care of me. Sometimes I realize that the things that I feel like I need to be happy are not really needs, but they are more of wants that I decide are needs. When I focus on other people's needs I realize that I don't need much to be happy. When I make other people happy, I become happy too. I hope that whoever I marry, I can make happy. In return I am sure that they will make me happy too if they are happy!!

This class is so incredibly important!

I am so excited for this class!! I am excited to take marriage prep because my life goal is to be the best mom and the best wife I can be. That is my mission here in life! Family is the most basic unit of organization in the world. Just imagine, if everyone took families seriously and continually tried to make their families the best they knew how, almost all of the worlds biggest concerns would be GREATLY improved. Divorce- there would be almost no divorce if everyone believed so strongly in the family. It would give struggling marriages a much greater reason to be worked out. More children would grow up in two parent families, and then more parents would be able to be home for their children when their children need it. Financial and educational problems- If families were so strong of an importance to everyone, parents would learn to save more so that they could provide the best future possible for their children, such as be able to support them in getting a good education. If more people are educated, the better our economy will be. Those are just a couple of examples, but I think you can get the picture. I am so excited to have my own family someday. I love my parents and my four sisters and I can't imagine what I would do without them. They are my sourse of strength along with the gospel of Jesus Christ that drives me to be a better person today that I was yesterday. I am grateful for the time and effor that is put into planning and putting together a marriage preperation class because it is the most important thing I may take out of my college career. I may or may not end up doing nursing like I am planning on now, but I know that whatever I do, I will be married and have children someday.