Week #7

This week was really good as we were talking sexual intimacy within marriage, something that really stood out to me, was at one point Brother Williams made a really good point that a husband and wife's sexual intimacy really reflected how the rest of the relationship was going. That you really couldn't have a healthy functioning marriage if you're sex life really sucked, and if you had a sex life that you were satisfied with you were more likely to be successful in other areas of your marriage. For example, if you were really unhappy with that sexual intimacy within your marriage it would really reflect within other areas of your marriage. We discussed how important it was to make each other aware of your needsss, and to be really specific of what you like and don't like so you can have a that open communication and desire to please your spouse and meet their needs, not just appear to only meet your own needs. I really liked this advice, it really stood out to me, and rang true. I am the kind of person that is kind of a people pleaser and I have a really hard time telling people what I am thinking, and telling them if I like something or don't like something. That is something that is really difficult for me. So I don't usually do that. But, I can really see how imporant that is, especially in a marriage, and especially in the sexual intimacy part of a marriage.

Week #6

This week we talked about adjusting to marriage. Being recently married this seemed to apply to me a lot, and I was able to really make a lot of connections with our class discussions, and gain so powerful insight on how I can improve in adjusting to the changes I am currently facing in marriage. One of the things that stuck out to me that most was the iportance of talking about the changes that are occuring, and how beneficial it would be to talk about them and plan for them and discuss how to deal with them beforehand. It is kind of too late now to talk about most of them beforehand since we are already facing them, but as far as future things, such as children, that is a good insight I gained that we should talk about those change and challenges before they even occur, so we are more prepared to handle them together.
One of the changes that we discussed in class was boundaries. When we got married I had to cut some of my relationships with my family members, not completely but in some ways, so it would not come in the way of my relationship with my husband. I have always been super close with my mom, and whenever I am having a problem, before I would always just call her up and she always knew what to say, and I really felt like I could talk to her about anything, and she always helped me out a ton. So when we first got married that was such a huge change I had to adjust to, because I knew that my relationship that I needed to focus on from now on was my relationship with my husband, which did not include my mom. I mean it was okay to still call her every now and again, and maybe get some advice, but never diclose any personal information from our relationship, and mostly just call her to talk and catch up in life. It has been really hard because when things get tough, I want to just call her up and ask her what to do, even just get her reassurance that it's normal, and that everything will be okay, but luckily from the beginning, I knew that was only going to break my marriage.
However, my husband has a similar relationship with his father. I had noticed that he spent a lot of time talking to him on the phone, and that sometimes he diclosed some personal information from our relationship that he really shouldn't. He called for his advice frequently, not that that is super bad, but the frequency was what was bothering me. Sometimes I even felt as if he was making our own personal decision with his dad, and not with me. His dad had  been brought into the relationship, and now important decisions like when to have kids was between my husband, his dad...and kind of me. When really decisions like that need to between me, my husband and the Lord.
Marriage is a hard adjustment and it takes more than a lifetime to figure out how to make things work, and how to create a loving and perfect marriage. But, that is why we must be careful to always use the time that we have to always improve. I was thankful that we discussed the importance of defining boundaries in a marriage this week, because it helped me pinpoint what it was that was weakening our marriage. I could feel tension between me and my husband building up, and I constantly felt as if there was something I was missing, that really was weakening our marriage, and in the back of my mind was truly bothering me, I just didn't know what. I think it was even causing me to loose some trust in him, because I felt like he was keeping things from me, because he never talked with me about those important things. After recongnizing this, I went to my husband and was able to confide in him what I saw happening and the dangers of it. We were able to sit down and discuss some of the boundaries we should have discussed long ago, but better late than never! We have long ways to go and a lot of work, but recongnizing and mending things that are hindering that most important relationship with your spouse is so important, and worth anything.

Week #5

This week as we discussed some of the things attributed to preparing for marriage I began to think about what I did to prepare for marriage. I am already married so at first I kind of thought that it would be pointless for me to read the chapters on preparing for marriage. I honestly kind of thought that it was too late to do anything about preparing for marriage. Yes, I can't necessarily "prepare" for marriage but I can always prepare to be a better wife and mother, and that is what I really thought about as I studied this section. One thing that stood out to me the most was the definition of love. I don't know exactly how I would define love because it is one of those emotions you just can't put any words to. But, I thought about where I was when I was preparing for getting married. I thought about the kind of love I had at the time for my husband-to-be and though I have only been married for six months I compared it to the love I have for him now. Even in just six months it really has changed dramatically, and I think of how different it will be in years to come. Not that the love I had for him before or even now is bad, it is just different, and it is more. It is so much deeper, and it spreads to all the 4 different areas of the types of love. And I think it is important for me to explore all those areas of love with my husband. And I want it to be that way fifty years from now too.

Week 4

This week our main focus was on gender roles, and importance they play in a family. I really enjoyed this topic because it got me thinking about things I had not necessarily thought to much about before. We read and talked about various differences between males and females. That was very interesting. But the thing that struck me the most was as we addressed the question, "How would my life/family experience be different if I would have been a boy." As I thought about this I though maybe it would not be that different. Because I am second oldest of six children, and the sixth child didn't come for quite a while after me, so most of my life growing up it was just five girls and one boy. Because of this the responsibilities we hard to split between "boy work" and "girl work". I worked outside and did "boy work" and my brother worked inside. I also was encouraged to participate in sports just like my brother. So as I first started thinking about it, I began to think that my experience as a boy would have been pretty much the same. But then I started thinking about it from some different aspects, for example, my relationship with my mother would have been drastically different. I think I felt comfortable confiding in my mother, and talking to her about very personal and sometimes embarrassing things, because she too was a girl and could understand my feelings and what I was going through. There were many things that I experienced that I did not necessarily feel comfortable talking to my dad about, not because he wasn't compassionate and didn't care about me, but because he just wouldn't quite be able to relate or be as responsive or understanding as my mom was in those instances. I think my relationships with my sisters would have been very different too. I think I would have developed many different attributes than I did because I was a girl, and therefore there were different expecations of me because of that.
I also had the chance to talk to my husband about the topic as well. Out of curiosity I asked him one evening if he thought his family experiences would have been different if he would have been a girl. It was very interesting to discuss, and explore the differences in his family, and the different expectations his family had of girls and boys compared to mine. Some were the same, and some were different. It neat to talk about this as it involved into a discussion on why gender is important, and the different roles it plays in a family setting. I loved hearing his ideas and thoughts. This is a conversation we probably would have never had if it weren't for this class. I am so grateful for those things we were able to think about and talk about together.