Fatherhood

This week's topics were regarding fatherhood and the importance of it. It is so important that we better understand the nature of fathers as we address families. Fathers are such a large component of the family as a whole and should be greatly understood in order to fully understand the family. I love this quote that I found. It states,

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fatherhood.html#Upvw68RLtBWo90SQ.99

"Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person." -Annonymous

Fatherhood is a godly act, just like that of motherhood. Together, man and woman are able to accomplish the Lord's purposes for us here on earth. Our ultimate goal is not to obtain the most money, be the most successful, or have the greatest most high education. Our goal here on earth is to have families and teach them the principles of the gospel. As we come to understand the role of a father, we often learn the basics through example as well as practice. Life did not come with these types of manuals, but it did come with the example of our Father in Heaven. He was the ultimate parent and we can always look to Him for guidance.

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fatherhood.html#Upvw68RLtBWo90SQ.99

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fatherhood.html#Upvw68RLtBWo90SQ.99

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fatherhood.html#Upvw68RLtBWo90SQ.99

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fatherhood.html#Upvw68RLtBWo90SQ.99

Communication in Marriage

Thesis: Conflict often arises within marriage, but precautions can be made in order to ensure communication as well as mutual understanding and love.

This week's topics were that of communication and mutual problem solving, specifically within marriage. We watched a video that I found very interesting regarding conflict within marriage. The wife in the video had dreams of pursuing her love for horses. Their horse, Maddie, cost the couple $1,000 a month to take care of. The husband found that this was a waste of money, and his dream was to have a cabin far away. He felt as if he was sacrificing his dreams to pursue hers. There was a huge communication gap between the couple, despite their mutual love for one another. Together, they sat down to discuss the issue. They were both encouraged to listen, understand one another's point of view, and then tell the other that they were okay with pursuing their spouse's dreams. These simple changes were amazing in their conversation. They both felt free to pursue their dreams, but because of the understanding that came from their spouse, it was as if they didn't care about their own individual dreams anymore and would rather pursue a dream together as a couple.

It's true when we are told that marriage is selfless and to keep it going, a couple must be thinking of the other. Think about it. If two people are married, and each individual does all that they can to make the other happy, then both will be happy! On top of that, they will feel the true love that comes from service.

I have found that in my own marriage, it's important to focus on prevention of conflict in order to never get to the point where you have to resolve conflict. Ways of prevention include selflessness, small acts of service, listening to your spouse, and sacrifice. These are easier said than done, but have made my own marriage a very happy one. This idea of prevention allows for a deeper love in marriage as well as mutual understanding of one another. When my husband feels loved and taken care of, he is sure to make sure that I am taken care of, and this concept goes both ways.

Family Stress

Thesis: With family crisis, arises a degree of family conflict, depending on the way the family determines to deal with such circumstances.

Lesson 8 discusses the family under stress. Most families experience some degree of stressors in their lives. These stressors can vary between positive stress (eustress) and negative stress (distress). In our lives, stress is absolutely necessary to continue to be better, get things done, and accomplish tasks we may not have without it. It's true that understanding our own stresses will further help us to learn how to best respond in the most effective manner. As this week's lessons went on, I looked back to a particular story from my own life.

One day I came home from church, and walked inside. My sisters were arguing, yelling and the stress level within my house was very high. I tried to make it to my room, but after walking only halfway through my house I thought to myself, "I can't do this, there is so much contention here."

I turned around, went outside, and got into my car. I was so frazzled, a little upset with the anger inside, and very distracted. I backed up without even looking behind me and I hurd a big CRUNCH. I looked up, and I had backed right into my mom's car, which she had parked behind mine in the small amount of time that I had pulled in home and then got back out to my car to go escape.

This situation, in my opinion, perfectly describes the negative effects of stress in life. There was stress in my home and within my family, and it caused me to feel very stressed inside. The outcome was very unfortunate, and entirely my fault, but I now look back to this time as a time when my family could have handled the situation better. My sisters should have known better, and perhaps I should have tried to do my part in calming them down in the short amount of time I was home. Perhaps I should have stayed home and tried to fix the problem.

Stressors are part of life. We must learn how they effect us and how we should react in order to best shape a desirable outcome.

Affair Prevention

Marriage is such a sacred part of our lives, and should not be taken lightly. It is truly what bonds two together and marriage is part of our lives to continue towards becoming more like our God. In today's world, fidelity is a huge issue. Affairs are becoming more and more acceptable which is far from what our Father in Heaven wants. Over the past 10 years, the divorce rate in the United States has loomed around 50% which is so devastating. 50% is a huge number and the odds are against us.

An article in the Ensign states,

"The high moral standards of this church apply to all members in every country. Honesty and integrity are taught and expected everywhere. Chastity before marriage and absolute fidelity to wife or husband after marriage are required of members of the Church everywhere. Members who violate these high standards of moral conduct place their Church membership in question anywhere in the world"

The proclamation states,

“The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. … We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God."

There is marital infidelity, emotional infidelity, sexual infidelity and fantasy infidelity. There are so many ways to be unfaithful to our spouses, but with God on our side, we can combat this trend that the world is slowly considering acceptable. We must beat the odds, we must stay close to God and we must be stronger than ever. This is the time of trial. This is a time of faith and a time of trial. We must prove our worthiness, our faith, our integrity and our love to our God.

Adjusting to Marriage

I love learning about the new steps a couple takes as they embark a new journey in eternal marriage. Most of the reason why I love it is because these very steps are what I am experiencing right now in my life. One of the quotes from the readings that stood out to me most was that the habits developed in the first year of marriage are usually what dictate the rest of the marriage. This really had me thinking as I came to the realization that this first year in my own marriage is extremely crucial to my life with my husband. This little quote had me thinking all week about the little things that I do. It helped me to be more patient, more understanding, and more loving.

Couples go through extreme adjustments during the first few months of marriage. I have felt this very true in my own marriage as we have explored different and new aspects of this marriage. For example, the top three greatest adjustments for us have been sleeping habits, time habits, and cleaning habits.

Sleeping habits has been a big adjustment, and a normal one, as we have learned. I love to cuddle each night as I fall asleep and my husband doesn't like to touch while trying to sleep. It's funny and we laugh about it each night, but learning to adjust has surely been a learning experience for us.

Time habits have also been an adjustment as my husband and I have learned how to better manage our free time from our scheduled time.

Lastly, cleaning habits have surely been a change. My husband grew up with a cleaning lady and he is not the cleanest person. I really like a neat & organized home and I have found it frustrating to spend so much time cleaning, and then to have it completely dirty again an hour or two later. We are working together on this issue, and my husband is doing his best to be better. I appreciate his willingness to try and work on things and I know that if we are both doing this, we will succeed.

Marriage is exciting, fun and challenging but it will be the best experience of my life if I think of it that way. Life is all about becoming more like God, and I know that marriage will be one of the best tools to refine me and strengthen me. I am grateful for my husband and for the kind and selfless man that he is. This life is hard, but we can look at it with the glass half full or half empty. We choose to look at it half full!!

Dating

This week we have been talking a lot about relationships regarding the dating aspect. I will be the first one to say that I feel so lucky that I was married young and able to escape dating early. I loved dating - don't get me wrong. But once you have settled with the love of your life, it's even better. I love that instead of spending my early twenties dating around, that I can spend it dating my husband and building my relationship with him.

One thing that stood out to me with dating was the story of a young girl. She was asked on 50 dates one semester and many people hadn't even been on one. When she was asked what she did, the answer was simple. She would often let boys know that she was approachable and kind, which would lead to them asking her on a date. For example, she would hear a boy playing the guitar and she would stop and watch and then tell him how she had always wanted to learn guitar and she thought that it was a really neat talent. Simply, she would take the first step in making the boy feel comfortable, and usually did it by complementing him, or making him feel good, which lead to him gaining the confidence to ask her on a date.

I think that dating is SO important in this life. It starts out with dating casually, and then dating seriously and then once married, the dating should continue. I believe that it is healthy for relationships. To me, dating is sort of "maintaining" and my husband and I have made the effort to go on weekly dates our entire lives. As we start our family and have kids, we know that this will become more and more difficult. Right now, it's easy because we spend each day together so it's as if every day is a date! But we know that if we can get into this habit, it will do great things for our marriage in tough times.

Dating is key to this life as we get to know and get to learn more about others, and our spouses.

Gender Role Confusion

This week's topic was that of Gender Roles. Now I discussed Men vs. Women last week and these are very similar topics, and mostly the same. But my favorite activity of this week was watching the documentary on homosexuality. I loved that the documentary claimed that some homosexuals claim that they were born that way. Well - that's not true. They did a study on identical twins, seeing that their genetic makeup is identical. Then, they figured that if they tested identical twins, if one was gay then the other would be as well, meaning they were born homosexual. Only 11% of twin sets were BOTH homosexual. The rest, only one of the two.

I do agree though, that some may struggle with homosexuality in their lives here on earth. I am a strong believer that everyone has their own earthly struggles and I do think that same-sex attraction is real. However, I think that we are each given our own trials because Heavenly Father knows exactly what we need in order to become our very best selves. He knows what will refine us so that one day, we can become like Him. I was so inspired by the documentary, and seeing so many men who had overcome this trial in their lives. I wish that I could show everyone it, because it showed me that we can overcome our trials once we surrender ourselves to the Lord.