Sexual Intimacy

This week I learned a lot of new things about sexual intimacy. I never thought about some of these reasons why we demonstrate intimacy. 
Sexual intimacy is used to....
~ Express love
~ Create families
~ Facilitate closeness to God
~ Renew 'covenants'

Proper marital intimacy can help a couple...
~ Learn selflessness and patience
~ Build commitment
~ Establish and reinforce proper boundaries around the couple
~ Facilitate warmth and forgiveness
~ Give comfort and assurance of love and mutual interest

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World it says, "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

If demonstrated correctly and appropriately, sexual intimacy can be a blessing to a couples relationship. Sexual intimacy is sacred therefore it should be taken seriously.

Preparing for Children

This week I learned how marriages usually decline as each child is born and as the children leave the house the marriages get better. There are many ways to prevent the decline of marital satisfaction from happening. One way that I really liked is to prepare before the child is even born.
Here are a few things to do before a child is born:

• Involve the husband in prenatal check ups

• Engage the father in bonding events (like when the baby kicks)

• Make sure the father takes precedence over others during the birth. This one is very important because when the child is born the father will not get as much    attention as he did before. It seems kind of silly but it is true. So ensuring that he is put first over all other family members is very important. 
• Discuss specific changes that will happen when the baby is born. Doing this will help prepare couples better so they can understand what adjustments will need to be made.

I think that all of these tips described are very important to do and I definitely will involve my future husband in my pregnancies using these suggestions.

LOVE

In class we have been discussing love, *sigh,*one of my favorite topics. I have always been a hopeless romantic and reading these past few chapters in our textbook has really opened my mind further to reality. I just like the idea of love and I look forward to being married! I can't wait to have a man in my life that will hug me often, make dinner for me sometimes, hold my hand when we walk somewhere, and say "I love you" a lot. Sounds like a love song right? Well, it's true. I look forward to all of this and I always have. Marriage is the one thing that I have dreamed about and I can't wait to marry "the man of my dreams" in the temple one day.

It is probably no surprise to you that I have a "Husband Qualities List." I have been adding to it every once in a while because it is important to me. Unfortunately, the perfect man for me isn't out there. There is no such thing is a perfect man but there is nothing wrong with having high standards. However, there is a difference between high standards and having unrealistic qualities. I'm sure a lot of the things on my list probably won't be true about my future husband. But like I said having standards is important.

In class we discussed four different types of love: Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape.
Storge: Is the type of love between a parent and a child. It refers to commitment, emotion, responsibility, and connection.
Philia: Is the love we have between friends, like a brotherly love.
Eros: Is physical love--lustful, sexual, and romantic.
Agape: Is more like charitable love.

Going through all of these types of love has made me realize that a marriage really should include all of  these types not just one (like Eros). I think most people think that love is all about the intimacy but it is much more than that. I am grateful to be able to learn more about marriage so I can be more prepared when my time comes to be sealed for time and all eternity. 

Gender Difference

In class this week we talked about gender difference and how boys and girls are raised differently. Females and males are very different from each other as we discussed in class we made a list to expand on the topic.

     Females:

• Cooperative
• Detail Oriented
• Relationship Orientation
• More Verbal
• Aware
• Multitasks 

     Males:

• Parallel 
• Competitive
• Career
• Leadership
• Protective
• Aggression 
• Task Oriented

It was also interesting to discuss how boys and girls play with different toys and if they play with gender specific toys of the opposite sex then they would be considered weird by some people. I definitely disagree with this statement. Boys and girls play with toys they enjoy and it doesn't mean something is wrong with them. They will probably grow out of it eventually anyways.

                                  

Moving

This week we read an article about families in Mexico whose lives had been changed because of moving to the United States. It was very interesting to see how it affected the parents and the children. In some situations the father of the family will go to the United States first to make money to provide for his family in hopes that they will soon join him. When this happens the mother has to take over as the "head" of the house or even the next oldest man in the household. This can change the whole dynamics of a family. When the family eventually moves to the U.S. it is hard for them to adjust to having their dad back in their lives. Not only is that difficult but they also have to adjust to a new lifestyle; living in a country that is completely different from their own. The circumstances are not the same for every family but in most families it is a tough situation to be in. 

After learning about this I thought about how moving to another state affected me. I was born and raised in Athens, Ohio but, when I graduated from high school my parents moved to Provo, Utah. When I came "home" for the holidays it was just not the same for me. I didn't know anyone in the ward and I just wanted to be in my true home in Ohio. Even though this was not as big of a change as it was for many families moving to the U.S., it was still a hard adjustment for me.

This is a picture of my neighborhood in Ohio in the Fall. :)