The Wedding and After

 This week in class we learned about the transitions of marriage, from dating to engagement, to planning the wedding. One thing my professor always stresses in class that in relationships, there has to be a distinction between the stages. I have noticed that especially in my church’s culture that a lot of couples like to slide between each stage of their relationship until they get married. My professor said some of the issues with this is that when couples slide through the stages, they aren’t able to have the conversations needed of how they are going to go forward with their future as a couple and the planning that needs to be done. 

On Tuesday we discussed marriage and planning the wedding. I was so shocked when I found out that the average wedding costs around $30,000. That’s enough money for a down payment of a home! I just couldn’t believe that people would be so willing to put that much down for one day. And it’s not even for you, but for the guests and your family. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put thought and effort in making a nice wedding, but the venue shouldn’t be the main focus of that day, but the union between two people.  

One thing I really appreciate about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that marriage is viewed as a sacred experience and the wedding isn’t at some venue, but at the temple. I personally haven’t witnessed a temple wedding yet because I am not endowed, but the look on my siblings faces as they walked out of the temple with their spouse was the best thing ever. Their faces all glowed with pure happiness. For those who aren’t members, a temple marriage is when a man and a woman are married and sealed together with priesthood authority for all time and eternity. In the ceremony both the man and woman make certain covenants with God that they promise to uphold and to keep to their spouse. One thing I learned today is that when a couple is sealed, they aren’t actually sealed right then and there. Like when someone receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost, they don’t receive it until the Spirit cleanses them. This is the same thing. Couple aren’t sealed for eternity until the Spirit of Sealing Power seals them together. Doctrine & Covenants: 132 explains this in more detail. 

Then in class we discussed what comes after marriage and adjusting to living with your spouse. We discussed how important it was for the couple to separate themselves from their family and become “as one flesh”. Now I don’t mean separate as in you have to live far away from your family, but you need to make that distinction that you are not the child in your parent’s circle anymore, but you are now your own family. Marriage is a serious commitment and if you or your spouse is still in the mindset that they are still a part of their family’s circle, then they won’t be able to build the marriage bond they have with you, which can lead to problems in the future. One of these issues can occur when a couple has their first child. After having the baby, it’s common that the mom and dad will start to separate a little because the mom feels like she needs devote all her energy to the baby and often the dad feels left out. It’s important to make sure that the dad feels included with all aspects of taking care of the baby and to remind him that he is still the most important thing because relationship with your spouse comes before anything else. 

This week has taught me a lot about how important relationships with our spouse is and making sure to take the time to still go on dates and spend time together is what makes a marriage happy and everlasting. 

Dating and Marriage.

 This week was a doozy. We talked about dating and falling in love. Yep, the L-word. Let me first give you a little background of where I am right now. I am currently a student at BYU-Idaho, nicknamed BYU-I Do. Most people here are either married, engaged, dating or at least open to it. So, you can imagine what the social life is like here. And being a church school that encourages marriage strongly, you can also imagine what the dating life is like here. I once went on a date where I felt like I was being interviewed for the position of future Mrs.____.  

So, what is dating? It used to be where two people would do specific activities together and take the time to get to know each other. Dating was a planned affair that had thought and effort put into it. Now it seems like when people say they are dating, they are usually hanging out in large group and somehow finding out what to do along the way. My professor talked about how this was not a good way to get to know someone because when you’re in a group setting, it’s harder to get to know someone personally and people always act differently when they are in a group instead of when it’s one-to-one.  Dating is especially hard today with the whole pandemic going on. There are limited activities that people can do that are fun and you always have to make sure you maintain proper distance from everyone else. It’s especially hard when you’re in college because you barely have any free time as it is and when you do, often you just want to sit home and do nothing (I speak from personal experience). But dating is important because it gives you the chance to meet new people and develop new relationships whether it’s as friends or you find your partner. 

 Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk called “Dating and Hanging Out” where he explained the differences between hanging out and dating, how dating now has become an “endangered species” and the factors contributing to it. “The cultural tides in our world run strongly against commitments in family relationships. - Whatever draws us away from commitments weakens our capacity to participate in the plan. Dating involves commitments, if only for a few hours. Hanging out requires no commitments.” (Oaks). I will be the first to admit that I often would say that I would rather hang out that date someone. The reason why is because I felt like if I hanged out with someone and I liked them and we had a good connection, then transitioning into dating wouldn’t be hard. But honestly, it sometimes made it harder. There’s been a couple times where I have hung out with a guy and I thought we both liked each other a lot and so I would ask him out, but he wasn’t interested. I mean it’s fine and we are still friends, but I wish I knew that more towards the beginning and didn’t get confused by the fact that hanging out didn’t mean he liked me more than a friend.  I’ve been trying more this semester to make that distinction between hanging out with someone and going on a date with them, and honestly it has made doing activities with other people so much more fun and meaningful. 

The second part of the week we talked about falling in love and getting married. One of the main things we talked about is how long we should date and the benefits that come from a long courtship. In the BYUI culture, it’s pretty common for people to date for a very short period of time before getting engaged. I know of someone who’s roommate got engaged after dating this guy for a week. This would be shocking to me except this happens all the time. People meet and they have this feeling that this person is The One and then they get married. No judgement from me, but I’m the type of person who is very careful and likes to take their time in getting to know someone. I mean, marriage in the church is for eternity, so what is taking a year or two to get to know someone in retrospect?  I know no marriage is perfect and even if you date someone for a long time, there will still be new things to learn about them. But I know that the strongest bonds are built over time and effort. 

Gender Roles and Same Gender Attraction

Hey guys. This week was probably one of the most important weeks in my class because we discussed gender roles and homosexuality, and what it means to the person and their society. This is not a subject I talk about lightly and I will do my best to be sensitive about other people’s beliefs. But because this is my blog, I am going to discuss what I believe as well.  

On Tuesday we discussed gender roles in our society and how they play a part in the development of children and whether it affects their sexual orientation when they grow older. We watched this video that was created in the 80’s, and one of the questions they asked was if toy companies are the main factor of gender stereotyping based on their toys and who they target specific toys to. For girls, they would sell dolls, dress up, play kitchens, and they would wrap them up in big pink boxes. For boys, they would sell toy trucks, action figures, and their commercials would have a tough guy attitude. When asked why toy companies would target their toys to certain genders, companies would reply that it was because that’s what sold. Whenever they would try to sell gender neutral toys or sell what was a “girl” toy (and visa versa) and change it up so boys would want to play with it, it never sold. For example, the Cabbage Patch Doll company came out with a Cabbage Patch boy doll, and they lost money on it because boys weren’t interested in playing with it.   

The rest of the video went on to investigate whether there really was a difference between men and women. There was a lot of controversy shown in the video because there were many people, mostly feminists, that proclaimed that there wasn’t any difference at all and that this documentary should be shut down for even thinking of it. But in fact, research shows that there are differences between men and women. One of the most important differences between us is the makeup of our brains. Women have more white matter in their brains and men have more gray matter in their brains. This means that how we think, act, and communicate is different. So, if there is evidence that men and women are different, why are people trying to so hard to cover it up? I feel like in our society today having differences between the sexes is portrayed as a crime, and that everyone must be the same in order to be equal. But I believe that it is because of our differences as men and women we build societies with different perspectives and we can contribute different things to enrich our lives. 

 Being different doesn’t make one gender better than the other, and I feel that people forget that. They say that we must be the exact same for our society to be united. I for one don’t think so. If everyone was the same, our society wouldn’t get anywhere, and no progress would happen. 

 

Talking about same gender attraction is something of a taboo in my culture. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I believe that love and intimacy is meant to be between a man and a woman because it’s the only kind of relationship that can carry on in the next life. I am not saying that those who experience same sex attraction are bad by any means or are less deserving of love, but I can’t support it either.  

I used to believe that some people were born with same sex attraction and that they didn’t choose how they felt, but they still could choose whether to act on those feelings. Thursday’s discussion opened my eyes to a new understanding about people with same sex attraction and how society influences their actions. In our discussion we talked about how society wants to gid rid of counseling for those who deal with same sex attraction. At first, I thought it was strange that the LGBT community would be against therapy but discussing it more in class I was able to see why. LGBT rights have only been active in the past few years, and so it makes sense of why some of them would be opposed to such counseling because they might be worried it would take our society a step back. I on the other hand think that not providing that kind of therapy would actually do more harm than good because research has shown that those who deal with same gender attraction are more likely to be depressed and have substance abuse issues because they don’t feel accepted and they don’t know who to turn to. 

I also believe that gender roles in our society also play a big part in whether someone is LGBT. There are set stereotypes in our society of what it means to act like a boy or a girl. We discussed how in school kids would bully someone if they acted in a way that wasn’t like the norm of their gender. This reminded me of a classmate I had once, and everyone called him gay all the time and I never understood why. He was a good friend and was fun to talk to. It started out as a side comment from one of the guys but soon turned to a daily taunt by half the class. I could tell he hated being called that and I felt bad about how he was being treated. But this memory made me question if some of the reason why people choose to be gay is in part of societal pressure. For example, if guys are creative and have interests and behaviors that are considered feminine, then they must be gay because apparently a straight man wouldn’t like those things or act that way. My professor talked about how one of his clients in the past came in because he was suffering from serious depression. As he was talking to this man, he found out he was gay. My professor asked him to talk a little about it and the guy said his family and friends almost expected him to be gay because he liked to draw and wasn’t a tough kind of guy. He went on saying that after 15 years of hearing this, he decided that they must be right, even though it wasn’t something he didn’t really want. My professor told us that the man felt like he didn’t have a choice in who he was. Everyone treated him like he was gay and so that’s how he acted. 

 My professor gave another example of when he was in church and there was a woman behind him that was talking to another woman. She said to the other lady that she realized her 5-year-old son was gay and that she was relieved because now she knew how to treat him. I mean, what? How do you know if your son is gay when they are a child, and how were you treating him beforehand? I honestly was saddened by this because this mother chose who her son was before he even figured it out himself. And that is what I think society sometimes does. It looks at a person and their attributes, and tells them, “Well because you like this stuff or doing these kinds of things, you must be this way” Just because you don’t fit a certain stereotype, it doesn’t make you less of a man or a woman. One of my classmates commented, “Jesus Christ doesn’t have ‘male or ‘female’ qualities, but the qualities we look for on how to treat each other and how to be perfected”. Christ didn’t judge someone based on their social status, career, or sexual orientation. He loved everyone no matter who they were or what they believed, and we must do the same.