Should I keep trying to work it out: The crossroads of divorce ( Chapter 8)

I will not deny it, but I am going to rely on the book a lot for this next one! Divorce is something that can hurt a lot of lives, first I am going to tell you my experiences with divorce and then I will go more into detail about what the book says. Luckily my parents have not been divorce nor have they ever threatened it, which has been a great example for me to look up to, however I have seen relatives and close friends have divorces, those are hard. To you as someone who is watching from the outside it seems like the solution is an easy fix but to those who are in the middle of it, it is far from simple. I have an Uncle and Aunt who recently divorced, I wont share what caused the divorce because that is private to them, but what I do know is that it caused a lot of pain, a lot pf pain for my aunt, and my Uncle, both sets of their parents, their siblings, even us nieces and nephews felt the difference, but I think that the people it hurt the most were their daughters. They have two little girls, one is 14 the other is 9. They have become very distant from the family, things are more emotional for them. However, the biggest thing that I have noticed is that these girls are confused. Now I hope that they understand as they get older that they can find happiness in one person and that they can always trust in the lord, but for now as a family our biggest responsibility is to help them, love them and show them that we care for them deeply, both of their parents still love them too for sure, it;s just a little different for them now. I Pray for those who have had to go through a divorce or are going through a divorce in any way shape or form, the only advice that I can give is to hold on to the testimony that you hold and hold on to the savior.  Continuing the spiritual side of things, this is what the book Successful Marriages and Families says in their chapter of divorce "That God intended from the beginning for us to cleave to our spouse and not separate is evident in Adam’s response to God’s inquiry of whether he had partaken of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil: “The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat” (Moses 4:18). In the celestial law of marriage, God has commanded us to remain together and keep our marriages strong, even when that means we must partake of some of the bitter fruits of life together." I love the end of that we must partake of the bitter fruits of life together. Something we promise when we get married is to love and cherish each others for time and all eternity, to have and to hold through times of health, but also times of sickness. If we are married, then let us try, try to communicate better, try to love more deeply, try to be open, try to experience joy with each other! Remember the way you felt on your wedding day, try to get that back. I know that it may be harder said then done and there are some experiences where nothing can be done, in those cases the lord will be by your side, pray and always remember the blessings of the atonement! 

The Warm, Happy Marriage: and the cold facts to know (Chapter 7)

I choose one of my many silly pictures of my husband and I. This guy makes me laugh everyday at least three times, he is also constantly tickling me, but also give the best hugs. Plus he is just so darn cute that it has to be noted. Anyways this post is about the warm happy things in marriage. It is the best! I love being with my other weirdo everyday. Dr. Seuss put it perfectly " We are all a little weird, Life is weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours then we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." Marriage consists of doing everything with your best friend. However, there are times when even your best friend does or says something that you don't necessarily love. At the very beginning of marriage that can be a hard problem to work through. I know that my husband and I have had a huge learning curve! There are still times where I get frustrated and try the silent treatment, and that is not the way to do it! That is something that I have been working on, My husband still gets annoyed at me too. We have talked through different things as they come up, but one thing that has been awesome with all of that is the fact that we can talk about it, and that we are both willing to admit that we could change for the benefit of the couple! I know that will not be the case for every situation but for now it has been a blessing. The Book successful marriage in chapter seven they talk about the different ways that marriage and marriage standards have changed throughout the years. They also talked about the benefits of being married, hey cool! you get even more benefits for marrying your best friend. This is what they said  "An extensive body of evidence documents that married adults are clearly healthier than their non-married counterparts (for a summary, see Waite & Galla- gher, 2000; Wood, Goesling, & Avellar, 2007). They have lower rates of morbidity and mortality, and their health benefits persist even when factors such as race, income, and health status prior to marriage are taken into account. This means that married couples living in poverty have better physical health compared to other low-income unmarried people, and that marital health benefits extend across all major ethnic groups." How cool is that, if you are in the market don't give up, I have heard that when you are least expecting it is when it will come! Have a great one guys!

Honoring Marital Vows with complete fidelity (Chapter 6)

Today I would like to touch on the importance of remaining sexually pure before marriage and then after marriage keeping the fidelity alive within your marriage and avoiding the dangerous trap of infidelity. In the Family Proclamation to the world our prophets and apostles have counseled us to keep the sacred powers of procreation between man and woman married. In the Family proclamation it states, "God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between a man and a woman lawfully wedded as husband and wife." It is a commandment from god to keep ourselves pure before marriage and then remain faithful and true in marriage. Elder Neal L. Maxwell said that "The 7th commandment of God is the one least heeded but the one that is most needed."I would like to switch gears here and go into infidelity, we have made it through the teenage years and into the marriage part of everything, but now that you are here in marriage, the next thing to avoid being unfaithful. In the book Successful Marriages and Families the author of the chapter Honoring Marital Vows with complete Fidelity they discuss a different way of being unfaithful, it is called emotional infidelity. He describes this as an "emotional affair with someone who has no knowledge about what is taking place, or with someone who is anonymous (such as a person in a chat room) or will likely never be encountered in person (such as a celebrity), or all three. This type of infidelity involves fantasizing romantically about someone other than a spouse. When we let ourselves imagine what life would be like with another person, we are not being fully faith-ful to our spouse." One of the ways that my husband and try to keep ourselves emotionally faithful to each other, is we talk to each other about our thoughts and feelings throughout the day. Especially if there are parts that included other genders and or sexual references. I am incredibly grateful
to have a husband who is willing to be so honest with me and share things like that with me. If there is something that is not fully working properly in your marriage i would encourage you to go to your father in heaven in prayer then continue forward with faith then let the lord bless your life with the changes you make. Remember that heavenly father loves his children and that he would love to see you be happy!

Enduring marriages Equal partnership between men and women (chapters 3,4)

You've done it! you got married you have made it past all of the awkward first dates, being single and living with roommates, and any holiday with family as a single person. If you ask me that is quite the accomplishment! Think back to your single life it wasn't as fulfilling at least mine wasn't I was always looking never really focusing on anything, and yet after marriage your not sure where to go or what to do? That is something that you decide with your spouse. Also have you felt like life just begins to drag on and that you as a couple need to get out and do something, i felt that at the beginning as well. This the part of marriage that we should be embracing, we get to know each other with no one else around. We get to see the different reactions of our spouse without anyone else in the way, its a wonderful time! It is my personal opinion that now is the time for us to prepare for the endurance, life is going to get in the way, but if we are consistently striving to be better individually and as a couple then when the time comes we will be able to persist and make it through on top, being even closer then before. Before I got married my father told me that "there really isn't a problem in marriage that cannot be worked out if both parties are willing and wanting to work it out." I think that is very true. Even through the storms of life we can pull through together if both are equally willing to share. This leads me to my next point. Being held equal in marriage. Men and women were created after imagine of God and Jesus Christ, male and female we both have significant parts to play in the role of the world. I think that even though we are different it has been proven that we have differences physically, mentally and emotionally, those differences are what make a marriage strong. We have our different strengths and weakness's so that we can lift each other in times of trouble! I am grateful for the example of love, hard work and dedication to each other that my parents have shown me and I hope that my husband and I can create a love and marriage that will be an example to our future children.

What has happened to dating?

 I know that I said that this would be a blog for FHE lessons for kids, but I am going to start off before the kids come and how to build a strong foundation before they come along. Many young adults in today's society have given up on the idea of marriage. There is an idea that marrying someone will change too many things in your life, and that you might as well just try living with that person first to see if things work out, sometimes however is not better.  The book Successful marriages and families by Alan J Hawkins, David C. Dollahite, Thomas W. Draper says "Although social attitudes are changing about marriage and the transition to adulthood, the lord's prophets have always emphasized the importance of marriage according to god's plan. Moses recorded that after the lord placed Adam and eve in the garden of Eden, he declared " that it is not good that the man should be alone, wherefore i will make a help meet for him (Moses 3:18)." What is it that has changed the worlds view on marriage, I would like to suggest that it is the way that we have been dating. Isn't that crazy, we have become relaxed with the way we go about dating, it is not as important to act your best on a date, or be polite. In fact it has become a little less popular to even go one dates anymore. Which makes the dating cultural a lot harder when you are actually trying to participate in dating. Again from the book Successful Marriages and Families "Numerous Scholars have noted that the culture of dating that young adults experience today is markedly different from the one experienced by their parents and grandparents." For this blog I would like to add a list of fun date ideas! I want to focus on ideas for the fall season, because it is Fall and I love fall. Ok! Some cheap and easy dates:

• Go to a pumpkin patch 
• Try new flavors of Hot chocolate, make a game out of it, maybe put a blind fold on and take turns trying to guess what flavor it is. 
• Carve pumpkins
• Make a fall treat together 
• Play a game of tennis, or Flag football 
• When it gets closer to Halloween watch a scary movie (that's not actually scary)  
• Take an old door, and go reverse trick or treating ( knock at someones door, then set your own door with a sign that says knock and when they knock you give them candy) 
• If it is closer to thanksgiving, take a camera around the town you live and take pictures of all of the things that you are thankful for 
• Go Paint balling (try to choose a warmer fall day) 
• Find a concert to attend and make it a fancy event 
• Try an art gallery 
• Play balloon darts (for extra fun fill the balloons with paint) 

At it again

I am trying something new with my blog, I recently married, I see things differently now and there are things that I want to prepare for. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints, I want a family, and when my husband and I start a family of our own, i am wanting to be prepared with things that i can teach them, and one of the things that we want to use to teach our children is Family home evenings, and using those nights to teach our children lessons. I want to start using this blog to post FHE ideas and lessons that may be helpful for us in the future and possibly for you as a reader.

The Rodeo of parenting

The thing that I would like to start with is, that parenting is not always what we imagine it to be. There will be things that we are not expecting like how many tantrums a four year can throw. I am not yet a parent but I have been told that it is never what you fully expect, and to always remember that there are good and bed days. Be careful not to judge other parents when you are having a good day and they may be having one of the worst days of their week. We never have a full picture of what is going on in someones life, so be careful to judge. My mom has a phrase that she says that is you are always the perfect parent until you become a parent.
In the past the influence of parenting for children reach out in the family, from parents aunts , uncles, then grandparents. In today's world we are seeing less of that kind of parenting and more Daycare, Nannying acting as parents for children. Personally there are things about both that I would not have liked about apart of either of those situations as a child, and some will say that it doesn't make any difference because kids don't know any better, but there are needs that a child has that should be met and even if they don't fully recognize that is what is going on, they still needs those met. Another benefit of having the parents in the home is the security that it gives the children, and it gives the kids confidence in themselves and others. The kids also get a taste of inter generational learning, because their parents are going to teach them what their parents taught them and they taught what their parents taught them and so forth. However the overall benefits for being in the home with your children far out weigh the other options. When you have both parents in the home you learn the nurture and warmth from your mother but then you learn firm boundaries from your father, and together that parenting style works like a well oiled machine.I know that for me personally having both of my parents in the house helped me to learn lessons that i didn't even really notice i was learning until later, such as how men should treat women, my dad was an awesome example of how to treat my mom and how she is special to him. I loved watching them play and talk in the kitchen and how i would dream about having that one day. Luckily i was able to find someone who works hard at a relationship, and know how to play but also how to make sure everyone is taken care of, he reminds me of my dad in that way. I am grateful for the example of my father and mother showing me what a healthy family unit can look like, and I am grateful for my fiancee who has the same goals in mind.
Even though there are different parenting styles, there are five universal needs that a child should have met. 1. Contact and belonging that goes with physical contact, but also eye contact, and conversational contact show your children that you are listening to them, and help them feel that what they are saying is valuable. 2. The need for power, professionals have called this giving children age appropriate decisions to make, help them feel like a big kid by letting the three year old pick out what he wants to wear for the day or what they want to eat for lunch. 3. The need for protection, this is the need to feel  needed. Kids need to feel that they are apart of the family team. 4. Withdrawal the recognition that it is "ok"to withdraw ourselves from hard work take a break and then get back at it. we tell ourselves the lie that we can handle doing everything at once and that is just impossible and so teaching children how to manage time is much more valuable then having them work consistently. 5. Challenge, we naturally give this one to ourselves, we set up challenges to take them and conquer them for the feeling of accomplishment, so the main thing with children is to recognize when they accomplish something that they have been working at. All of these things are very important to our children and their needs, so let us if we are parents or when we become parents pay attention to our kids and show them the love that we feel for them. And have a little fun with it!

Father's and Finances

We all have a father, whether that father is present in our lives or not we have a father. The worlds view of the world is that fathers are not necessary. The Media portrays them as idiots who don't know what is going on in his family life and his only responsibility is to make money and bring home the bacon. I beg the Question, what does father mean to you. Each individual has a different relationship with our father. Whether it be with your earthly father or your heavenly father.Our fathers have a strong influence on us as their children they provide and preside over the regular day to day things which makes them wonderful. One of the ways media twists that fathers are not important is that they feed to the fathers that they aren't important, well if you are a father than i want you to realize how important you are to your wife and your kids, or to your future wife and future children. Both sons and daughters learn something different from their fathers. For example sons learn what a man looks like, how he should treat other people but especially how he should treat women, he also learns hard work and dedication through the father. A daughter is taught by her father how she should be treated and what types of things make a boy a man, she will also be able to see what qualities she wants to have in a future husband. I think it is important in LDS communities to have fathers in the hoe because for both sons and daughters you get to see what a worthy priesthood holder looks like. Now that may not always be the case but if we as parents live the life style and the way we want our children to be then we need to understand that children are always watching our examples.
How did our world get like this, telling fathers that they are not important to their own families? Let's look back in time to the time of the industrial revolution. Before this revolution families spent their entire day working together. Work and family time were not a separate thing they were intertwined into one thing. You naturally were working to sustain and stay a live but by doing so you were always with your family. The industrial revolution changed the meaning of family. It made it so that work life and family time became a separate thing. Jobs became more divided and fathers began working 60 or more hours each week. Now i ask what happens to the mother and children of that family while their father is gone? They now have to fill in where he was before. As they fill his shoes, the father begins to almost feel that he is getting kicked out of his family because it seems that they don't really need him there. They however truly need him. With out the father the example, discipline and a different kind of love is no longer there. The money that the father brings in starts to have a different meaning as well, he starts worrying about how much he is bringing in instead of how much they need to support their needs.
I add my own testimony to this, if the father is in the home teaching and duding along with the mother as a team the family begins to function and grow into that of a beautiful family. Each family member needs to feel as if their role is important, so that they contribute to the things that make family, family. If we continue to live life the way our father in heaven designed it to be we will be able to continue through life happily.

Communication is key

In war the first thing that the enemy does is try to cut off the other sides communication, with out communication they are easier to trap and overthrow. Because communication is the key. It is the key in war, it is the key at work, and it is the key in the family.
Because communication is so vital in a family it is blamed a lot. It can be blamed for how someone feels or for how a person acts. Now communication is important to have and it really does make family life easier, we need to realize that their is a fine line between communication going south, and our own negative thinking. Each situation that we are put in gives us a chance to communicate what is happening but it also gives us the chance to think about the situation and interpret it the way that we see it. For example if you have had a bad day or things just don't go as planned, you get upset at your significant other., so to entertain your negative feelings by thinking about all the things that they did wrong, you begin to think that they are the wort thing ever and you really don't like them. How does that affect the way you treat that person? You begin to act differently around them. Well lets think about changing that negative thinking into something positive, like saying, wow my husband went to work for us today so that we can save up money, he cares about us that much, or say he cleared his plate after dinner and helped the kids wash dishes, I'm so grateful he did that for me, you begin to find more things to be grateful about. How do you think that will help you see that person? You begin to associate them with positive things. I think that changing our thinking can benefit many parts of our lives. Improving our attitudes can be an amazing thing! Each day can get better and better. Now it doesn't mean that we are going to be 100% happy all of the time, it will only help when we get in bad situations to have a way to cope and build ourselves and others up instead of tearing them down. Cognitive thinking can be the most beautiful thing but also the ugliest. Remembering to stop and relax then think things through could stop a lot of the heart ache in the world.
Back to communication, where does communication get lost? I believe that communication gets lost when you interpret what someone says, and you interpret it your way but they don't mean it that way. When communication there are three important things that happen, out thoughts and feelings, encoding, and a medium. Our thoughts and feelings are taking what is being said and putting emotions behind it which naturally happens. The encoding is the interpreting part of communication we take what is being said and personalize it to us, but a warning with encoding, it has not value unless it can be decoded. So try to be clear and concise with your codes, use complete thoughts. The Mediums or medias consist of three things words, tone, and then nonverbal. 14% is words and what is actually being said, then 35% is the tone, i dont know about you guys but my mom always said its not what you said its how you said it. The last percentage is 51% is nonverbal.
With all of this being said i hope that we will be able to listen to others and be more open to communication and positive thinking as we train ourselves to communicate in a mature way.

Family Crisis

Sometimes Chaos happens, it does, there is no way to escape the fact that we all have chaos in our lives at one point or another. Whether or not the chaos is a result of our own choices, or the actions of others, we all have chaos in life. However there are different ways of dealing with that Chaos that makes or breaks the way we feel about things.
Cognitive thinking is everything in dramatic situations. After an event takes place we think about it, analyze it, how we analyze it is how we remember it. Thinking about things over and over again makes things become more real to us and we relive that scenario again and again. How do you think that would harm us if we are rethinking of the bad things that have happened in our lives over and over again. In different situations we have an initial reaction, then as things progress we lose that initial reaction and we are left with our thoughts. Those thoughts can be everything as we continue on with our lives the way we remember certain situations changes how we see certain things. That also changes how we act. When a family experiences something together they also tend to think about the situation the same. because we feed off of what those closest to us say and think, We persuade each other to what we believe individually.
In times of Crisis everyone has resources, how we use those resources can help or not help the situation. For example there are two families in which both of the fathers lose their job. Family A turns to their extended family, dad goes looking for a job, decides to go back to school to receive a better degree and they continue on working and hoping for the best. Family B turns inward they tell n one about the situation thinking that they can help themselves, they do not reach out to extended family, or other unemployment agency's, the father and mother don't agree on who should go back to work so neither of them do and then they are left with bankruptcy and poverty.Which of the families do you think had better coping skills, and was able to learn from the experience. I beg you to believe that Family A had better copings skills that will lead to a happier family life in the home. There is something else in Family B's situation that i would like to point out. Is that they experienced something that Family therapist call a pile up. A pile up is when one situation blocks the flow of things and everything else begins to stop, or everything just decides to show up. However with that said, a pile up can be a good thing. Think of it as a river and a tree falls into the stream but gets stuck horizontally well things begin to pile up right there in that spot, after some time algae forms, at that point in time the tree is now a good thing because it is purifying the water from upstream as it flows through the pile up, it then continues on downstream cleaner and purer. Sometimes we have things put into our lives that by the end have made us cleaner and purer human beings. Throughout every trial or situation we need to remember that love can conquer all if we show that love through support and encouragement then we are better able to listen and understand others and understand what they are going through. One of the most important things we need to remember is that as we move forward with our lives dwelling on situations will not make them go away it will make them a more prominent problem, dwelling on things that we wished we had done or hoping that we handled things differently only leads us to a state of depression because we cannot change the past, the best thing to do is move forward. To go and live without entertaining the thoughts of the past we are able to move towards the things of life that make us happy. Being with family, and fully loving those around us gives us freedom. Freedom has been fought for, ever since the beginning of time, so why would we not fight for freedom for our souls.

The Birds and the Bees

Marriage is a beautiful thing when treated properly and there are so many delicate things that happen when taken into serious consideration. Marriage is the ideal setting and situation to be intimate with your partner. you have found someone who makes you happy and you are compatible together and love each other so much that you want to share all of your experiences with that person. And you know they feel the same about you. Something that I have observed as important is nonsexual touch after marriage, holding hands during a concert, or a small kiss after a family prayer. Touches like that are almost if not as important as sexual intercourse with your spouse, these small touches tell the person that you care about them and their well being even in the midst of social settings. It proves that you are in love with them for who they are and not just for the physical aspect of it.
Men and women are different, I don't think there are many people who would disagree with that, but there are differences in sexual activity as well, and one of the most important things about these differences is to one understand that there are differences and then to communicate. Those two tips right there may save you a lot of trouble in your relationship. There are four stages or response, 1. Arousal 2. Plateau 3. Climax (orgasm) 4. Resolution both men and women have these responses, but there is a difference in times and patterns, a male may have a very fast arousal, and short plateau and then reach climax all before a female has fully reached a plateau. Since these differences are so prevalent communication is key when making sure that your partner is comfortable. Researchers have found another difference in men and women. Women need to feel safe and connected to the person before they are willing to participate in sexual activity, then a Male usually feels more connected and safe when they have had the sexual experiences, do you see the possibilities of connection in that situation? That is why communication is key, talk with your partner the things that they liked and things that they didn't like, what makes them comfortable or uncomfortable, and then be willing to adjust to their wishes but also communicate your feelings of the experience.
Even thought there are the possible challenges such as Rejection, or feeling used, intimacy could be used as a manipulation tool, and assumptions can be made, we need to remember that this is also an opportunity for many blessings as well such as communication, a chance to learn to respect each other on a new level, you learn together and you learn to cooperate. The biggest thing that we need to remember for our partners is that it is a learning experience and that when you council together there is a higher chance of being strongly connected.
Another topic that i want to discuss is that of our children, there are some states that have laws in which no matter the age when if a female child is to have sex with someone then they are automatically counted as an adult. Which would mean that they could then have an abortion, with parents consent. That is so scary to me that there are young girls out there who are not being treated the way that they should. So something that i think would help advocate change that is to teach our children about their bodies, but to teach them that they are a special thing and as such we need to respect ourselves and the others around us. We need to be active in our children's sexual education in order to help them realize their full potential to be the best husband or wife possible.

Does the Honeymoon phase end?

I have heard marriage advice given to many couples, and something that I hear that always catches me by surprise is, make sure to enjoy the honeymoon phrase while you can before its gone. This advice makes me sad because the honeymoon phase is said to be one of so much happiness and you just cant get enough of each other, why does that have to end? May I suggest  that it doesn't have to end, I know that may be something absurd, but if couples work to build their relationship then I believe that many beautiful blessings can come from marriage.
Marriage therapist throughout the United states suggest that the task within the first month of marriage is to become one. However before becoming one there is a pattern that can help you become a super couple. The pattern is as follows, Dating, Courtship,Engagement,Marriage. And within each one of those stages there are different tips to have a stronger relationship, we discussed dating last week when we talked about togetherness, time, and talk. Each are critical to a solid base of a relationship. Dating is something that should be fun, and taken lightly, discover the things that you like and things that are not necessarily your favorite and decide the qualities that you want in a future spouse, after dating you move to the courtship phase, during courtship you are dating someone seriously with an eye towards marriage, once you have dated that person and you have decided that they posses similar qualities to that of what you want the next phase is the engagement phase, during this phase you are building boundaries, boundaries between you and your fiance but also between you as a couple, and between friends and family. How much are friends going to be involved, and where does your family fit in your marriage. It is also the time in which you are planning a wedding which can put a whole new level of stress on the relationship, this is also the phase in which you want to make sure that you are accustomed to their family, maybe make sure that you understand a majority of their family traditions and then make sure that you understand how your significant others family has worked, what are the expectations of their family. Once you make it through the engagement phase you reach the top goal of marriage. Hopefully by the point of marriage you have discussed important topics with your significant other so that you make the beginning of your married life a little bit easier.
Once you get married you begin trying to mesh two very independent lives into one. The 1st month may bring up challenges that you did not anticipate, i think that the biggest thing is to remember to include each other in your feelings and be open to discussions. But also be cautious in remembering that involving outside sources may not be the best idea, for example if you go to your mother you tell her about something your new husband did but you and the husband end up resolving the issue your mother still sees her son in law as the person that did so and so. Remember that you are now a team and need to work together to create a beautiful life for yourselves. Be willing to be flexible, your spouse is learning how to be married as well. I believe that there is not really a right way, that is the beautiful thing you get to create the marriage together.

How not to get cold feet

Picture yourself looking into a mirror you are staring at yourself in a beautiful white dress, your hair is done perfectly, and you are simply glowing you turn around and show your dad, and you laugh and cry together because today is the day you go from Miss to Mrs, your dad is having a hard time letting it all happen, but as you tell him you love him he trusts that you have picked the right person to spend the rest of your life with. How did you make that decision? It is my hope that you would have gotten to know that person well enough to know how they will react and interact with you and others. When do see how they react, we see this with time while we are dating. Dating is a word that seems a little bit outdated and old fashion nowadays. If we date we have a better chance of really understanding someone, even though that is not fully a guarantee but it does help our chances the longer and more experiences we have with someone that we will be able to find out everything we need to know about that person. A lot of today's culture is full of hanging out, and people think that they know someone because they hangout all of the time, or there is the other belief that if people live together for two years before getting married that they will have a marriage that will last forever. How realistic are these two beliefs, or how successful are they really?
Let us start with the very beginning, you have to notice someone. The science of attraction is very curious, what is it about a person that just makes you want them to be large part of your life. Well there is some actually science behind this,  the first thing that we do when we meet people is we put them through filters, and if they pass all the filters then we consider them for dating. On of the filters that we see typically at the beginning of the filters is Propinquity which means nearness in place. We tend to associate with those who are in our surrounding because that is what is comfortable to us, we automatically have common ground with that person, that we can build off of. Another filter that is close to the beginning is Appearance we use this filter as one from a distance, or more commonly known as a first impression, we as humans draw conclusions and generalize others based on the way they look and the way that they hold themselves.
Once we have put people through our filters we need to get to know them, John van epp is an american author that wrote the book " how to avoid falling in love with a jerk" In this book he suggests a form of dating to help us truly know someone, he suggests Together, Talk and Time are the three most important things you can do for a relationship. Togetherness is not the act of saying "yea we are together she is my girlfriend" Togetherness is the number and variety of activities that we have been apart of together. Talk is not something that you let one person do and then the other person sits back and nods their head saying yes to everything, when talking there needs to be a mutual self disclosure where both partners are open hearted, feelings and thoughts can be openly discussed. And the last one is time, Van epp suggested that it takes a minimum of three months to know someone, because you can see them in a variety of situations by that time. The dates that we go on with our significant other can be the most finical

thing for the relationship, and so i challenge us to strive to take the time to go on an actual date, a date that is planned, paid for, paired off. And just go have fun with it.