There are many problems that are faced within a marriage. I'm not married, but I have witnessed some of the problems that can be faced, especially within the first few months and year of marriage. Something I thought was really interesting was what my Family Relations teacher told us. He said that a marriage is more likely to last if you spend less on the wedding. Now this isn't always the case, but speaking in a general sense, that is what happens. How could this be? Personally I feel like if someone is spending a large part of their money on the wedding, not really caring what the price of something is, is a big indicator about how they may spend money when they are married and this can cause many financial problems within the marriage, especially if the woman's family is rich and the woman is used to getting what she wants because she has always had those resources(same can go for the man as well). Now I'm not saying that being rich is bad, it is how the money is spent that matters and could become the problem, in a marriage spending according to personal needs and the factor of income affect our living. Therefore, we shouldn't spend money on things that we can't afford. Financial problems are just one issue that might be presented in a marriage, but there are many others. I am just going to go through a few because the problems that might appear in a marriage are endless. One issue that may not seem like that big of a deal is sleeping styles. Everyone has their own sleeping style, some people like to snuggle and like to sleep with a lot of blankets and some people like to have their space and sleep cold. When you put two people with completely opposite sleeping styles together in a marriage, it can result in some issues. For some couples it is a major issue that makes at least one of the individuals concerned about the strength of their marriage. Another issue that might be presented is when a child is born. The husband might feel neglected and feel like he is not valued in the marriage anymore. This problem can be avoided though, it can be avoided if the woman remembers that the husband won't be going through the same things that she is during the pregnancy. The woman should try and involve her husband through the process as much as possible so he may feel a connection to the child as well. Also that he may feel like he is included throughout the whole pregnancy process.

Thank you for reading I hope this provided some insight for you :)

What do you think of when you think about dating? Personally I think about getting to know someone and making friendships. What exactly is a date? Elder Oaks gives us a definition of a date, he says a date is "planned, paid for, and paired off." This is what  the difference between a "hang out" and a date. Dating is something that allows us to find a potential eternal companion. We go on dates so we can get to know people, and we marry who we date; so make sure you are going out with the people that are going to treat you the way that you would want your spouse to treat you. Something I personally think is important for us to be careful of is getting into a serious relationship too fast. We talked in my Family Relations class about the different types of love and how when you enter into Eros(the romantic type of love, the type husband and wife have) too fast in a relationship instead of starting out with the Philia type of love(the love that you experience between friends), you find it harder to enter into the different types of love. I think it is important to become friends first so you can start getting to know them and develop a relationship that will last even if you don't end up dating them seriously, and if you do end up dating them seriously, you will have already gotten to know them and will be comfortable sharing thoughts and feelings with them. Call me old fashioned, but I feel like dating is so important and that it is important for the guy to ask the girl on a date.
Avoid asking girls on dates through a text message; the girl will feel more valued if you take the time to ask her through a phone call or better yet, in person. Dating seems to be not as valued as it was 50 years ago, but we can change that. Guys, make a girl feel good and ask her out, even if you just go out as friends, that is how lasting friendships and relationships start. Girls, accept a guy's invitation to go on a date and just keep in mind that its just a date, you aren't going to necessarily get married.

Thanks for reading I hope this was insightful :)

This week I have learned a lot about gender roles and the affects. The man and the woman are both very important to a marriage, God created us differently and gave us different roles so that could complement each other and fulfill his commandment to have children. The differences between a man and a woman are divine and beautiful. A woman has different qualities then a man does, for example, a woman usually worries a lot about many things, while a man generally can focus on one thing;  a woman probably couldn't run into a burning building and focus on that while she was worrying about her children at home, while a man could focus on his job while at his job and his family while at home. Not to say that men don't worry about their families, its just more common for men to focus more on one thing that needs to be focused on at that moment. I'm also not saying that women can't focus on and do their jobs, they just generally have a harder time focusing on one particular thing at a given moment. Gender roles are so essential to God's plan and learning about them has been very beneficial to me.

Thanks for reading :)

In my family relations class, we have been talking a lot about culture this past week. We discussed how culture is basically patterns or beliefs or behaviors/ norms in any setting. Traditions are a major part of culture, every family has different traditions that they practice, a tradition would be defined as an inherited pattern or belief and behaviors. Our family cultures affect a larger culture as a whole and vice versa, all of our traditions have an influence on how we act in a lager culture. The larger culture, like the LDS church for example, affects how each family will behave within the family culture. Culture also entails social class but one thing we talked about with social class is that the extremes, super high or super low class, could become a problem in society. Culture defines who we are and it is so important to understand the family unit.

Thanks For Reading :) 

In my family relations class, we talked about theories in the family. We talked about how a theory is an attempt to explain a family phenomenon, or why something happened. I won't go into too much detail describing each theory, but I do want to tell you that one thing I thought was really interesting, was the term homeostatic mechanism. A homeostatic mechanism is the idea that something effects something else, for example: when mom isn't happy that effects everyone's mood and everyone isn't happy. I thought this was interesting that one person's mood can effect the other family member's mood as well. Because the family is so important to God's plan, I think that it is important to understand what homeostatic mechanism is so that we can prevent chaos and return to God with honor.