Preparing for Marriage

I really enjoyed what we talked about in class this week because I am a freshman in college and all of the things we talked about apply to me right now. Sometimes in class we talk about things that don’t exactly apply to me right now so I don’t have a chance to put it into practice or really try it out. I loved everything we talked about this week and I hope you will too! 

This week we talked about preparing for marriage or in other words dating. Now dating at BYU- Idaho is huge as a lot of people who know LDS culture would know. You see a lot of quick young marriages and lots of dating. Which in my opinion is great! I love getting to know new people and making new friends! What was interesting was my professor started out class and said that in his professional experience 90% of the time he can identify couples marital issues by the way they dated. I found this super interesting! If you can already tell the way someone is going to have issues later on than that means we can change the way we date now so we don’t have those issues down the road. If you jump into certain areas of dating before its time then you are bound to have issues down the road. The areas of dating are.. Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, and Touch. Now in that order is the way we should be dating and getting to know each other. Each category adds to the one before it. First you have to know the person. Go on dates and have fun just being together. In order to get to know someone you need 3 things. Togetherness + Talking (Thoughts and feelings) + Time (3 Months) = Know. It takes about the average person 3 months till they really know someone. Second, you have to trust them. You have to know them well enough to trust them. Third is to rely. Once you know each other well enough you should be able to trust them enough to know that you can rely on them. Fourth is to commit. At this point in your relationship you both should have been dating for a good amount of time and been able to rely on them enough to commit to them. With this commitment you should know that you want to be with just and your relationship should be starting to get more serious. Lastly we have touch. I know what you are thinking. You are probably thinking. “Why is touch last?” and “You need to be able to be physical to get to know someone.” Well in all reality you don’t. Our generation for some reason has gotten dating all mixed up. A lot of times after we barely know someone we skip categories 2-4 and go straight for the physical intimacy which messes everything up as we begin to start playing catch up in the other areas. We shouldn’t even be going in the touch category until we know that this person we are dating is someone we really like and could see ourselves being with. We need to start with a strong foundation so that we can have a strong relationship and marriage. Every step along the way should be defined. I know it's awkward but determine the relationship. Decide where you are and where you see this going. Stop sliding from one step to the next. It’s so confusing for everyone involved. We need to stop this idea of “falling” in love with someone. Instead we all need to walk in love with someone. We need to have our eyes open and acknowledge every step we are taking along the way.