Dating, Marriage, and Cohabitation?

Well this week we talked a lot about dating and marriage. Ha, I just love going to an LDS University! Part of our assignment Monday was to create a plan for getting five dates after reading this article called, "Casual Dating is Alive and Well" I must say, I was impressed with this girl's method! It actually gave me a lot of confidence! It was a solution to my dilemma of should the guy ask the girl or can the girl ask the guy? So my plan this week was to 1) go to places where I could meet more guys because I honestly don't know hardly ANY guys here! Then 2) Was to look guys in the eyes and be confident with who I was! 3) engage in meaningful conversation 4) BE BRAVE!!! Ha that last step was extremely important. As I pondered my plan through out the week, I was really just trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do to fulfill this goal of finding 5 dates? On Wednesday, we talked about how dancing was just like speed dating. The lightbulb came on and I found myself at Country Dancing on Wednesday night. I went all by myself, and when I left my apartment, my roommates asked where I was going? I simply told them, "I am going to go find me a husband!" Okay first of all, it's not like what you're thinking! I promise I'm not one of those crazy girls that thinks I have to know if I am going to marry someone after the first date! But I simply meant that I had a goal, not one I was planning on fulfilling that night by any means. A very interesting thing happened psychologically that night. I was confident. I was happy. And I wasn't really afraid to be me. All because I had a goal, and a plan! Now I know you are all dying to know what happened... Well as a matter of fact, I met a really nice guy and he invited me to Latin dance. I went to Latin dance and met another guy whom I spoke with for over two hours and just had a blast getting to know someone! 

This brings me to the other thing that I found particularly interesting this week. It is called the Relationship Attachment Model (RAM). It is a theory that has changed my life and helped me understand so much about my love life! The theory goes like this... It is based on the following five things: Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, Touch. It says that the more we know, trust, rely, commit, and touch someone, the more attached we become to that person. Can anyone identify to this theory? I know I can! I finally understand my obsession of getting to know people! Think about when you were dating, or if you are single, think about your relationships you have with friends right now. I can almost guarantee that this theory is very evident in your own lives as well! 

Okay last thing I wanted to talk about is cohabitation. It was thought by social scientist 50 years ago that cohabiting was the most logical solution to decrease the number of divorces. What they found over the years was astonishing. Cohabiting actually increase the occurrences of divorces! How is that possible? Why is that? Logically thinking wouldn't it seem economical to live together? We could combine resources? We would also be able to observe the other person on a day-to-day basis. Would that not be helpful? Also, if we just live together then, when we decide that we don't want to be together, we won't have to pay for a divorce. So technically, cohabiting just makes sense right? WRONG! (Silly Satan things he can fool us...ha!) I will show you a graphic that will help me explain why that is NOT the case. 

Okay so lets say you start dating someone exclusively... you decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, then you get engaged. While engaged, things start become less and less "your's" and "mine" and a lot more of "our" things. Then when you get married, you lay it all out on the table and what's your's is his and what's his is yours. 

Now let's look at cohabiting. So you start dating someone exclusively. And you love each other so you decide to move in. But you still have separate bills. It's still his dog, her car, my cell phone, his tv, etc. Then you decide that you might as well get married so you can feel that commitment (increasing your RAM). But after you get married, not much has changed... there is still a lot of "his" or "hers" and not very much "our." 

I think the most interesting thing, were the trends found when looking that the lives of those who tended to cohabit. Some of the factors were that they were younger, less religious, lower-income classes, their parents tended to have a divorce and lastly, (which I found the MOST interesting) is that the education of their mothers. The trend is that those whose mothers were less educated, tend to cohabit with their partner before marriage. Yet another reason why education is so important. I hope this blog is helping you understand more about why the principles taught in the church are so powerful and meaningful and simple put : TRUTH. The general authorities are NOT making up these statistics my friends. But thank goodness we can take peace in the gospel, and to know what is the Lords will, through his servants, the prophets. May the Lord bless you this week and may you share this knowledge with all you know, that they may also find peace in their family lives. 

Until next time ;)

Renee