different than I thought.

So the reason I started this blog was for a Marriage Preparation class at Brigham Young University. Honestly, I wanted to take it so that I could hear funny stories about dating and get some extra credits of A. However, coming out of it, I have learned much much more. I have learned about how to balance relationships. I have learned about how to manage money. I have learned about how important it is to make God a part of your marriage. I have learned about the importance of cleaving to your spouse instead of holding on to your parents after you are married. I have learned about intimacy in marriage. I have learned about how having a child can effect a marriage and how to keep it positive. I have learned about resolving conflict. I have learned about equal partnership. I have learned about divorce and its effects. I have learned far more that I could have possibly imagined to learn. One of the most important things I have learned though, is that I have learned a lot about myself and relationships. We have heard good and bad examples in class for different principles and I am often able to identify with them. this has helped me a great deal to realize my weaknesses and my strengths. It is interesting how there are things that I used to think were my strengths but I find that in a relationship there are some aspects of that that I need to continue to work on and improve in. It is my goal to continually learn and grow and it is so important for me to be able to do that in relationships. The greatest thing about dating is that when you are in a relationship, not only do you begin to recognize these strengths and weaknesses but so does your partner so you are able to help each other grow and improve. For example, I am a very indecisive person and my boyfriend knows that so he is constantly giving me small decisions to make so that hopefully it will someday be a strength of mine to make decisions and stick with them.

So I was reading an article recently about how couples deal with conflict and I thought it was really interesting. It said in the statistics that 2/3 of couples that claim to have a happy marriage both have a similar understanding of how to deal with conflict. Once I read that, I thought: "Wow. that makes perfect sense. If one person in a relationship yells and screams and the other is quite but holds grudges that would definately make things more complicated." I honestly think it is all about communication. I mean if two people are willing to listen to each others arguements and focus on the actual problem they will be able to work things out. I have an experience that has to do with this. I definately learned something new from it. This last weekend I went to dinner with my boyfriend and our mutual friends, who are married. While we were at dinner the wife and I were having a deep conversation. My boyfriend was not contributing at all and when he would make a comment, he was always joking. This frustrated me that he wasn't taking our conversation seriously. But my problem was that instead of telling him that I just pretended like he was too stupid to understand. This embarrassed him in front of our friends and caused some conflict between us. I remembered what I had read in the article, so once we got into the car after dinner, I appologized sincerely and explained to him my feelings about the situation and he was able to explain his. The interesting thing is that there was something else about the dinner that bothered him more than that and I would have never known had we not communicated about it. Communication really has helped the relationship I have with my boyfriend and without it, there would be a lot of built up unneccesary anger. What a blessing it is to be able to express ourselves freely and still stay in a calm respectful place.