December 13th: Divorce and Remarriage

This week we talked about Divorce and Remarriage. We learned about about the six stages of divorce. The first stage is emotional divorce. This refers to a loss of respect, commitment, trust, and affection. The second stage is legal divorce. This refers to when the court brings marriage to an end. The third stage is economic divorce. This refers to the division of property among the parents. The fourth stage is co-parental. This refers to the continued co-parent decisions about the child's life. The fifth stage is community divorce. This refers to rifts in community because friends have had to choose to be on the side of one parent or the other. The sixth stage is psychic. This refers to accepting the separation and regaining a sense of being an individual rather than being a couple.

 Right now a marriage contract is the easiest contract to get out of. Before the No Fault Divorce Act you had to prove that there was neglect/abuse, substance abuse, or adultery. When marital satisfaction is low many people feel like the only solution is divorce. However, there are many reasons not to get a divorce. Some reasons are that it is expensive, 70% of those who do divorce regret it, those who stick together have better marriages, when a divorce happens usually the mother and child go into poverty while the father becomes distant, the child may feel that the divorce is their fault, and the child often repeats misbehavior.

A divorce can have a lot of negative effects and cause a lot of trauma in the life of a child. It can also leave the child with feelings of abandonment when a parent is no longer a big part of their life and they may feel that they aren't loved by that parent.

A study was done and 70% of divorce respondents said they could have saved their marriage and they deeply wish they would have. In that study out of those who stuck together within five years they were happy and 70% reported that their marital satisfaction was either happy or very happy. 62% of divorced women and their children are in poverty. It becomes important to really stop and think before we choose to act because there are so many negative effects including heartbreak.

Remarriage can be a difficult thing because as it is said you are not only marrying that person, you are marrying that person and their children. Remarriage can be something that brings happiness, but it can take a lot of effort to make it work. Sometimes it can be difficult because a parent may be not as willing to trust someone after their divorce. They may feel heartbroken and they don't want to risk feeling that way again in order to get to know someone.

It may take two years of being remarried to achieve a sense of normalcy. It is important that in the first few years of remarriage that the birth parent does all the heavy discipline. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase, "you're not my mother!" or "you're not my dad!". It can also be important to instead of being a disciplinary figure that the step parent in those first few years has more of a "cool aunt or uncle" kind of relationship with the child. It is important that they spend quality time with their step children doing activities where they can bond together and build trust and feelings of love in their relationship with the children. It is important to do activities or events that allow they to see that you love and care for them, and you are not there just to tell them everything they are doing wrong. Even though there are stories like Cinderella where the step mother was evil, not all step parents are unkind or cruel. A child may have a step parent that they come to consider their "real" parent.

It is important to go that extra mile and let them know that you care for them and that you will be there for them even during the struggles they face throughout their life. When we do this we can become a child's parent even if we aren't biologically related. We can have that loving and caring relationship that most people long for in life.

November 8th: Marital Relations and Sexual Intimacy

All lot of people say that it is good to have sexual relationships before marriage. However it reminds me of an experiment: 

Have a person drink half the glass of orange juice.  Tasty, isn't it? Now have the person rinse with some mouthwash.  Nice and fresh! Invite another person to rinse with mouthwash and then drink the orange juice. How does it taste now? Isn't it interesting that if we do this in the wrong order, something sweet can become bitter? Physical intimacy is no different – it is good and beautiful, and the timing in which it occurs is very important. 

When we wait until after marriage to have sex it is like drinking orange juice and then using mouthwash. When we have sexual relationships before marriage it is like using mouthwash then drinking orange juice. It can leave us with feelings of bitterness, regret, longing, loneliness, and emptiness.

Sometimes in relationships we get so focused on the physical aspects that we forget what is really important. When we touch someone we can get confused and begin to think that we know them when we really don't know them as well as we think we do. John Van Epp speaks about this with his relationship attachment model. 

He said that it is important to know the other person and that we should trust them less than we know them. We shouldn't rely on them more than we trust them and we shouldn't commit more than we rely on them. We also shouldn't touch them more than we are committed to them. The more we get to know the other person we can begin to trust, rely, commit, and touch them more. If we do this any other way we can become confused about the way we truly feel about that person. 

If you ever find yourself wondering what your relationship is really built on you take a step back from the physical intimacy and you will be able to more clearly see where the foundation of your relationship lies.

It is important to have a relationship that isn't built solely upon physical intimacy and attractiveness because as we age we may not appear as physically attractive and if that was the basis of the relationship then that relationship may begin to crumble and fall apart. We should love each other for who they are and not how they look.

Sex is like superglue; it can form strong attachments and when you try and break that bond it can leave you shattered and broken just like when you try and break something bound by superglue apart. When we have formed that physical relationship and attachment if we try and break it off it can leave us with some serious damage. As my professor said, "when you have had your lips on someone you can't just be homies anymore."

A lot of people choose to have a lot of sex and they still don't end up filling satisfied. I think this is because you can never get enough of what you don't need because what you don't need won't satisfy you. I think that a lot of times we see people having sexual relationships in movies and they seem to glorify it and when we don't have that amazing experience we think that something is wrong, but it may not be that way. As different genders we have different sexual response cycles so it may seem difficult because we don't always get sexually aroused at the same time. This doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. It is normal for a male to experience sexual arousal long before a female may feel sexually aroused. The real key is to think about the other person. As my professor said, "the best love making happens when they think about each other and makes each other feel good." We need to be patient and kind towards our spouses and realize that we are different. However, these differences can help us to become more selfless. As we do this we can become as the scriptures say, "one flesh."