Week 5

This week we talked about dating. What it is, and how it has changed. My professor said that when he had people come into his office with marriage problems and told them how they dated....every single time he could guess perfectly what they were having problems. Which is actually incredible. I am someone who hates dating, but because of this weeks lessons I have gained a desire to do it the correct way. 

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have a culture that is sometimes very toxic when it comes to dating. We believe in eternal marriage that lasts beyond the grave into the next life. However, when you grow up being taught about what to look for in an eternal companion sometimes your view of dating gets skewed. Oftentimes after one date we decide to not go on any others because we aren't planning on marrying that person. Which in fact isn't the best way to go about dates. Dating is a way of getting to know people in as many different circumstances as possible. Rather than what we call hanging out, which can cause a lot of problems. Hanging out is just killing time together. There are no expectations. You often aren't learning, especially not about each other. If your day is just spent in the same routine, how can you get to know someone. You need to see people (especially those you are trying to pursue) in as many different circumstances you can get them in. That way you can know how they handle different things. In proper dating scenarios you learn a lot about yourself, the other person, what qualities you like in people, and what your relationship between you and that person is. 

Dating (the correct way) is about effort. A proper date should include:

1. Planning an activity

2. Pairing off with another person

3. Paying for in some sort of way (they don't necessarily have to cost money)

Each of these is tied to specific principles that are essential for a good marriage. When we go on dates we get the opportunity to practice those principles in our own lives. These principles are:

1. Presiding (who takes change in the relationship)

2. Protecting (each other, and from unwanted attention from others, bad media, etc.)

3. Providing (the effort of taking care of one another)

All of which are incredible principles, but hard to practice in our everyday life at times. This leads to what we call Assortive dating (which is known to be the best way of dating that leads to a successful marriage). 

Assortive dating is going on a bunch of dates, with a whole bunch of people. While having the mindset of just getting to know people rather than "am I going to marry this person". When you are getting to know a whole bunch of different people without any commitments it gives you a greater opportunity to not only grow personally, but saves a lot of heartbreak. When you date exclusively with someone it creates attachment problems when you breakup. I hope this will explain it better.

There are steps that lead to marriage 

1. Dating

2. Courtship

3. Engagement

4. Marriage

Each step has its own steps to go through. In step 1 Dating we should be getting to know as many people as possible to find people that you like. Once you find someone you like it goes to step 2 Courtship. Courtship is where you are exclusively dating someone. You aren't looking for anything else. We should never move to courtship unless we think we are going to progress with that person and build a life with that person. The next step is after building upon and testing to see if you and this person would be a good match for your future you move on to 3 Engagement. Engagement is an agreement/contract between the two of you that you intend to get married. This period of time it to talk about how you are going to handle things in married life. Who is going to take care of who. How are they going to raise their kids....etc. Which leads to the last step 4 Marriage. 

In todays society we slide straight to courtship without dating a whole variety of people, and without the intent of progressing with this person. We just jump right on in if we both like one another. We skip steps which can lead to problems later down the road in your marriage. 

Cohabitation does a similar thing. It kills marriages. I don't remember who my teacher quoted, but he said that the best way to prepare for divorce is cohabitation.

Cohabit

  • Less likely to marry

  • Less likely to stay married

  • Different kind of commitment

  • Decreases the value of marriage

  • Not sharing everything (mostly just their real estate, and their bodies)

When they get married they still keep a lot of separate things

  • Different expectations

Woman most likely wants or is looking forward to marriage

The men most of the time aren’t looking forward. Their mind is on now(sex)


It is kind of just like fancy hanging out. There is no development. You are just hanging out in the courtship zone. Never going to move.

Then when you do jump to marriage it doesn't end up working because the steps have been broken.

There is a thing called the Relationship Attachment Model, or RAM for short. It basically is a scale to show how attachment works with someone. The healthy scale should look like this.

  1. Know —-----------------------------------------------------

  2. Trust —--------------------------------------------

  3. Rely —-------------------------------------

  4. Commit —---------------------------

  5. Touch —----------------------

Each step should never surpass the one in front of it in order to have any healthy relationship. When things get out of balance our attachment becomes toxic and unhealthy. For example:

  1. Know —---

  2. Trust —------

  3. Rely —-----------------------

  4. Commit —------------------------------

  5. Touch —--------------------------------------------------

You can see how this sort of relationship wouldn't be the best. If their relationship was mostly just touch you immediately become super attached, because touch is one of the most powerful attachments. That and how well do you really know them. If you don't know them that well how well can you really trust them. If you can't trust them, then how much can you really rely on the person (other than to hook up with.) You think you can, but you really can't. It immediately become a very unhealthy relationship, because the thresholds of attachment have been crossed. Then when you do break up it causes a lot of pain because you became really attached to that person. Therefore making it harder to start a new relationship (and a healthy one for that matter) and open up to them. 

When dating we want to get to know people, the more you know them, the more you can trust them. The more you trust them, the more you can rely upon each other, and so on. If we are to create healthy marriages we need to be careful about how we date. When you get things in the right order, it makes a difference. God wants your happiness more than you do. That is why he ordains marriage. It is between a man and woman according to His law. He wants to protect us from heartache and pain as much as He can. He knows we can choose for ourselves what we do, but He also loves us so much it is sure to be hard to watch as His children are crying out in pain from failed relationships. All of which can be mostly avoided if we plan carefully how we date.

I don't know if anything I wrote makes sense. I really liked the class and the principles taught, but I am not the best at explaining things sometimes. 

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