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Divorce, Remarriage & Aging

Many of us have heard stories where people are married and remarried over and over again. Maybe you have an uncle or aunt that has been married three or four times. Something that may scare us out of getting married or pursuing a relationship is that we may have a relative or know someone who has been through similar experiences.  Divorce is something much more common these days than it was in the past. It has become much easier for couples to get a divorce now because of the no-fault divorce. My goal today is to talk about divorce openly. I want to talk about possible reasons for divorce and what we can do to avoid it. Many hear the statistic that 50% of marriages end in divorce. While this may be true it is not a complete representation of marriages that end in divorce. Many assume that if we take 100 people and survey how many of them will get divorced that we think that 50 of them will. But this is not true. Only about 24% of people go through a divorce. But that 24% of people...

Parenting

Throughout my time writing this blog I have talked about many fears people face in marriage. I have also offered several remedies to these fearful events. Today I will talk about parenting. The thing that makes most adults feel totally inadequate and most teens and young adults quiver when they contemplate their possible future of being parents. Parenting is also looked down upon by many in society today. They believe that it doesn't enable fathers or mothers to achieve their fullest potential. Society will tell you that a woman who chooses to stay home is settling or caging herself to the home and not fully spreading her wings. Society will say that fathers are no longer necessary. Popular culture and television displays fathers as cabbage headed men who are good for nothing except some comical relief in some popular TV shows. My goal today is to describe the nobility of parenthood and some simple techniques that will enable fathers and mothers to have more effective communication...

Fathers and Finances

Are fathers even important? What good do they do to families and to the world? If mothers are better at nurturing and can also hold  stable job then why do we need men in the home. With almost forty percent of children being born into fatherless homes and fifty perfect of all marriages ending  in divorce less and less children are having exposure to fathers in the home. Fewer and fewer children have the positive influence that a father can have on the home. Many people today say that this isn't a big deal. Many claim that fathers don't contribute much to the home and that they are not needed. But are they helpful or needed? Though the world may disagree the fact is that they are vital to a child's healthy development. My purpose today isn't to prove that fathers are useful but to talk about effective ways of connecting with family members and things that fathers can do to connect with their kids. My hope is that this will help fathers know how to be better fathers and t...

Communication

Have you ever tried to show someone that you like them without using words? Have you used hints or ques that you expect the other person to pick up? Maybe you remember feeling frustrated when they either seemed oblivious to your hints or when they totally misunderstood what you were intending. For those of you who trying to date and get people to notice you you may feel like this is constant tortuous battle that will somehow end when you meet your spouse. For those of you who are married you know that these behaviors can continue into marriage but they definitely don't have to if you use effective methods of communication. Communication isn't just talking. Good communicators aren't just those who know how to talk and can talk for hours and hours. In fact most communication is non-verbal. My goal today is to describe an effective communication method that can help individuals and couples in conveying their feelings and needs as well as expressing empathy. Hopefully from thi...

Family Under Stress

Many if not all of us are well acquainted with stress. Stress is a part of life and often there is no avoiding it. But what is stress? Some might say that it is pressure, others might say that it is our emotions or thoughts while some may say that it is what happens around us. Regardless of what it is we can be sure that all of us have felt stressed at some point in our lives. We might have even have felt stress that seems to make us feel helpless, in despair or depressed. It is because of this kind of stress that some may fear marriage. We may have heard stories from friends or loved ones that when life got hard they drifted away from their spouse or other family members. We may have heard that others have had a great marriage but when life events happen they are not able to maintain their marriage and they get a divorce. My goal today is to help people know that life will happen and that we do not need to grow apart from others when it does, in fact that is when we should turn to oth...

Sexual Intimacy and Family

Many of us remember "the talk". Whether it was from mom or dad, friends or our health teacher we may have felt uncomfortable or uneasy. We may have felt uncomfortable because our parents or teachers may not have known how to teach us about sexuality. As we have gotten older and had our own experiences we may have had difficulties because of the ways that we were taught. Many of these difficulties could have come up because of the way we were taught. The truth of the matter is that many people do not know how to talk about and to teach about sexuality and its aspects. My goal today is to talk about the fallacies of many of the teaching models in sexuality and also offer the proper way to teach children and to lean about sexuality. First of all, there are many ways that parents and teachers teach sexuality. One of the fallacies that we often see in teaching sexuality is that we often see fear-based metaphors. A fear metaphor is not when parents or teachers use fear to teach ot...

Transitions in Marriage

Marriage is something most people aspire to. They aspire to find their soul mate and best friend. They feel that they will be happy as soon as they can get married and then life will be effortless and happy forever and ever. But for those of us who have herd the stories of when the reality of marriage hits. When the so called honeymoon period is over and reality starts to set in that you are going to live with this person at least until you die. This new sense of reality often scares couples and causes them to distance themselves from each other and grow apart. But just because this can be the trend does not mean that it has to be the reality for all of us. My goal today is to present the research on early married life and provide tips that can help couples adjust. Research suggests that one of the problems in early marriage is that people usually have their own private contracts of what they plan on giving and what they expect from a relationship (Laurer and Laurer pg 181). An exampl...