REM

 At age 53 I know when I get married it will be to someone who has already had a marriage with children.  Honestly, I did not want to marry anyone with children because it is too much drama for me.  Children have resentment toward the stepparent.  I believe most children have resentment because the other parent did not involve them in the courting part before the marriage.  There is also baby mama drama, which I can’t deal with. 

When I was 12 my father got married for the third time.  First, before he got married, he was dating two women.  One had a child and the other had never been married before.  I did not know he was dating a woman who had never been married before.  The one who had the child, we went on a scavenger hunt with her, and her son and we had a good time.  We did not go anywhere with the single woman.  She never took the time to get to know us, but she is the one my father chooses to marry.  It was so hard to understand why my father chose her and I will never know.   After they got married, she closed herself off from my brother and I and would only deal with my father, luckily, we lived with another family who took the time to be there for us.

There is a Nuclear System of a family that consists of two adults and one or more children who are the progeny of the adults. There is a Remarried System (REM) which consists of two adults and one or more children.  Each child has been parented by only one of the adults.

I have always been a part of the REM system.  The REM family is the new family, if there has not been enough consolidation, an adolescent child may be extruded.  I felt extruded all the time.  I could never understand why I was not included in my mother’s household or my father’s. 

When in a REM family four types of understanding must have by the stepparent.  One, accepting the relationship with the spouse that has the children will take two years to come to normalcy.   

Second, birth parents do all the heavy discipline, which I can understand, the other parent may not like the stepparent disciplining their children and the children may resent the stepparent for the discipline. 

Third, a stepparent should be the best, fantastic Aunts and Uncles they can be.  When I heard this, I phrase I thought about how I love to laugh and hug children and found out how they are.  Don’t let them hurt themselves if they come and tell you something harmful to them.  Guide them to positivity and love them for who they are. 

Fourth, council daily with your spouse behind closed doors.  This part shocked me, council with your spouse.  Will the spouse want to council with the other spouse?   I found it amazing how communication is key in each relationship you have.  I would think that the spouse would not want to hear someone speaking of their child.

Most people want to have a perfect nuclear family, but in the world today most families are in the REM family.  I want to believe that I can have a relationship with a spouse who we can communicate with about his children and his children’s mother.  I feel he would but them first and not me.  I know that sounds selfish, but I don’t need the drama.

 

 

 

Contact & Belonging

 Michael Popkin was a family therapist from California who worked with overwhelmed parents and unhappy children, and he saw a need to give parents the tools they needed to help their children to become responsible adults. 

As we study some of the tools for parents it made me reflect on my own life as a child and as a mother how well my parenting skills were and how I grow up as a child.

Here are some thoughts he came up with for children and parents.

Kids need contact and feel that they belong to something.  When children don’t get contact or feel belong, they will start seeking attention and they will seek the wrong attention. Parents should offer contact freely and teach children to contribute to the house so they can feel they belong. 

Kids need protection, when children don’t feel protected, they will rebel and seek revenge on the person that has hurt them.  Parents need to teach children to be assertive but have forgiveness.  The only way they will learn forgiveness is if they see their parent forgiving others.

Kids need to feel the power, without power they will rebel and seek control there will be consequences to some of their rebellion but let them know they will have to be responsible for the consequences.  They can also choose the punishment.

Kids will withdraw sometimes when parents try to overwhelm them with tasks that are too hard for them to complete.  Some tasks make take a while to do but if you take a break from that task and start over again the child won’t withdraw or avoid it.

Kids will take on challenges, some may be too hard for you to handle.  Allow your children the opportunity to build skills.  Talk with them, be approachable, and be loving and kind to help them understand the risk they are taking. 

As I was learning these parenting skills It made me think about my life as a child.  I was always told I was a bad child.  I never remembered what I did as a child, but I can see some things that I did.  As a child, I did not receive contact or a feeling of belonging.  I have always been pushed away, put in a corner, and sent somewhere else to be handled.  I don’t blame my parents because they were raised the same way.  When children were bad you sent them somewhere to get straight.

I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, but this is therapeutic for me.  I realize why I was bad, or attention-seeking, there was no contact with anyone.  The only time I receive contact was when I was spanked.  No hugs no kind words no love, just a kid who was born to a family with unhappiness. 

I remember moving in with my grandmother, I was away from my mother, father, and brother. I lived in a house where my grandmother took care of old people and I sleep in the house away from the family with the older people sleeping downstairs and me upstairs.  My grandmother checked on me each day and made sure I went to school but at night I was away by myself. Still no contact and no belonging.  Did this little girl understand what was happening to her, not at all?

Contact and belonging are important as an adult, imagine a little girl wanting to be loved by anyone.  As a mother myself, I tried to raise my child so differently from how I was raised.

 In the back of my head, my mother saw that she needed to save her little girl, but I saw that no one loved me.  It’s amazing how parenting can be effective in one’s life. 

Finances

 I have procrastinated enough, I waited until the last minute to write this blog because I wanted to write about finances.  I could have written something else, but this subject stayed in my heart the most this week.  Finances are a very hard subject for me to deal with.  I know I am learning about family relations and about how to love one another, and how to have a good marriage, but this week gave me palpitations because it’s about finances.

One reason I dislike speaking about finances is society has made it one of the main reasons why couples don’t get married right away.  Couples decide that they must have this elaborate wedding and must save for a couple of years before that can happen.  The second reason is one part of the couple has a problem with finances and until they learn how to get that part of their life together, they will have to wait for marriage.  The third reason for finances and no marriage is, that I won’t be with anyone who has terrible credit, or they don’t have money saved.  I am not one to save for a rainy day and I will need help with this aspect of my life. 

Elder Marvin J. Ashton a member of the Council of the twelve apostles from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wrote a talk in 1975 about finances called “One for the Money – Guide to Family Finance.  The talk was turned into a pamphlet and a guide to all church members to work on finances in their households.  I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten this pamphlet and tried to follow it and just threw it in the garbage because I never followed it.   When I saw it this time I wanted to scream “NOT AGAIN” I thought I got away from it.

I believe Heavenly Father is trying to tell me something, but it was not what I thought.  This time I saw the pamphlet in a different light.

In this pamphlet, Elder Ashton states “marriage tragedies are not caused simply by lack of money, but rather by the mismanagement of personal finances.  Money management should take precedence over money productivity.  In the home, money management between husband and wife should be on a partnership basis, with both parties having a voice in decisions and policymaking.  Peace, contentment, love, and security in the home are not possible when financial anxieties bickering prevail.”

Elder Ashton has twelve points that will help families achieve this goal he believes.” I won’t go over all of them, but I will talk about the ones that hit my heart.

1.       Pay an honest tithing – If our tithing and fast offerings are the first obligations met following the receipt of each paycheck our commitment to this important gospel principle will be strengthened and the likelihood of financial mismanagement will be reduced.  I will testify to that!!

2.       Learn to manage money before it manages you – New attitudes and relationships toward money should be developed constantly by all couples.  Conversely, if a marriage partner voluntarily removes himself or herself entirely from family financial management, that is an abdication of necessary responsibility.  Honestly, I was going to do that when I got married but I see it is wrong and it can make contention in the marriage.

3.       Learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters – Couples should recognize that they cannot immediately maintain the same spending patterns and lifestyle as that to which they were accustomed.  Darn!

4.       Use a budget – Every family must have a predetermined understanding of how much money will be available each month and the amount to be spent.  Heart attack!

5.       Teach family members early the importance of working and earning – One of the greatest favors parents can do for their children is to teach them to work.  So true.

6.       Teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend – children should be responsible for financial decisions affecting their own money and suffer the consequences of unwise spending.  Money doesn’t grow on trees!!

7.       Teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare – As children mature, they should understand the family’s financial position, budget and investment goals, and individual responsibilities within the family. 

8.       Make education a continuing process – complete as much formal, full-time education as possible, including trade schools and apprentice programs.  This is true education is continual.

9.       Work toward home ownership – home ownership qualifies as an investment, not consumption.

10.   Appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program – It is most important to have sufficient medical, automobile, and homeowner’s insurance and adequate life insurance.  Make sure you have life insurance.

11.   Understand the influence of external forces on family finances and investments – Inflation continues to offset a major portion of average wage increases.  A larger paycheck may not mean more purchasing power and should not be an excuse for extravagant purchases or additional debt. Save save save!!

12.   Appropriately involve yourself in food storage and emergency preparedness program – accumulate your food storage and emergency supplies in a systematic and orderly way. Always.

 

As I was reading these twelve points, I find it amazing that President Spencer W. Kimball wanted to have this pamphlet to guide the Latter-day Saints in 1975.  This pamphlet and the words of Elder Ashton ring true today.  I may not be able to follow a budget, but I will work on other points that will lead me to learn and grow about following a budget.  I am grateful that I could see this pamphlet as a guide to help me grow and not as something to make me feel bad about saving and money.

 

Communication

 Communication

I was told that in a relationship you are supposed to compromise and agree to disagree.  In one of my relationships, my partner did not believe you should compromise until you are married.  We would have disagreements on certain situations in our relationship and he wanted his way and would not compromise.  I was taught to share my feelings because people could not read my mind.  He would not compromise or even try some things my way.  It was a very difficult relationship.  I am thrilled we did not get married because I learned in my classes that how you date someone is how your marriage will be. 

Now I hear there should not be a compromise in a relationship it should be a consensus.  What is consensus, it is a general agreement.  I thought that is what compromise was but the compromise in a relationship is an accepted standard that is lower than desirable.   I rather have consensus than compromise.  Consensus can make a relationship stronger compromise can leave a relationship open for discussion and never be resolved. 

With consensus or compromise, there is always communication.  Communication is key in any relationship.  Author David Lund wrote a book on communication in a relationship called “Feeling Good Together” in his book he has a chart called “The Five Secrets of Effective Communication” also called “EAR”

EMPATHY

1.       The Disarming Technique (DI)

Find some truth in what the other person is saying, even if it seems totally unreasonable or unfair. 

You must listen to what the other one is saying and, in those words, find the truth.  There is always truth in words.

2.       Empathy

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and try to see the world through his or her eyes.

·         Thought Empathy (TE) Paraphrase the other person’s words and let the person know their words are important.

·         Feeling Empathy (FE) Acknowledge how the other person is probably feeling based on what she or he said.  We all have feelings, and we want others to understand.

3.       Inquiry (IN)

Ask gentle probing questions to learn more about what the other persons are thinking and feeling.  I think of my daughter with the probing questions.

 My daughter can get very upset at times and I must ask probing questions to have her share her anger with me.

 

ASSERTIVENESS

4.       “I Feel” Statement (IF)

  Express your own ideas and feelings in a direct, tactful manner.  Use” I feel” statements, such as “I feel upset, “rather than “you” statements, such as “You’re wrong! or “You’re making me furious! 

We are so quick to defend ourselves when it comes to an argument that we don’t hear or see how the other person is feeling.  We just worry about our own feelings and don’t care about others. 

RESPECT

5.       Stroking (ST). I don’t like the word stroking, I rather use Praise (PR) 

Convey an attitude of respect, even if you feel frustrated or angry with the other person.  Find something genuinely positive or praiseworthy to say to the other person, even in the heat of battle. 

Sometimes in the heat of battle, we praise someone, and it will bring humor to the situation or calmness. 

Elder Neil L. Anderson wrote a talk at this past general conference “Following Jesus: Being a Peacemaker.  He stated, The Lord taught how to, then and now, in a contemptuous world.  “Blessed are the peacemakers,” He declares, “for they shall be called the children of God.”  By the shield of our faith in Jesus Christ, we become peacemakers, quenching meaning to calm, cool, or extinguish all the fiery darts of the adversary. How does a peacemaker calm and cool the fiery darts?  We remain confident in our faith, always void of anger or malice.

Communication is the key to being a peacemaker.  The Lord knew we needed to communicate with love and understanding and with the 5 secrets of effective communication, we can learn to understand someone when they speak their truth, have empathy for them, inquire about understanding their feelings, and let them know how you are feeling and praise them with love.

Family Stress

 Family Stress

Reuben Hill known family scholar developed the ABCX family crisis model to try to help families cope with different crises or stressors in their lives.  I have learned that if we do not have stress or crises in our lives we will not learn and grow from situations to be examples for others.

A – actual event

B – both resources/response

C – cognitions

X – eXperience

Let’s talk about how I am feeling right now with these ABCX crisis models.  The actual event I haven’t slept in about three days.  Both the resources and response are to contact my PCP and find out why this keeps happening to me.  Stop allowing social media to be my outlet. Cognition is to process my mental ability to deal with no sleep but learn from this experience so that I won’t keep going through this lack of sleep and be truthful with myself so my stress won’t last long, and I can get better.

What I just analyzed was just my stress, what do you do when it is family stress.  Will all members of the family recognize that a family member is going through stress?  It is important to recognize the place of pileups or prior strains.  A stressor does not occur in a vacuum but in the context of ongoing life.  (Lauer and Lauer’s chapter 13 Challenges to Intimacy page 286). 

Human beings try to hide their stress from family because they don’t want the family to worry.  They will find an outlet to help them control their stress, some will eat, some will excise, and some will do drugs.  Others will be abusive or become alcoholics.

There are different kinds of stressors.  Internal events that begin from someone inside the family such as getting drunk, suicide, or running for election.  External events that is something outside the family, can be earthquakes or inflation, which I believe everyone is going through now. Normative events are expected over the family life cycle, such as birth, marriage, and death.  Nonnormative unexpected events dying young, war, or being taken, hostage.  Ambiguous events for which you can’t get the facts and that are so unclear that you’re not even sure that it’s happening to you and your family.  Non-ambiguous event for which clear facts are available. (What when how and to whom).  Volitional events that are wanted and sought out such as freely chosen job change, college, or pregnancy.  Non-Volitional events that are not sought but just happen like lay off, or sudden loss.  A chronic event is a situation that’s too long to handle such as disease, addiction, or discrimination.  An acute event that lasts a short time but is severe, such as breaking a limb, losing a job, or failing a test.

Most of us as human beings experience all of these at the same time.  I found it funny that the last type of stressor is the one most used.  Cumulative events pile up, one right after the other, so that there is no resolution before the next one occurs, a dangerous situation in most cases.  The isolated event that occurs alone, at least with no other events appearing at the time, can be pinpointed easily.

Today I went through an isolated event, and I couldn’t shake it off me.  We learned that we must be truthful with ourselves in order for the stress to be relieved.  Learning how to cope with stress can be stressful.  I believe Heavenly Father wants me to learn how to control my stress because I am not only learning about how to control my response in college I am also learning how to do so at work.  

Intimacy or Sex

 “Today’s people struggle in a world without informing them that sex, marriage, and childbearing should be sequenced.”  There should also be intimacy throughout all this sex, marriage, and childbearing.     

What is intimacy, Wikipedia states “intimacy is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy?  Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving family friends, or acquaintances.”

Honestly, this subject was hard for me to discuss.  I realized having a relationship with men I had never experienced intimacy.  My experience of intimacy was fear of being alone and not being loved, which I think most women experience.  Women fear that if they do not satisfy their partner’s needs, they will break up with them, and they also have sex to avoid conflict with their partner.  We are taught if we do not have a man in our lives, we are nothing without one.  I was already insecure about my body and the love I was not receiving from my family, but I was nothing without a man.  I tried to pay attention to what church taught me but most of my life was with the outside world.   Love was more important than God so that meant sex. 

We have agency over our bodies and have a right to say no if we do not want to have sex with the opposite sex.  The article “Raising the Bar on Intimate Relationships” states we have an equal vice regarding bedroom activities and need to feel able to genuinely choose to engage sexually or not.  Sometimes the less expressive partner needs to be able to speak first so that both can be heard.

The book “Marriage and Family in America” (pg. 83) states, “some people have sex simply for the sake of sex, but several experts have argued that sex without intimacy, like the casual sex of the on-nightstand, is of little or no value.  At best casual sex fails to fulfill our intimacy needs.  At worst. It leaves us feeling emptier and lonelier than we were before the experience.  Instead of enhancing the quality of our intimate lives.

I agree with this statement, I have felt empty inside not knowing what I needed.  Intimacy should have been a part of my life.  I did have intimacy once in my life and was the greatest feeling in the world knowing that someone loved me and wanted to protect me.   Intimacy does not have to come from a partner it can come from family.  My Aunt was my non-sexual intimate partner.  I never felt love like that before.  Safety was there for me each day.  The joy I felt knowing that she was waiting for me to come home and greet me and tell me she loves me was overwhelming. Six months after living with her, I was taken from her, and it broke my heart. When I was with her it did enhance my life.   I didn’t tell anyone how I felt but I know that her intimate love was true.

Lauer and Lauer state “on the average, Americans have sexual relations from two to four times a month.  More married people have better sex than do singles.”  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland states, “Human intimacy is reserved for a married couple because it is the ultimate symbol of total union, a totality and a union ordained and defined by God.”

Single people may have more sex, but they are never satisfied.  Sex is just like a drug, it’s like that first high of heroin, it’s the best high, and then where is the next hit, so that same high can come again, again, again but it doesn’t.  The body takes more and more, but it gets to be too much and now you are hooked.

Intimacy and sex are two different parts of a relationship, which one do you/me/people want?  Sex comes and goes but intimacy brings love and satisfaction. 

Marriage

 Marriage is hard, I have waited for marriage most of my life but what I have learned I am glad I have not gotten to that point at this moment.  I used to think God was punishing me for the sins I did in the past and He made me wait until He knew I was sinless.  I have learned that God is not a mean God, and he loves his children, and he knows what is best for us.  Marriage was supposed to give me a person to love me unconditionally, without judgment or criticism. I wanted to be married so that I could feel I belonged to someone.  I was told eventually I would be married and live forever with this person in God’s kingdom.  Marriage has not come yet but it will.  God’s time is not our time.

When most people talk about getting married, they start talking about the wedding.  When I say most people, I say the woman.  Women are brought up believing that the most important part of marriage is their wedding.  By the time most young women are 12, they have already planned every detail of what that special day will be.   

The special day even has a checklist.  I found the “12 Months Ultimate Wedding Checklist.”  12 months who is going to pay for the wedding, set theme, guest list, appoint bridesmaids and groomsmen, etc. Nine months wedding cars, florist, etc.  Six months book entertainment, wedding night accommodation, three months buy wedding rings, food tasting, finalizing the menu, two months dress fitting, guestbook.  After four weeks of speeches finalize the seating plan. 

Marriage is secondary to the wedding; women are never prepared for the marriage.  We think that the men are going to be everything that we see on tv, prince charming.  He will take care of us and love us until we day we die, but he thinks we will take care of him as his mother took care of him.  We both have this illusion of what life will be when we must live with each other and learn how our lives will change.

Nowadays it seems easier to live together and get to know how each person lives.  Marriage is scary, living together is safe no commitment no responsibilities.  Living together you can escape. Sex is free.  Roommates can come and go as they please.  Living in this society is the marriage, there are laws in some states that are making it easy for people to live without marriage, they can still have the benefits but not the responsibility of that paper.

What should we do, marry, or live together?  Society says live, be safe and never have to commit.  Religion says marry and live together forever.  What do you choose?