Relationships

In my culture and family the norm for a relationship is to begin with dates, progress to "in a relationship", engagement, and then marriage. This is if the relationship continues to grow. In our class we talked about how most tend to skip the dating phase and kind of slide through the rest of the stages.

We talked quite a bit about the Relationship attachment Model. Basically you should never trust someone more than you know them. Never rely on someone if you can't trust them. Don't commit to someone that you can rely on. Lastly we shouldn't become physically involved more than we can commit to that person. We talked about how it is so important to communicate and make sure you are on the same level with these points. If this doesn't happen the relationship could go through some rocky times.

Today we talked about cohabitation and the science behind it. This research that we found in both our textbooks and other resources that are not from researchers of my religion. I think it is fascinating that after all the research we can't find any positives from living together.
In class we made a couple of lists to help us look at it closer.
Reasons why people live together before marriage...
-helps prepare for marriage
-viewed as a test drive
-sexual compatibility
- the next step
-"it is the same"

What research has shown us about cohabitation.
-less physical intimacy
-higher divorce rates if they marry
-relationship is more likely to end
-higher violence rate
-children are 5x more likely to have parents that are separated
-lower quality of overall health

I think this research is really interesting and, if the research was widely known, could really help some people when they are making the decision of whether or not to move in together.