WEEK 5

Dating culture

What is dating at this point, honestly?

We hear it all the time “chivalry is dead”. We created a dating culture that is short of romance, bonding, fun, and quality time.

This week I had the opportunity to study the perfect steps to almost guarantee a healthy marriage that won’t lead to divorce, and it all starts with DATING.

Dating now usually consist of a poorly planned out 30mins- 2hours watching a movie, cuddling, little talking and more making out, if lucky a meal that might be paid for (but bring your wallet just in case), Oh and labeled “HANGOUT”. After a days or weeks of this you move into the courtship phase (Exclusive dating, dating for marriage)

NEXT… This is where we get kind of messy, next we would move into the “engagement/ proposal” phase but unfortunately society skips over this part and replaces it with Cohabitation where a couple living with each other all while living the same life a married couple would without being legally married. it has become more frequent; most people believe that living together to test the waters of what marriage would be like together will make a marriage last longer but in fact studies show that it does the opposite and divorce is more likely than if you weren’t living with each other beforehand. BUT if done right Engagement comes before meaning you’re absolutely getting married and there is a plan set. THEN BOOM marriage.

But unfortunately, the problem is that first couple steps... you didn’t spend enough time in the dating phase where you get to know the person on a deeper level and that first date just gave you a great example of how your marriage ended up poorly planned and short. It ended in divorce.

RAM

The Relationship attachment model is a model The RAM Model was produced by Dr. John Van Epp in his research regarding relationships progression. It’s a simple way to look at how relationships should grow to become healthy relationships and it consists of five dynamics to achieve a healthy relationship.

Very often we raise the bars of touch commitment and trust over knowing a person especially when deciding to have an exclusive relationship. To perfectly secure having a strong relationship consider getting to know that person over everything, if you know as much as you can before giving all your trust and commitment to your partner it’ll save lots of heart ache and disagreements and if you know more about this person you can really get a good look into if you really want to be exclusive with them and excluding assertive dating.

Assertive dating is where you date around eliminating and highlighting potential partners throughout multiple dates, this is usually done with safe dating techniques and more than one potential partners.

ADVICE

Take at least 3 months of dating a person consecutively while also remaining with assertive. Dating. In this three month before deciding to become exclusive you are able to learn and know almost enough about a person to decide if you would consider Bering exclusive, this is a very IMPORTANT time before courtship phase. During this time, you also sift through this false attraction stage. In the beginning it's common that you view your potential partner as less or more attractive than they are due to excitement in three months you start to see that person as they truly are.

It is important to experience the

“Know Quo” 3 T’s (within a 3-month time fame)

- Togetherness (shared experiences)

- Talk (mutual self-disclosure) be venerable

- Time (to begin to know someone)

It is important during this time you get to go on dates where you share experiences together, often going on dates that will test what they will be like in a marriage. For example in high school I was dating a boy who needed money for a prom tickets and my mother had offered to pay him in exchange for yard work (pulling weeds, trimming bushes, and making everything look nice) one day as I watched him do the bare minimum without putting much effort into his work I felt embarrassed and after he left I quickly got to work fixing all the small details he had missed and going the extra mile to make it look better than what was asked for the exchange before my mother could see “his” finish product. I learned a lot about that boy that day and even though I wasn’t interested in marrying him I knew that if I were to keep dating him he would most likely remain doing the bare minimum in our relationship based off the effort he gave on my yard.