Common sense... is it always a good idea?

A common theme I've picked up on this week in class is that many "common sense" ways that people think they are strengthening their relationships actually end up hurting it. I remember someone in class was saying that a friend of theirs wanted to be sure that their marriage was going to last so he and his significant other cohabitated, which actually decreases the chances of having a successful marriage. I think being educated in these matters and following the advice of church leaders is the best thing we can do to strengthen future relationship.

Man and Wife... I guess they really are so different after all

I really enjoyed learning about the differences between the male verses female brain. I have all sisters and my dad has (somehow) learned to understand the way women think. Because of this I never really appreciated that mens' and womens' brains just work different. I think the reason I like this so much is because I had a "light bulb" moment where it just suddenly hit me how our brains were different. I always figured that if a guy didn't want to talk about a misunderstanding we've had it was because he either didn't care. But then it struck me that what's going on in my head isn't what's going on in his. I've since tried to explain a girl's way of interpreting different scenarios to guys and they just didn't get it. I really feel like my future relationship in marriage and with my children will be better because I finally get that we perceive and understand the same thing differently.

Common sense... maybe not so much

I love the classes where you go believing one thing and come out believing something different- it almost feels like you're now looking at the world in a slightly different way. There were a couple things like that for me today. I didn't know until today that divorce usually hurt both parties economically. It almost seems like that goes against common sense. The second (and more surprising) thing I learned today was that better communications skills didn't necessarily correlate with a better marriage. I guess that "good communication" has been stressed my whole life- and besides it just seemed like common sense. My question is if it's not good communication that makes a marriage work then what does?

Theories and why I love them!

I have always been a firm believer that knowledge is power. This is especially true in the case of social theories. Let me explain: we all do things without conscious deliberation- especially the way we react to something emotional. This is why (in my opinion) understanding theories like the exchange theory, symbolic interaction theory, family systems theory, etc.  is so important. To further illustrate I'll give an example of me and learning about the exchange theory. When I do my dishes I sometimes will wash my roommates dishes if they are in the sink. Well, there are times when they don't thank me for it and this bothers me because "after all I'm puting in just for the sake of being nice they can at least give the curtousy of a thank you," but  after learning about the exchange theory I really had to question my motives. Was I really washing the dishes just for the sake of being nice, or did I want something from it? I decided I wanted  to do their dishes just for the sake of being nice so I change my attitude. The point I'm trying (hopefully siccessfully) to make is that learning about theories can change behaviors, but even more powerfully they can change motives and attitudes as well.

Man and Wife... not so different after all

I loved where in the reading they talked about different types of relationships. Those couples whose marriages were stable and who reported having extremely high marriage satisfaction were given a questionaire on the top reasons they thought their marriage was successful. I was really surprised by the results. They found that the top seven reasons given by the wife were identical to the top seven reasons given by the husband, and then from eight to twelve the reasons were similar but in a slightly different order. It was a surprise to me that men and women would rate characteristics of their marriage so similarly.

First Post!

Alright so I don't really know how to use this all they way but here's my first post. I've already learned a lot about the learning model. I'm a junior but until our discussion today I've never really understood why we used to learning model.