So class this week was interesting because we only met once but what we walked about was fascination to me because it coincided perfectly with the situation that my wife and I are in right now.

Interestingly the first thing we began talking about was “Why do people like going out and camping?” We had a few people who were not too enthusiastic about the idea of going out and camping in the cold (it is too cold to snow up in Rexburg right now) but I digress. We talked about how there is something bonding about going out in nature and ‘working for survival and comfort’ that is provides a unique opportunity to work side by side with someone and get to know them and the work ethic that they have. I don’t know if you have ever heard the adage that goes something along the lines of “Don’t marry someone until you have taken them out camping”. We talked about how that is a unique opportunity to see not only how people are with working and providing, but also to see how they handle being away from day to day comforts that we tend to take for granted.

We moved the conversation to the past and the industrial revolution and how things in the dynamic of the family changed so dramatically with women and children leaving the home to work. We talked about how that was ‘supposed’ to make life easier because that would get rid of the financial burden that the family had and since that is the biggest stressor it would make sense that getting rid of it would solve a lot of problems right? Wrong as the families separated and were more influenced by the world without any kind regulation on the part of the parents it just drove families apart and they did not rely on one another. The flip side of that being when people would work on farms as a family, and would trade goods for goods and money was always tight, but the families were always together, the kids being taught by the parents and the families learning how to work together. We talked about the benefits and the costs of the husband and wife both working now a days because the mentality that we have is more like the industrial revolution.

If we look at the American history most people would readily admit to the industrial revolution being one of the hardest times that America had when it came to the family and financial situations. But if we could let go of that a bit and think more about the time of ‘farming’ and the things that the families gained by working side by side, relying on one another and trusting not just each other but the community as a whole things worked more smoothly for family life.

There was a study done I think shortly after 2000 of men and women who work outside the home. The average income for him was $42,000/yr and after one maternity leave for her was $21,000/yr but when they factored in the cost of child care the final amount that they were making as a couple was a grand total of $40,000. So the couple was in the end paying $23,000 so their child could be raised by a stranger, not having enough time as a family, constantly being worn out by their jobs and not getting to know their spouse or their child as much as they could.

I know that is not the standard for everything, but when considering the benefits of having two parents working outside the home remember to factor in more than just the financial benefits, but the impact that will be felt by your family structure.

My post this week will be a bit shorter than most of my other posts have been for two main reasons. 1. I didn’t take a lot of notes in class because of the way the discussion went (I had a hard enough time taking the notes I did) 2. I am crazy tired right now and am having a hard time focusing.

Our discussion was focused around the question

“Why do bad things happen to good people/good families?”

We talked about a few different points

-          Because this world is not designed to be easy.

-          Because it is in the hard things that we do that we find and define ourselves.

-          When bad things happen you can ether let is define you or refine you, as a family you can use it to let you break apart more or come together more.

-          Bad things happen because that is the plan that God set up and we knew that when we came here.

-          Bad is a possibility to everyone, to assume that bad things are not or will not happen to everyone is a statistical improbability.

It was funny to me because one of my hobbies is to collect quotes that are about getting over hard things and so I kept having quotes roll around my mind for the entire class period which gave me a chuckle. We talked about hard times and the things that we as students have experienced and the things we have learned from those hard things.

We have a student who speaks Chinese and my teacher asked her to write “Crisis” which consists of two symbols that by themselves stand for “Danger” and “Opportunity”. We began talking about the opportunities that come from hard times and how people and families can do two things when it comes to hard times, they can ether let those hard times put wedges in the relationships or they can turn towards one another and lean on one another instead of away from one another. Apparently women have more of a tendency to go to her mom and talk about things with her mom and men have a tendency to draw inwards and just ‘deal’ with the problem alone.

Both of these reaction is allowing the wedge to be put in the relationship, but if instead of that she talks to him and he listens then he talks about his pain they can actually grow closer together, but to grow closes of all they can both turn to Christ and allow him to wrap them together and help honor their marriage vows and help them maintain them.

If you are willing to put yourself aside and focus on your spouse and they focus on you then there is not anything that can tear you apart but it cannot be one person putting everything in, it must be both of you putting everything you have on the table and reaping the benefits of the meal.

So this week we had an interesting discussion about sex in class, and it was not one of those that everyone was blushing and giggling about the whole time we talked about sex and the effects of it on relationships. We also talked about the different effects of the hormones in the body and even about the different stages of sex. I had no idea people had classified it into four different stages of sex. It makes sense that someone would have but I had honestly never thought about it like that, but I will get to that later. We also talked about the different problems that happen in marriage with intimacy and the different ways that men and women look at things and how misunderstandings can come into the mix without either him or her realizing.

On to the fun part of what happened in class. The first and most obvious thing that we talked about to get it out of the way was the physiological differences between arousal of men and women. We were talking about the 4 stages of sex as we talked about this, and the first stage is called Excitement.

1.       Excitement: When the person is aroused. Men have an erection, Women lubricate, but both prepare for Sex.

2.       Plateau: Pre Orgasm. Men tend to get to and through this much quicker than Women.

3.       Orgasm: Women sometimes take longer of getting here, but sometimes Women can experience more than one, Men cannot.

4.       Resolution: coming down from the Orgasm, usually women come down in descending waves while men drop like a rock.

The hormones experienced during sex.

-          Serotonin: Feels a sense of emotional warmth.

-          Dopamine: Feeling of excitement/thrill.

-          Oxytocin: A strong sense of Bonding.

Each of these hormones creates a blend that in all humans foster or essentially throw miracle grow in relationships, fondness and ultimately love. They are each important individually and quite honestly serve important roles.

We talked about some of the problems that come with intimacy. There are many potential problems in intimacy of any kind. There is no ‘one size fixes all’ when it comes to problems in the marriage. Sometimes men don’t understand that Women may want snuggling/kissing to be a totally separate act than sex. Sometimes she needs to know that those things are still there in the marriage in order to feel more secure in the marriage. It is something that men need to remember and be sensitive too, however on the flip side of that is that when women say no to sex for men it makes men feel as though something is wrong (even if there is not) and it can add to the problem if women don’t tell the guy ‘why’ they don’t want sex. So all in all both men and women need to be willing to talk about whatever they are feeling because let’s face it, it is hard to know what is going on in another person’s mind.