Planning Ahead

  Last week, I talked about the complicated nature of dating and how some current trends in romantic relationship patterns in today's dating culture aren't the most effective. This week, I was reminded of this fact again as I had a class discussion on wedding planning and engagements. And although I am not quite ready to make those steps in my life, I have seen some of the common trends that can frustrate wedding planning, engagements, and, eventually, marriages that play out in the lives of my peers. Here are some of my thoughts and what I learned this week:

First, how we often discuss love can skew our understanding of relationships. For example, we commonly use terms like "falling in to love," "falling out of love," and "love is blind" to explain people's connections. As a result, we paint this false idea that love is out of control. This unrealistic idea of love can act as a pair of rose-tinted glasses, blocking us from the fact that love involves intuitive action and effort rather than love being a state of existing that can change at any moment. Going along with this concept, perceiving love as an involuntary and out-of-control thing denies us the opportunity to reflect on our behaviors and grow. Our feelings of attraction, like all other feelings, are constantly changing, but our attitudes towards a relationship and the effort we put in don't have to.

In building on this discussion of love, I also learned how an engagement tests a couple's commitment to one another. Often, we view an engagement and wedding as their separate stages in a relationship, but they are merely stepping stones toward marriage. At this stage, individuals have the opportunity to "practice" for marriage, increasing their commitment to one another and building on their cooperation and communication skills. However, current engagement and wedding trends can prevent this essential skill-building time. For example, when couples get engaged in this day and age, it is a public affair meant to stir up the attention of family members, friends, and even strangers on the internet. Some people get so caught up in making everything perfect and having the most expensive ring that they lose sight of each other and that the engagement is not the end-all-be-all. In addition, wedding planning has often fallen on the shoulders of the bride, her family, and a wedding planner. As a result, the bride and groom miss out on opportunities to practice their communication and planning skills together, which will help them further build a life together. When discussing this topic in class, my professor gave this insight into the troubling nature of current wedding planning trends: couples are planning how to stay separate, not one in marriage.

Overall, this week, I learned the importance of being intentional in your efforts and actions in your relationships. Boundaries and love aren't something that appears out of thin air. They require effort and attention to be built and applied with a partner. As a part of the changes and new opportunities that come with building a relationship and a strong marriage foundation, couples must learn to accommodate, share responsibilities and plans, and share their time. Although we don't always think about courtship, engagements, and wedding preparations in this way, these steps in a relationship can set the tone for developments later on within one's marriage. If we aren't willing to put in the work to plant the seeds of a meaningful relationship now, we can expect to see the fruits of our labors later on. Ultimately, it is necessary to have those conversations about the kind of life we want together now.


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