The Power of Dating

 Welcome back to my blog, everyone!

This past week, we discussed the importance of dating and marriage preparation. I found the lesson to be a blessing in disguise because I have been struggling to know what attributes to look for in a spouse. This is important to me because God has a plan for each of us, and as some might say, there is a lid to every pot. One thing that stood out to me in Brother Williams' lesson was a quote he shared from President Hinckley: "Don't date exclusively if you're not ready to get married." I took this to heart because, when it comes to dating someone for a long time, there are only two outcomes: it either ends in marriage or a breakup.

I found this lesson to be a blessing because I have been dating this guy for over a year through the ups and downs of life and family experiences. As soon as I came to school we decided to do long distance and made it through my first semester of school. When I saw him over Christmas break, we talked about marriage and how we both see each other in our futures. When I came back to school for my next semester, I noticed that I was not as sad as the first time I had left. This could also be from knowing what school was going to look like and already settled into my apartment.

As weeks went by, I started to miss him more and more until Presidents Day weekend when a bunch of my friends and I planned a trip to go skiing in Whitefish for the long weekend. My boyfriend also came, and I was super excited to see him. I was about an hour away and got a weird prompting that I should break things off with him. I tried to ignore this feeling, and it kept bothering me the whole weekend because he hadn't done anything significantly wrong while we had been dating. After the trip, he could tell something was wrong with our relationship and decided to text and ask me. I had tried to avoid this conversation, so I could sleep on this feeling that I had, and he insisted we talk about it that night. I called him and told him the feeling that I had and how I had to listen to my gut, so we ended up breaking up the next day.

Furthermore, I had my family relations class where we learned about the importance of dating in the sense of going on multiple different dates with different people. Until we find someone compatible with what we want in a spouse for marriage. This was also when the quote was shared about not dating exclusively until you are ready for marriage, which almost made me feel worse about my recent situation. I thought I was ready to be married, and I thought that I had found the one, but it didn't work out like that. It hurt more knowing that I had hurt someone that I had been dating for over a year.

Anyway, another thing that we learned in class was that the aspects of dating have changed and people are afraid of commitment now because they have been hurt previously. I felt horrible from this lesson in the sense of everything that we had learned about what not to do I had just done the night before. I have learned a lot and hope to go on dates with lots of different people and try to find what I want out of this life.

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