Dating

We talked about so many interesting things this week in class! Be prepared to jump around to many different topics! The main topics at hand are those of marriage and dating. My professor said something very interesting that I want to share right off the bat. For those just joining us, my family relations professor has been a marriage counselor for a while now and really knows his stuff. He stated that when couples come into his office and start explaining their relationship he can figure out the problem in their marriage based on how they dated. You are probably making the same face I did when he told the class this information. What, how? I was also shocked. He went on to tell us that there are many aspects in dating that can lead to problems in a marriage later in life. One of the factors is dating outside your social class. This one to me sounded kind of silly. Just because you are of different classes means that your marriage is going to fail? No, there are several different subfactors when it comes to social class interaction with men and women.

If you date inside your social class you will most likely know them way better than someone who hasn’t spent their life like yours. You will have more shared experiences with them as they grew up the same way you did. Lastly you share a culture that could be difficult for someone of a different social class to understand. The second aspect of dating that could predict your marriage to fail would be listening to family members when you are dating. I remember when my brother and I were in high school he had this girlfriend that my family just adored. Everyone except me. His girlfriend and I had a class together and she was so rude to almost everyone in the class. I tried telling my parents that she was a very different person at school then when she was at our house. No one believed me. That was until the truth came to light about her. This was a pivotal point of my dating career. If my family members don’t like the guy that I am dating it is time to reconsider the relationship. 

Going back to how dating can show what problems in marriage you have is how well you know someone. In the book , How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, it talks about a formula to be successful knowing someone. Togetherness (shared activities/interests) plus talking (pretty self explanatory) plus time (more than three months) equals the perfect amount of knowing someone. When couples executed this formula correctly they had no problems in their marriage. The RAM Model is also talked about in this book. There are five “levers” in the RAM Model that need to be equal for any relationship to thrive. They are: 1) Know 2) Trust 3) Rely 4) Commit 5) Touch 

If you are putting other things before the getting to know part of dating you missing the point. When the levers on the RAM Model are uneven that is when relationships fail. If your touch level is as high as it goes and the knowing some is at the bottom, sounds like y’all are just friends with benefits. If trust someone with your whole being but can’t commit or rely on them, you just need to rethink that whole relationship. When all of the five things to have a successful dating relationship are at the same level then and only then can you have a successful marriage.