Concept I Take With Me

Because of this class I feel that I will be able to bring a better form of communication with all of my personal relationships.  Before taking this class I felt that I had pretty good communication skills with ones that are close to me.  However, I realized that I had a lot of areas that I could improve my way of communicating with others.  One thing that I felt that needed to be changed is how I tend to voice my opinion to others when that is not what they are looking for from me.  I also learned that avoiding a situation that is built around tension needs to be resolved in a timely manner.  I have learned that it is not a good idea for the problem to linger on, or else it could damage the relationship beyond repair.  These concepts will help build relationships that I already have, and I feel that it will make me a better communicator with others that are close in my life.

What I liked, disliked, and improvements

What I liked about the class was the fact that the assignments were very self explanatory.  With past online classes that I took the assignments were not very user friendly like this course was.  The fact that our instructor also responded to our emails very quickly was another thing I like about this online course.  One thing that I didn't like too much about the course was the twelve hour waiting period between posts.  With my schedule outside of school it sometimes was tough to reach that window.  It wasn't that big of a dislike, but it was something that I didn't like very much.  I wouldn't really change anything about the course.  I felt that it was very smooth operating and very user friendly.  The assignments were easy to comprehend, and the teaching factor was very useful with the instructor responding quickly to emails.  Don't change a thing...well maybe the twelve hour window factor ;).  Thanks for a great class!!!

What I learned

Internet classes are something that people (including myself) think are going to be much easier then an in person lecture course.  This is so far away from being the truth.  Rather than being easier it actually is a lot more tough.  Some reasons from my personal experience are the factors of procrastination and time management.  I would seem to wait until the last minute on some assignments thinking that I can work on them later than sooner.  I would then realize that I would sometimes not have the correct amount of time to complete the assignments when they needed to be finished.  It has taught me that I need to put myself in a position that I need to complete my assignments early.

When it came to the class concepts I learned that relationships take a lot of work to maintain with communication.  Both parties need to have the ability to want to help the relationship for it to be maintained healthy.  I can say that from what I learned it will serve as useful tools that I can be used in all of my relationships that I partake in my life.  I also learned that the relationship I built with my girlfriend took all the steps in building a romantic relationship.  I didn't realize that my girlfriend and I actually went through all the steps until I wrote my paper about our relationship, and how it progressed.

Concept: Types of Marriage

The text describes six types of marriage in our society.  The six types of marriage consist of vital, total, passive-congenial, devitalized and conflict-habituated marriage.  Vital portrays a close bond in the categories of emotion and sexual closeness.  This makes both parties involved satisfied with the relationship, and in turn creates a stable relationship.  A total relationship shows similarities as vital does, but the major difference is each person still has their independence from one another.  This is shown by giving each other space and separation.  Passive-congenial has qualities of low passion in the relationship.  Rather than finding happiness and satisfaction within the relationship it is found in activities that are outside of it.  Devitalized marriages are a potential reasoning on why many marriages end up in divorce.  This is when couples that are in a marriage become bored with each other, and have no passion to continue on with it.  Finally, in a conflict-habituated marriage there are traces that lead to showing the couple having no compatibility at all.  I feel that many marriages that involve younger people share this type of marriages since young couples tend to rush into marriage without knowing if they are fully compatible or not.

Marriage in 50 Years

     One thing that I have noticed in past five years is how much younger people are getting married.  It seems like a lot of young adults, even at the age of eighteen get married right away.  Normally I wouldn't really care or think anything of it, but divorce rates have drastically gone up in recent years as well.  This leads me to believe that it's only going to get worse as the years roll on until people make changes.  The problem is everyone is free to make whatever decisions they want to make, and that is completely their decision to make.  Yet I believe that divorce rates are going to be insanely high in the next fifty years. 
     I feel that young adults rush into a marriage these days with not knowing what they are really getting themselves into.  You have to really know how life is going to change for you, and your significant other.  I have had friends that were younger than me already get married and then only last no more a year before they decided separate and get a divorce since it wasn't working.  It's things like this that make marriage seem like it means nothing to people, and it makes me wonder if marriage is even special anymore with people taking advantage of it.  It needs to stop before marriage is just seen as one big joke in our society.

Families

Family is everything to me.  Normally you would think that family means a father, mother, and children.  You could also put cousins, aunts, uncles,  and grandparents into that category as well.  These are great examples of what a family would consist of.  However, even though I do believe in family like the examples above it's not the only way that I define family.  My family doesn't stop at blood, but it connects to my closest friends as well.  This includes my best friends, girlfriend, and my girlfriends family.  All of these people are a part of my family outside of my blood family.  This especially means a lot to me when it comes to my girlfriend as someday our two families will be connected once we get married after I graduate.  Two separate families will become one because of this.  With this being known my girlfriend and I would have to say that we have a total marriage even though we're not married yet.  We enjoy each others company for entertainment, but we also have our separate interests that that we want to individually pursue at the same time.  

Chapter Concept: Trust

I chose the concept of trust since trust means a lot to me in my morals and values that I hold.  Trust can be defined as two different things that are both very important: 1. To assume emotional reliability with the other, 2. showing that there is confidence in others when it comes to dependability.  The person that I can say I have the utmost trust in is my girlfriend.  She has always been there for me when I needed her, and she has never judged me for choices that I have made for the last three years.  Trust is something that I don't have come naturally with others.  They have to earn my trust by showing me that they want me to be a more open person.  If they show me that they want to have my trust then I know that they are a true friend.  I know they will be there for me when I need them, and I will be there for them if they need me.  It revolves around dependability and reliability for me among other factors.