Purpose

Hey everyone,

I’m creating this blog for the intent of sharing and highlighting things I will be learning in my Marriage class I am taking this semester at BYU-Idaho. I’m excited to learn and share more about my experiences with you.

About Me

I was born and raised in Indiana. I enjoy (as you can see in the picture) photography as well as hiking, playing games, painting, and cooking (which my husband is a big fan of). I’ve been married for almost a year now and just recently switched my major over to Marriage and Family Studies.

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Marriage Trends and Divorce

Marriage. It seems as though the world and individuals have developed their own definition and emotion connected with that word. For some, marriage is a wonderful thing associated with joyous and happy feelings. For others, marriage is nothing, but pain plagued with feelings of bitterness and regret. This can be cause by the type of marriage you have or had. Family dynamics comes in all shapes and sizes and can be a touchy subject. Some of us come from homes with conventional parents, and other come from homes with only one parent, or divorced parents. No matter the situation we all have an important role to play in our own lives.

Carlfred Broderick said, “A transitional character is one who, in a single generation, changes the entire course of a lineage.” We have the power to make our own marriage and family better than what we had growing up, even if we did have a great family while growing up, we can always strive to make things better.

In the article “The Impact of Family Formation…” by Paul R. Amato, we can see that studies have shown that children who come from broken families are the ones who struggle the most, especially when it comes to families with divorced parents. The emotional and even physical effect these situations can have on children is heartbreaking.

I’ve personally seen the trauma and emotional stress that happens to children when the parents decide to separate. My husband’s parents got a divorce when he was just fifteen, this was devastating for him and his two sisters. Feelings were hurt and relationships damaged. Everything changed. This meant swapping whose house they stayed at, splitting holidays between each parent, a constant battle for time, trying to appease both sides. It was exhausting and emotionally draining for them. Fast-forward 6 years later and my husband and I get married. I am now a part of my husbands’ family situation. I love my husband and his family; they are such wonderful people, that’s why it hurts my heart to see the kids still suffering from the repercussions of an event that happened 6 years ago. They are still caught in the middle of everything, and I personally just want relief for the children’s well-being.

Now that my husband and I are married we want to be that “transitional character” for our kids, we want to build a marriage that is founded and based upon the gospel. We want our marriage to be between us and our Heavenly Father. It’s through our Savior Jesus Christ and his atonement that there can be healing among marriages and families, that we can build our own family in the way we want to. It’s because of Him that there is hope, there is growth, there is love.