Blog Audit: Expansion 2

One thing people do not know is I have been cheated on. It is not something anyone should go through. You feel betrayed and start wondering why they cheated and what you did for them to cheat.

A month after my husband and I started dating, he became super secretive. I was not trying to be nosy, but I asked him who was calling him. His phone would ring all the time and he would look at it and silence it. His friends would always text him. The only one who called him was his parents. I knew it wasn’t them because he wouldn’t ignore the call. When I asked he said, “it’s a telemarketer.” I believed him and just blew it off.

One day I went up behind him to give him a hug while he was playing poker on Facebook. He quickly hid his yahoo messenger when I walked up. I asked him how is game was going. He said good, while I was standing there, there was a message that came up that said “I love you.” I asked him about the message and who it was. He said he didn’t know.

He had his friends over one day to play cards. I was standing behind him learning to play and so I could get to the kitchen because I was cooking. He received a text message and replied back “I love you too.” I got mad and asked him in front of his friends who he is talking to and who he is saying I love you to. He denied it all, I knew he was cheating at this point. But I do not know if he had met this person face to face or just message back and fourth.

One day he said he was going to see a friend from Basic Training who lived in the cities. I said, “okay have fun.” When he was gone I was thinking he went to see the girl he was messaging. I sent him a few text messages and he didn’t reply until I started calling him. When he got home I was in bed and not wanting to talk to anyone. We had a big fight about it the girl he was messaging. He started to feel bad and said he would never to it again.

I was so mad that I was thinking about breaking up. We celebrated Easter separately that year. He continued with the lies while I was gone saying he was pulled over and had to pay a fine for speeding, but he ended up gambling away $1,000. That started a whole new fight. I didn’t want to go back, I just wanted to stay at my mom’s. I went back because I was in college and needed to finish the semester.

He must have talked to his sister or mom because he apologized and said he would never talk to anyone else the way he talked to the girl he was talking to. We decided to make our relationship work. Our relationship was starting to get better after a little while. It was so hard to trust him after he engaged in infidelity. I was always asking him who he was talking to and who girls were he would say hi to in the stores.    

If my husband engaged in infidelity again, I would be upset. I would not be able to trust him again. All my trust in him would be gone. It hurt too much the first time, I would not want to do through it again. There would be no talking about, no working things out, no blowing it off saying it won’t happen again. I have never talked to anyone except my husband because I do not want people to judge me for staying with him after the first time.

I feel our relationship is back to normal like nothing happened; he has not lied or cheated on me since we had our fight and that was almost 8 years ago. There are times where I find myself asking who someone is he added to Facebook, but realize that there is nothing to worry about because he hasn’t cheated on me since that night 8 years ago.

People have different definitions of infidelity. To me infidelity is chatting with someone of the opposite sex behind your partners back, sleeping with someone, kissing and hugging or giving someone who is not your partner a lot of attention. Example: If my husband was talking to another girl online, and she became a priority over me. I would consider that infidelity along with sleeping with someone or kissing. I have been cheated on so this topic is very emotional for me to write about.

I would feel guilty if I engaged in infidelity. I would feel bad right away and would not be able to hide it like some people do. I would be out and open about it and telling my husband about it all. I would not be able to have that much guilt on me. I would not ask for forgiveness, I would not try to make it better my saying I will not do it again. I would just let him handle it how he wants to handle it. If we separated, then I would understand. I wouldn’t want to be separated, but it would not be my choice if I engaged in infidelity. I am not sure what my husband would do if I engaged in infidelity, we will not be finding out either.

I don’t know why my husband engaged in infidelity, when I ask he just says, “I don’t know why I did it.” He could have done it because:

·         I was not paying attention to him.

·         He was board.

·        We didn’t have a lot of time together because of work and school.

·         He cheated before in past relationships and like it.

·         I was telling him what he should be doing with his money instead of gambling it away. (since he was the only one with a job)

·         He was scared to settle down. (Wanted to have one last thing before getting married, we were engaged at the time)

·         Maybe his friends do not like me.

·         He doesn’t feel the connection as he felt when he first met me.

Blog Audit: Expansion 1

Addiction is a disease that affects not only the addict but the family as well. Some people do not realize they are not the only ones who suffer. My dad was an alcoholic. He would go out drinking almost every night. It was hard to love him the way I should have loved a dad. He was hardly ever there to raise us kids.

When he tucked us in at night, he said “Mom and I love you very much. Even though we fight, we still care.” I would think about how much I hate him and want him to go away. He would get very depressed when he drank.

It is very similar to the core issues. The core issues I have seen are:

·Drinking became part of the daily routine

~He drank all day every day. I don’t think there was ever a time when he was sober.

·Emotional behavior unstable

~He was always depressed, starting fights with my mom and older brother. There were times when my sister and younger sister would get scared and want to go to someone else’s house for a little while.  

·Psychological absence

~ He was hardly ever home, he was always gone drinking. I don’t have any memories of my dad except the fact that I would go with him to my grandpa’s, his dad, bar. My entire childhood, I grew up without a dad. My grandpa, my mom’s dad, was more of a father figure than my dad was. My grandpa on my mom’s side also drank and owned a bar, but he was there for us kids when my dad was not.

·Shame or blame with use

~I do not know what my parents would argue about, but my dad would apologize and say sorry. My mom said she hated it because he would say it all the time and not mean it or he would say even when he didn’t do anything. He would make her feel bad.

·Skew toward short term adaption to achieve comfort

~I think drinking became a part of him, so when he wasn’t drinking he didn’t know what to do. I think that he drank to comfort him since he was depressed.

·Couples become demoralized

                  ~My mom and dad would always fight. My mom was prepared to leave him. He must have been already checked out of the marriage because they didn’t do and dinner dates or he wouldn’t spend time with us anymore.

I was sitting in English class, when my principle came in and said my brother and sister are here to pick me up. No one said why I was getting picked up early. It was a very quiet car ride home. When my little sister and I went in the house, the song “Daddy’s Hands” was playing. My mom was sitting on the couch with the pastor. My mom and pastor then told me that my dad had passed away. My mom later told me that he had been drinking the night he commit suicide. I was only 9 years old.

I have seen the Intoxication dances play out. I have seen the chronically intoxicated is irresponsible and under functioning. 

My mom remarried about a year or a little more after my dad passed away. He was also an alcoholic.

·Drinking became part of the daily routine

~He would drink every night and walk to the local bar to drink. He would even drive to nearby towns.

·Emotional behavior unstable

~He would get so mad at me, for every little thing. He would start fights with my mom. There was one time I had to call my neighbor and call 911 over after my mom and step dad had a fight. My neighbor had to come over because my mom was hyperventilating and my neighbor was a nurse.

~My step dad would yell at me so much I didn’t want to live at home any longer. Our family vacations would get ruined half way through by my mom and step dad fighting, it would make for a long ride back home.

~He would get so mad at me that he would throw things. It pushed me out of the house at age 18 into my boyfriend’s house that I had only known for a few months, who is now my husband.

·Psychological absence

~My step dad would take off and go somewhere. On time he took a bunch of money out of my mom and his joint account and went to Texas. He left 3 or 4 times and would be gone for a few weeks or a couple months.

·Shame or blame with use

~My step dad would always put my mom down and depressed when he would drink. He would start calling her a cheater and that she has someone on the side. He would get really mad when he drank.

·Couples become demoralized

~My mom didn’t think she could handle it anymore and started looking at divorce. He like always would talk his way out of it. My mom would be looking at divorces more often than a couple should.

           My step dad decided to be sober after my mom threatened him with a divorce. I lost count how many she had brought up divorce since the drinking became a problem. He became sober for a little while, he started drinking again, but not as much as he use too. My mom still gets mad and depressed sometimes.

Because my dad was drinking and I didn’t want anything to do with my step dad since he drank too. After I moved out, I wouldn’t go back home unless my mom was home. I would only go to holidays if my other siblings were going to be there. Everyone in my family has forgiving my step dad except me. I told my husband that when we have kids, I will not let them call him grandpa because I have not forgiven him for what he did when I was growing up.

Blog Audit: Reflection

Doing the blog was really hard to do since I have never done a blog before. I was not sure what I should write or what I should do. I was having a hard time writing 300 words in some of the blog entries. I would take time and look over the lecture notes and decide what I could write the most on for a blog. I would even make notes while I was watching the lectures on what I would blog about. When the teacher would make a comment on an idea to blog about, I would do a blog about it. I would try to use reflections from our lectures for a blog too.

I wrote about my husband and me in my blog. Most of the material I thought was related to us and our relationship. I enjoyed the lectures and learning about relationships. I noticed that I talked a lot about when my husband and I first met. There are a few blogs where I would talk about my parents too, like when I was talking about addictions. I don’t think the nature of my entries really changed. I talked about my husband and our relationship in almost all of them.

After I started my first blog, I didn’t have a whole lot to say because I wasn’t sure what topic to write about. My first blog looks like I just put random things together and wasn’t sure what I was talking about. My second blog wasn’t very long. I couldn’t think of what to say when I was writing the blog. In this blog I used more terms from the class lectures. I could have gone into more detail about some of the topics in my blogs.

My third blog I was talking about my interview I did with my mom about past relationships. It was hard to write a blog about that week. I got as close to 300 words I could get. I think by my fourth blog I finally got use to finding something to blog about. I blogged the different types of dances my husband and I were before we got married.

I have noticed I don’t use a lot of the terms we use in class. I only use the terms when describing dances, conflicts, etc. It stays that way through the rest of my blogs. I think it took me a while to figure out how to incorporate the terms and use them in my blogs I was writing. I also had more to say about the things we were learning in class. I wasn’t having a hard time writing the blogs as I got use to them.

I have seen lots of ideas in my entries I could revise and make them longer or better. When I was talking about addictions I could have probably added when my husband and I were engaged. He would go to the casino all the time, I thought he had or was going to have a gambling problem.

Doing the blogs I got to see everything that happened or is happening in my relationship to my husband and we were able to talk about working on things or talk about what comes up in my blog.

Infideltiy

If my husband engaged in infidelity, I would be upset. I would not be able to trust him again. I would be constantly asking where he was going, who he was going with, and when he will be back home. I would probably texting and calling his phone a few times. I just would not trust him anymore.

People have different definitions of infidelity. To me infidelity is chatting with someone of the opposite sex behind your partners back, sleeping with someone, or giving someone who is not your partner a lot of attention. Example: If my husband was talking to another girl online, and she became a priority over me. I would consider that infidelity along with sleeping with someone or kissing.

I would feel guilty if I engaged in infidelity. I would not be able to hide it like some people do I would be out and open about it and telling my husband about it all. I would not be able to have that much guilt on me. I would not ask for forgiveness, I would not try to make it better my saying I will not do it again. I would just let him handle it how he wants to handle it. I am not sure what my husband would do if I engaged in infidelity, we will not be finding out either.

I do not know why people feel the need to engage is infidelity. If my husband engaged in infidelity, some factors of infidelity would:

·         Be not paying attention to him

·         He was board

·         Didn’t have a lot of time together because of work and school

·         He cheated before in past relationships and like it

·         Nagging about spending too much money and not saving it.

·         Scared to settle down. (wanted to have one last thing before getting married)

·         Maybe his friends do not like me.

·         He doesn’t feel the connection as he felt when he first met me.

The Five Love Languages

The five love languages are:

·         Words of Affirmation

·         Quality Time

·         Receiving Gifts

·         Act of Service

·         Physical Touch

I was not surprised to see that I scored 8 in quality time. I love spending time with my husband and family. When I am with my husband as long as we are in the same room, I am happy. We do not need to be doing the same thing since we both are in school and one of us could have homework. I do not like being alone. He was gone for an entire summer and it was the longest summer I had ever had because my husband was two hours away.
            I scored six on all three:

·         Words of Affirmation

·         Acts of Service

·         And Physical Touch

I was surprised that these all added up to the same amount of points, but wasn’t surprised that they were my second highest. I like feeling loved and hanging out with my husband and family. I have saved every card and letter from the time we first started dating. I have all the letters he wrote me when he was over in Iraq. When we first started dating, he started a journal with little poems in it.
I feel loved when my husband does things without asking. He will clean the house sometimes so I do not have to worry about after working a 10 hour work day. He makes sure he has supper done or almost done when before I get home from my long work day.
We hold hands when we are in the car and when we are shopping or just walking around. We will give each other a hug and kiss before leaving for work.

I scored a 4 on gift giving. I would rather spend time with someone than to get a gift. I like receiving them, but I like giving gifts more. I love shopping for everyone. It bugs me at Christmas time when we cannot get gifts for everyone because we are doing a secret Santa thing.

Addiction

Addiction is a disease that affects not only the addict but the family as well. Some people do not realize they are not the only ones who suffer. My dad was an alcoholic. He would go out drinking almost every night. It was hard to love him the way I should have loved a dad. He was hardly ever there to raise us kids.

When he tucked us in at night, he said “Mom and I love you very much. Even though we fight, we still care.” I would think about how much I hate him and want him to go away. He would get very depressed when he drank. I don’t have any memories of my dad except the fact that I would go with him to my grandpa’s bar.

I was sitting in English class, when my principle came in and said my brother and sister are here to pick me up. No one said why I was getting picked up early. It was a very quiet car ride home. When my little sister and I went in the house, the song “Daddy’s Hands” was playing. My mom was sitting on the couch with the pastor. My mom and pastor then told me that my dad had passed away. My mom later told me that he had been drinking the night he commit suicide. I was only 9 years old.

It is very similar to the core issues. The core issues I have seen are:

·         Drinking became part of the daily routine

·         Emotional behavior unstable

·         Psychological absence

·         Shame or blame with use

·         Drinking becomes central organizing feature of daily life

·         Skew toward short term adaption to achieve comfort

·         Couples become demoralized

I have seen the Intoxication dances play out. I have seen the chronically intoxicated is irresponsible and under functioning. 

Culture Diversities and Intimate relationships

I grew up middle class. I think that growing up middle class impacted the kind of person I am today. I grew up and was taught to save money. It is hard for me to spend money because I think that I need to save it all. Even though my husband grew up in the same social class I grew up in, my husband on the other hand likes to spend money.

My mom raised my siblings and me by herself. My dad past away when I was nine, he was never there for my mom and us kids. The things I value the most is family time. My grandpa was taken away from us way to early when I was 8. He passed away from cancer. There are so many things I wish I could have done with him, so I like to spend time with family. My husband also values family. Family is very important to him.

I was also raised Lutheran. When I started dating, I would date boys who were also Lutheran. I think it was because my aunt is Lutheran and her boyfriend is Catholic and they had a tough time agreeing if they should get their daughters baptized Lutheran or Catholic. They finally decided Lutheran since my aunt was the only one who would be taking them to church. My husband is Lutheran. I don’t think he cared about religion when looking for a partner.

I all my relationships have been in the same social class that I am in, my friends and boyfriends, even my husband. We all value the same things. I like having friends in the same social class because they understand if I can’t afford anything. I do not have to explain to them that I have to pay bills first before blowing my money on pointless things.

Managing Conflict in Intimate Relationships

            I learned a lot about my relationship with my husband in the section. When talking about the four common categories of events that instigate conflict I have realized that the conflicts for us are:

·         Rebuffs: I have found that if I say something about how my rough day, and was expecting a hug. I don’t get one. He just says or that sucks and walks away. When he says something about his day I say something supportive and give a hug and a kiss.

·         Cumulative Annoyances: My husband has so many of these, where do I start. He leaves his pop cans and pop bottles lying around. He does not rinse them out and put them in the recycling. He does not put his wet shoes on the rug by the door; he leaves them on the tile floor by the door.

·         Criticism: this is another thing that we do. I am trying to get better at this. When he is cooking something and messes up just a little. I will say something like “can’t you read? It says half a cup right there. You need to read the directions better.” I am working on it to say something like oh well it happens, it will still taste good.

If my husband was to read these four common categories of events, he would say illegitimate demands are another one, I don’t think it is. He doesn’t have very many things to do around the house. I will ask him to take garbage out and unload the dish washer. (Both are his chores.) He will say “I can’t do everything” I usually remind him that he can take over my chores and I can take over his. (I have more chores.)

When I get angry with him I run, walk, go somewhere by myself, and we talk about things that make me angry or annoy me. We never take it out on each other and make something that is so small into a bigger conflict.

Sexual Intimacy and Self-Concept

    I learned a lot about the different types of Dances from Lerner. With my relationship with my husband we are Underfunctioning-Overfunctioning. I am the one who saves money and spends money after we have paid bills and put money in the savings. My husband is the one who needs to spend, spend, spend.

    When my husband and I first started dating, he spent money all the time. I met him and he still spent money like it was no big deal. When we got engaged, he was in charge of our finance's. I was in college full time and couldn't find a part time job that would work around my schooling. He put himself into debt. I was telling him that he needs to save and pay bills first, but his friends didn't like that I was telling him what to do.

     We had to move because I was able to get a job in a different town. We both were working and attending college. He put me in charge of the finance stuff. We got married and I am still in charge of the finance's, but I include him in it. If I need to buy something expensive I talk to him about it and say what the plan is and how we can afford it. The same for when he needs to buy something expensive. He will look in the checkbook and online, ask if all pills are paid and money was transferred to savings before asking if he can buy something for us/me.

    He has gotten better at spending money. He still wants to spend a little bit more then we have planned for spending, but it isn't as much as it was before.

History and Well-Being

   Relationships/Marriages have changed since 1650. They had Arrange Marriage's in 1650 A.D., I would not want to be in an arrange marriage. Maybe that is why divorce rate was so high. Women were also seen as property. They had supervised visits on date. There was also NO living together before getting married. How did people get use to the other person's little annoying habits?

     Relationships/Marriages today people live together and are engaged longer before getting married. They can go anywhere on a date to a movie, dinner, shopping, or just hang out. One tradition that has been passed down and is still around today is weddings. People still get married in a church, bride wearing white, grooms wear a black tux, and have a wedding party of close family and friends. They also invited everyone under the sun to the wedding because families were very close back then.

            I don’t know how I would have felt if my marriage was an arrange marriage. I do not think I would have liked it. My husband’s and my first date was in a public place, I had my older sister and her husband come with when I met my husband for the first time. We met on Facebook and I didn’t want to meet him by myself. That is what they did back in the 1650’s and up.

            I would go to his house and he would come to my mom’s (I was still living at home.) We wouldn’t be left alone unless we were at his house. My mom had us sitting in the living room or den when he would come over. I guess it was how she was raised and wanted to give us the same love her parents gave her.

Intimacy Theories

     My husband and I have been married for 3 years, June will be 4 years. We have been together for 8 years this coming October. I have learned a lot about this weeks lesson. I have learned about the Theory of Attraction, I think my husband and I fit the complementary: He is a little more talkative and I am more of a quite one when we are out, and it works for us. Our relationship is an Eros, we knew we found the one pretty much after our first date. We dated/engaged for 4 years before getting married.

Healthy Couple Relationships

What is a healthy couple relationship?

    To me you need commitment, trust, honesty, show affection, and caring in a healthy couple relationship. My relationship with my husband, I trust him, I am honest with him, I care for him, we show affection though holding hands or hugging, and we have commitment. 

     My husband and I have been complimented on our relationship. Our friends say we are so good together and we had a compliment from a stranger. We were our eating at Perkins and my husband and I were talking. There was an elderly lady who was sitting a few tables away. She stopped over to our table after she got done eating and asked how long we had been together. We said “6 years, 3 years married out of the 6 years.” She said "wow." Good for you guys for having things to talk about. She said "I have seen other couples who just sit across the table from each other and just look at each other or play on their phones." We were caught off guard and didn't know what to say. We just said “thank you.”

          If you cannot trust someone it will be very hard to be in a relationship with that person. If you are not honest, they cannot trust you. I would not be able to trust someone who lies all the time. I would not be able to know when they are telling the truth if they are ever telling the truth.

          My husband and I show affection every day. We hold hands when we are out and about or when we are at home. We kiss and hug each other before leaving for work. We will kiss good night before going to bed.

          My husband and I are not perfect. We need to work on so much in our relationship.

First Blog Post

I will be blogging about my experiences in my class Healthy Couples Relationships. I am excited for this class and  I can not wait to start blogging. I will be trying to figure this blogging thing out as I go. I have never blogged before.