Favorite Thing

My favorite thing about this class was that it was completely online.  I really enjoyed that I was able to work at my own pace and that I had a week to post to my blog and do the quizzes.  My least favorite thing about the class were the essays.  Writing for me is very hard and it doesn’t come easy so when it comes to writing it takes me a very long time to compile my thoughts.  I think an improvement that can be made to the class is the quizzes.  When it comes to the quizzes I found that even if I did read the chapter and understand the material the questions were very specific.  I got some answers wrong because I was not able to remember every little part of the chapters.  So I think if the quizzes are that specific I think each chapter should have a quiz and not make a quiz 3 chapters like it was in this class. 

Perception and Communication

I think the perception and communication section was interesting but some concepts I would like some more explanation.  When it came to the interpretation section I became a little confused.  Attributions have 4 different parts there is locus, internal and external.  I understood the fact that we can understand why something happens either internally or externally but I didn’t understand what the locus part was.  The next part is stability which explains actions as the result of stable and unstable factors.  Specificity explains the behavior in terms of specific or global implications.  This part confused me a bit because to me it seemed like stability and specificity were the same.  The last concept is responsibility in which if we think the person can control the behavior they are considered responsible.  However, if it is beyond their control they may not be responsible.  Some of these concepts were hard to understand when it comes to the specific examples.     

Most important thing I learned

I think this class has been really important in the way I look at my relationships with others.  The most important thing I have learned in this class was in the listening section.  I thought this section was the most important to me because I find it to be really important in my marriage.  In order for my marriage to work I think listening is really important.  In the listening section the concept about pseudolistening I thought was really interesting.  I have found that by being more attentive and trying to find something in the conversation interesting to me has made the conversation between and my husband more intimate.  Before our conversations were very bland because I never really listened to him.  However, now I engage with him and really interact in the conversations.  I feel that by learning about this in class it has really helped my relationships especially my marriage.        

Family

To me a family is defined as having two parents and children.  This can include married parents or two people who are cohabiting.  It can also include adopted children or biological children.  However, I think a family does need to include children because if it were just two people I think that would be defined as a couple.  Family members care for each other and are there for you in times of need.  They are also there to provide emotional support and usually can be trusted.  There are many types of relationships which I consider family like a heterosexual man and women who have been married for 12 years and have two children, two gay men who have cohabited for 20 years who have an adopted son and man and woman in their second marriage who have 5 children from their previous marriage.  I think some of the relationships that don’t fit my definition of family would be a single man who has built a close relationship with friends whom he considered his family and a child-free lesbian couple.   However, now that I look at some of the relationships I see that my definition is very narrow.  I think a grandmother who raises her granddaughter and a single mom whose mother just moved in with her can also be considered a family. 

Types of relationships

Since I am newly married I thought the section about relationship types was interesting.  There were 5 different relationship types of marriage relationships.  The five types are vital marriage, total marriage, passive-congenial marriage, devitalized marriage, and conflict-habituated marriage.  When I look at my relationship in my marriage I think it is like total marriage.  My husband and I are very close emotionally and want to be together physically but we have some different interests.  We love being together but also take the time to enjoy activities separately with our friends.  When I look at my parents marriage before they got divorced for many years they had a conflict-habitual marriage.  They were not compatible but my mother fought to keep the marriage together for me.  So I grew up with them fighting a lot and I never really saw any love in the marriage.  I want to believe that a marriage can be a great thing for many years if you are compatible and continue to work through problems in an appropriate manner through good communication.        

Marriage

I think it is interesting to see how the trends in marriage have changed over the years.  I think back to the 50’s when people got married very young.  The women were stay at home parents and the men were the breadwinners.  They didn’t really believe in divorce and would stay together even if the love was lost or the marriage was bad.  However, nowadays marriage is not looked at the same way.  People nowadays think about marriage very loosely.  They don’t feel like it is a binding agreement between two people and that divorce is not a big deal.  I think the way marriage has changed throughout the years will continue to change in the years to come.  I don’t think that marriage will be important to people in the years to come.  I think that cohabitation will become more popular than marriage.  Unfortunately, I think the institution of marriage will be lost.  I am one to hope that it doesn’t because even though my parents divorced and my husbands parents divorced I still believe it is a wonderful thing.  I hope one day everyone will have the right to marry which I hope will save the institution of marriage.  

Navigation

I think the concept about navigation was really important to me.  Since I am a newlywed I find that the concept of navigation is very important in a marriage.  Navigation is the process of staying committed and living a life together despite ups and down.  I think navigation is important to have a successful marriage.  Partners always experiences tensions however navigation is the process in which partners work through new problems, revisit old ones and adapt.  Navigating involves preventive maintenance and periodic repairs which help to keep intimacy satisfying and healthy and to deal with any serious problems.  Since I am a newlywed I am learning how to work through different tensions that arise in our marriage.  We are learning how to communicate with one another to create a successful marriage.  The concept of navigation is a concept that will always be in the back of mind as I journey through the trials and tribulations of being married.