Blog Audit: Expansion 2

Blog Audit: Expansion 2

In this blog, I’m going to go more into detail on the risks and benefits of hooking up. In today’s society, especially in the college world its acceptable for people to hookup. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have hooked up in the past, and I would like to go into some detail of the effects it had on me and in previous relationships. For starters, some of the benefits of hookups would be having no strings attached. This could be fun and exciting for some people. Some people may even experience the feeling of being wanted and desired, or even feeling sexually gratified. I can personally speak on having it be fun and exciting. Since I was in a five-year relationship in the past, it was something new. It felt like a “new me” in a way. At times, I would feel courageous because it was something I have never done in the past. Another benefit would be that the hookup could help you get over your previous relationship. I can speak on this as a personal example. It was very hard to get over my ex-boyfriend on my own. As soon as I started to put myself out there more, and talk to more people it became easier. Eventually, this led to having sexual relations with another guy, and that really helped me move on. It was part of the “closure” that I needed from my ex-boyfriend. However, in this blog I’m going to focus on the risks of hooking up. Not only is it possible to contract an STD, but it can mentally and emotionally drain you. I have a good personal example to go off of this. My first hookup was with someone who was considered a “fuck boy,” excuse the language. In today’s society, a “fuck boy,” is a guy who gets around and sleeps with and messes with a bunch of women. I knew this going into hooking up with him. His friends, along with my friends, have told me over and over not to get involved with him. I went into it thinking I wouldn’t catch feelings, and that it would help me move on from my ex-boyfriend. Well, it turns out that I fell for him, hard. He said all the right things, and really made me feel wanted. He was fun to hang out with and he was funny. I really started to like him. We both considered ourselves as having a “thing,” together. I even got to meet his family, so I thought it was getting sort of serious. However, one night I walked into his house and he was sleeping with another girl. The next morning he tried texting me like everything was fine and I went off on him. I was devastated. I’m still not sure who I was more mad at; him for hurting me, or me for allowing myself to get hurt. After that, my guard went all the way up. I gave myself a while before I started talking to other guys. When I finally did, I started talking to the previous guy’s friends. I knew this was a bad idea, so my guard was still up. People were telling me how he’s exactly like the last guy, and that he’s a “fuck boy” too. I confronted him about it and he denied it. Again, he said all the right things and then some. We started to hang out more and more. We talked about meeting each other’s families, and talking about goals we had in life. We had meaningful conversations, and at times I really felt like he cared about. One night, we went out together. We both had a few drinks and a little bit later I looked over and he was making out with another girl. I was furious; more towards myself for allowing this to happen AGAIN. We ended up not talking, and ever since then I look at hooking up completely different now. Every time I even think of the word, I think about a broken heart. I get my hopes up, and then the same mistake happens over and over again. This blog is meant to show was emotionally and mentally attached you can get to someone, even if its just a hookup. I should have took into account all the warning signs, and listened to my friends. I should have looked at my previous mistake and not allowed it to happen twice in a row. This is all a learning experience for me, and I’m learning what I want and what I don’t want in a relationship. This HDFS 115 course has also taught me things to look for and what not to look for in relationships. It taught me what a “Healthy Couple Relationship” is, and I’m striving for that someday.

Blog Audit: Expansion 1

Blog Audit: Expansion 1

The first blog that I want to expand on is “Long Distance Relationships and My Experience.” I picked this blog because I felt that I could go a little bit more into detail on my personal experience, along with relating it more to lecture material. As I stated in that blog, my last relationship did not start out being long distant. It wasn’t until we have been dating 4 years, he got deployed overseas. It was extremely hard on both of us. We went from seeing each other every day, to not being able to see each other for an entire year. Our communication styles have changed from talking on the phone and talking in person, to writing letters and occasionally skyping when he had free time (which was rarely ever). This relates to the lecture in that men and women communicate differently. Females discuss their feelings, while men tend to discuss objects and actions. This was true in our relationship which made it sort of frustrating. When we did get time to talk overseas, I would always tell him how much I missed him and loved him. I would express my feelings to deeply and he would say “I love you too,” or short simple responses. However, when I asked what he was doing in Afghanistan, he rambled on about the details he was doing. He never would tell me if he was sad, mad, lonely, happy, etc. It was a guessing game when it came to communicating. This was one of the stressors that we experienced after our relationship became long distant. Another stressor was that we didn’t have the physical and intimate touch that we used to. This could relate to infidelity. Although infidelity is more common among close relationships, it could happen whenever and wherever. Fortunately for us, it didn’t happen. At least not that I know of. However, there were times were a guy would snapchat me or text me, and I could easily flirt back or meet up with him without my partner ever finding out. That goes hand in hand with him. He could have been texting or instant messaging other girls, and I would have never known. He could have also been deployed with other women and started to like them. There was one example that I started to doubt how “loyal” he was to me, however. When he came back to America, he started talking to a girl he deployed with. They both attended UW-River Falls, and I thought nothing of it. One day I went to surprise visit him at school and he wasn’t at his dorm. I called and called and waited an hour outside of this room. Finally, he called back and send he was at the library studying with a friend. I asked who it was and he told me it was the girl he deployed with. Of course I assumed the worse right away and we got in a huge fight. Little did I know, they were actually just friends and she had a boyfriend herself. That was an example of what I thought could have been infidelity, as it can be defined differently among other couples. All in all, the long-distance part did not break us up. Although it was extremely hard to overcome, we did it. When he returned home, we stay together for quit a while. The long-distance part didn’t break us up, it was other things that happened in a geographically close relationship. It was other factors in the relationship that did it, factors that relate hand in hand to lecture material.

Blog Audit: Reflection

Blog Audit: Reflection

After re-reading my blogs, I have noticed that I related most of them to my previous relationship with my long term ex-boyfriend. There were only two blogs that related to a guy I had a thing with. The overall pattern that I saw was relating course material to my previous relationship, and then realizing what could have been done to fix some problems. I really liked how the course gave examples of other people’s life, along with statistics showing that these topics really occur in everyday relationships. I would say that I main thing throughout my blogs was reflecting on the problems I had within my relationships, and learning from the course material what could have been differently if I would have known it. I really could relate to most of the lecture, and that’s what kept me so engaged. Because I was so engaged with the material, it made it easier to write blogs, almost to the point where I actually wanted to do it on my own time and not just as an assignment. I do believe that the nature of my blogs has changed over the semester. When I first started blogging, I felt almost uncomfortable reviling such personal issues to the world (or whoever has access to the blogs). However, more towards the end of the semester, I went more into detail and was more confident in my writing. I felt in a way that it allowed me to vent about my problems on previous relationships, without letting those partners know and without hurting anyone’s feelings. It also allowed me to write things that I haven’t told anyone else before. It felt good to get it out of my system, and understand that it shouldn’t be embarrassing. There are many different issues that arise in relationships, along with many mistakes, and they shouldn’t be ashamed of. You live and you learn, and that’s what the blogs helped me understand. The two blogs that I think I’m going to re-visit would be “the benefits and risks of hooking up,” and “long distance relationships.” I feel that I could expand more on these two topics because a lot of different class topics could relate to these. I could also add in more personal examples/experiences as well. The aspects of weekly blogging that I value the most would be deeply relating my personal life to the course material. This allows me to apply it to my life, and learn from my mistakes, and possibly prevent me from making more. It shows up in my entries because I go into detail about how certain topics made me feel, and/or give the personal examples that related throughout my blogs. I really did find this assignment to be useful. I have never used “Blogger” before, and honestly, I just may continuing writing blogs for my own use and venting sessions.

Healthy Couple Relationship Tips from Elderly

Throughout my Healthy Couple Relationship course, I have learned many things. For the past lecture, I have learned five tips from the elderly on relationships. They include: marrying someone like you, friendship is just as important as romantic love, don’t keep score, talk to each other, and don’t commit it to your partner-commit it to marriage itself. In my own opinion, I feel like they all are essential in a healthy relationship. If I had to pick just one, I would say that marring someone a lot like you is the most important. I say this because when the ‘butterflies,’ and romantic gestures fades out, you are still married to that person. If the couple doesn’t get along, other than in a romantic way, then there really is no relationship. When I get married, I want to marry someone who has the same core values as myself. I would like to have the same goals and understandings in life. Without similarities, there could be tension and fighting in the relationship. This goes into having a friendship with your partner is just as good as having romantic love. I want my husband to be my best friend, someone I can tell all my secrets to. Someone I can have fun with and be completely myself. I would say that talking to each other would be next in line on the importance scale. If there is no communication about problems, then it could lead to boiling up and all the problems come on. It could ruin the entire relationship. As I feel like all five tips are important, I would say those are my top three. In a relationship, if you keep score, you’re already asking for trouble. The partners should just want to see what they can do to satisfy their partner or how they can make them happy. As so committing yourself to marriage and your partner, I feel like that’s important too. Marriage needs to be taken seriously. All in all, the top three tips I want in my future healthy relationship would be marrying someone like me, having a friendship and a romantic love, and talking to each other because communication is key.

Emotional Bank Account- Gottmen's Love Lab

Today, I’m going to discuss an Emotional Bank Account, that is from Gottmen’s Love Lab. Gottmen came up with a “magic ratio” for couples. The ratio is 5:1. This means five positive behaviors to one negative behavior. Positive behaviors could range from hugging, to putting gas in your partner’s car. These positive behaviors show interest, affection, shows the partner you care, and shows concern. Negative behaviors are disappointments in the relationship. A more negative ratio is 0.8:1. This ratio consists of positive to negative behaviors in unstable marriages. In the beginning of my previous relationship we started out with the “magic ratio.” There were a lot of positive behaviors. These consisted of making dinner together, going on double dates, spending time together, sharing secrets, and giving each other compliments. The one negative behavior would be that my partner would workout a lot, and it would ruin some of our plans. However, we worked around it. It was about four years into the relationship and the magic ratio went down to the more negative ratio. There were more negative behaviors than positive ones. We started hanging out less, because he didn’t have time for me. Football, basketball, and working out was his top priorities in life, which left me hanging. As for the positive behaviors, there wasn’t many compliments anymore, the secrets were told to other friends and not each other, and the double dates came to an end. There were multiple problems in the relationship, but I was just trying to show how a relationship can go from the “magic ratio,” to the more negative ratio if the relationship isn’t worked on. A lot goes into a relationship, and in my opinion, communication should have been better focused on.

Differences in Communication with My Personal Examples

Today, I’m going to discuss the differences in WHAT males and females communicate, and not HOW they communication. This topic is going to be related back to my previous relationship. Females discuss their feelings, while males discuss objects and actions. In my previous relationship, I would tell my partner how I felt and the emotions I had throughout the day. My partner would tell me about football, basketball, changing oil, and basically anything that didn’t have to do with feelings. I would try to get what he was feeling out of him one day and it was a complete fail. He wasn’t into talking about feelings, emotions, or deep conversations. Females speak with less force, being indirect and less certain when speaking to men. Whereas men speak forcefully, being more direct and certain when speaking with other men. In my past relationship I would ask my partner ‘I’m going to go to Lacie’s house if that’s okay..?” Although I was telling him what I was doing, it came out to be more of a question. I was not forceful and I was indirect with less certainly in my tone of voice. My partner would be more forceful when talking. For example, he would come over saying “I’m going out tonight with buddies.” He would leave it at that. When he did go out with his friends, he wasn’t talking as certain with them as he would to me. The last difference that I’m going to talk about is that females have higher expressivity, and men have more instrumentality. I would speak in dramatic terms, whereas my partner would take more leadership in the conversations. All in all, there are differences in men and women- especially in what they communicate about in relationships.

Levinger's Barrier Model and My Personal Experience

Today I’m going to discuss breaking up on individual changes and relate it back to my previous relationship. This relates to Levinger’s Barrier Model. On the model, it says: if attraction is high, barriers are high, and alternatives are low, then the couple stays together. If attraction is low, barriers are low, and alternatives are high, then the couple will break up. Let me explain this a little bit more. Attraction are the reasons to stay in a relationship. For example, in my previous relationship the reasons where: I loved his family, and we had fun together. Alternatives are the reasons to leave. In my previous relationship, these would be: he never had time for me, we were sort of mean to each other, and all we did was fight. The barriers are the things that make it hard to leave the relationship. For example, we were together for 5 years, that’s a lot of time we were ‘wasting’ if we were to just break up. During the last year of our relationship, the model changed. The attraction lowered. Now, it changed to me only loving his family because our time together wasn’t all that fun anymore. The alternatives increased to: never having time together, less caring, less trying, mean comments back and forth, and the fighting increased. The barriers became less important. The only thing keeping us together was basically the time and effort we put into the relationship. When we both came to reality, the more we are unhappy together, the more time we are wasting. So in short, the attraction was low, the barriers were low, and the alternatives were high. The Leninger’s Barrier Model was accurate when it came to my previous relationship, as the result was we broke up.