Crisis and stress

Life can be quite hard. Nobody goes through life without trials. Thankfully Heavenly Father has given us families to help us through the tough times. If we work together then we can get through any crisis and stressor. We will not only make it through it, but we will come out stronger and closer as a family.
My teacher showed the class a stressor model called the ABCX model. It goes like this:

    Actual event
    Both resources and application for help (or response)
+ Cognitions (how the family defines the problem)
total eXperience

For example. Maybe a family member goes into deep depression= A. B= we choose to respond to the situation instead of avoiding it or blaming someone for it. We help that member attend counseling, we do all we can to help her feel loved and needed, we pray a lot for more guidance. C= the family sees this as a not something wrong or a curse from God, but a time to really band together to help the daughter. X= each family member realizes how much they are loved and how much they love each other. They all better know how to express feelings instead of holding them inside. They are closer to God and to each other.

Stressors are events that cause pressure and make us bend for a while. Crisis' are much bigger. They cause us to actually permanently change. By turning to God and working as a family crisis' won't make us break or fall apart, but can tie us together in a new and wonderful way.

For a strong marriage

Here are three very important things to do to have a strong marriage:

1. Go to great lengths to protect your marriage.
We need to be very intentional about how we are treating our spouse and others around us. We need to make sure we are being completely faithful to who we are married to. We need to love and cherish that person.

2. Don't reduce sacred things
We need to treat our spouse with the utmost respect. We need to remember how important marriage is and treat it that way. Also we shouldn't ever demean our sexual relations with our spouse.

3. Don't let anyone inside your marriage other than your spouse and God.
The person we should be discussing any kind of matter first with is God and our spouse. Friends and family are great to talk to, but once we are married those people should come second. We draw closer to our spouse as we discuss things together and work them out together.

Marriage satisfaction

Marriage satisfaction is and should be high when a couple gets married. It is shown that it will or can decrease with each child born. If it always decreases, then when the children all move out the husband and wife don't have much going for them anymore. They either divorce or maybe stay together, but live separate lives. This doesn't need to be so!! Yes, raising children is very hard, but Heavenly Father will help us raise them. When we rely on God and our spouse to know how to best love our children then our bond with our spouse will grow stronger. When all the children leave home the relationship between husband and wife should be stronger than ever! Marriage satisfaction should be really high. Working together gives spouses experiences together and hopefully cherished memories. Remember, it's life that is hard. Marriage and family are given to us to help us enjoy this life journey.