The Family Life Cycle

I really enjoyed learning about The Family Life Cycle this week. I had never really thought about the fact that families go through phases before, but after I read this section the concept made a lot of sense. There are typically seven stages in the life cycle of a family. The first of which is establishing a family; this is when a couple first gets married or first starts living together and figures out what it is like to live together. The next stage is enlarging the family, which is when couples first start having children and the beginning years of those children’s lives. Typically the children are not in school yet and are still learning basic things like talking and emotions. The third stage is developing a family, which is when the children get a little older and start entering school. For families that have many children or children that are far apart in age, these two phases can sometimes overlap. The fourth stage is encouraging independence which is when families encourage their children to develop their own interests an social networks. This stage typically occurs when the children are in high school or before they leave home. When the children do leave home and start their lives independent of their parents, is the next stage which is Launching Children. The “empty nest” or Postlaunching of Children stage occurs next. This is the stage where many couples have to figure out how to be a couple again without children. The final stage of the family cycle is the Retirement stage which is when couples no longer need to work full time.

Family relationships

Family is something that is extremely important to me. Family is the group of people that are always therefore you no matter what and through thick and thin. I do not necessarily think that family has to be related to you by blood. I come from a mixed family where I have step parents and siblings and adopted siblings and therefore look at family a lot different than a lot of my friends do. I am also extremely close with my extended family. Family should always be there for each other, support one another and love each other. In my eyes, family is not about buying each other things or material possessions; it is about love and support. It is going to soccer games and school shows and other things for you family, but also being there when you need someone to talk to or cry to. Because my parents are divorced, I have seen many different types of relationships. I saw my parents relationship slip from a devitalized marriage to a conflict-habituated marriage when I was younger. Now that my parents are divorced and both in other relationships I have seen much different sides. Both of them are now in total marriages. They are happy and love their partners but also have other interests. I feel like this is how relationships should be. You absolutely love your partner and look forward to being around them, but you also have your own interests and hobbies.

Conflict in Relationships

I thought the section on managing conflict effectively was really interesting in this chapter. No relationship is perfect and every relationship has problems and conflict. Sometimes managing these conflicts can be difficult and take time and effort. The severity of the conflicts in relationships can vary greatly. Sometimes it is a difference in opinion in something as small as the type of dishwasher detergent you like to use to something as big as one’s morals. If disagreements that arise from these conflicts are handled affectively by talking things out and coming to an agreement, then there is not necessarily a problem. When people let little conflicts build up the result can be fairly negative and lead to abusive relationships. In the United State abusive relationships are more common than people would like to think. When people enter an abusive relationship, for whatever reason, the relationship enters a fairly regular cycle. The couple is happy and in a honeymoon stage. Then something arises that causes tension to arise between the couple which leads to one person in the relationship to explode and abuse the other person. The abuser then feels remorse for what happened and tries to make things right which leads the couple back into the honeymoon stage.

Relationships

I have been in relationships where there has been love but no commitment and also where there has been commitment but no love. Both types of relationships can be hurtful and have a fairly negative impact on the lives of the people involved. Not every relationship is perfect and almost all relationships have rough patches, but having problems that persist for a long period of time can be harmful in the long run. I have been in relationships where there has been love but no commitment. I loved the other person a lot, but there was just no commitment. We would cancel plans on each other and not make time for each other but at the end of the day we still loved each other. This type of relationship took a toll on me and eventually it made me really sad and I am no longer friends with that person. I was not happy and would always be down on myself because of this relationship. I have also had the opposite of this relationship where there was commitment but no love. I think this is common type of relationship is common among of a lot of people. These relationships can have just as negative affect on you as on the people around you. My parents had this type of relationship before they got divorced. It was really hard on me and my brother and we could tell that they no longer loved each other. You could see my parents get increasingly unhappy and it made our family sad as a whole.

Online Deception

I think that it is completely unethical for people to lie about their appearance or other things about themselves in online profiles but I also think that people tend to lie more online than they do in person. There have been several famous cases where people have lied about who they are and things ended poorly. In the Megan Meir case, a young teenage girl was tricked into thinking that the mother of a classmate was a young attractive boy from a different school. The mother engaged Meir in a relationship and then later broke up with her. Meir had a history of depression and this incident dpcaused her grill herself. This cases highlights how someone was able to completely lie about who they are and cause massive problems. on the Internet there is no garuntee that people are who they say they areor exactly how they say they are. Studies have been conducted on the accuracy of on line dating profiles and the studies found that most people lied on at less one area of their profile. Because you may never meet these people and no one checks the accuracy, people are not held accountable for what they say.

Friendship Pressures

A concept that I found interesting this week was the pressures placed on friendships. No relationship is perfect and even the best and most healthy relationships have problems. I found it interesting to be able to put a name to the problems that I have had with my friends in the past. I never really thought about the fact that there would be a difference between internal and external pressures. This obviously made sense but it was never something I had thought about before. The three internal pressures are relationship dialects, diverse communication styles and sexual tensions. Problems will arise with relationship dialects when people want different things out of one relationship. Problems can also arise when two people come from much different backgrounds and therefore cannot always understand why people act or think a certain way. The last internal problem is when sexual tensions arise between the two people in the relationship. There are also external pressures which include competing demands, personal changes and graphic distance. Competing demands would be when one person in the relationship has other responsibilities that take up a large amount of time and leave little to no time for their relationship. Problems can also arise when people do things that make some form of change in their lives. The last problem is when the two people do not live near each other. When you are not able to see a friend on a regular basis it is hard to maintain a relationship.

Friendships

Any friendship takes time and effort in order to survive. Both people in any relationship need to be willing to work to create a healthy and successful relationship. Most people have those friends that they have been friends with forever, those friends that they grew apart from, those friends that they meant and became friends with instantly and those old friends that you are no longer close with for a reason. One of my best friends is someone I have known since I was in kindergarten. When we were younger, we were not very close, but by the time we got to middle school we were best friends. Ever since then, we go through periods of being around each other a lot and being busy with other things, but one fact remains the same; we always make time for each other and we could go to each other with anything. She and I tell each other everything, including the things that we do not necessarily want to hear. Sometimes this creates tension, but it also brings us closer and has caused us to really trust each other. If she never told me I did something wrong, then I do not think we would be as close as we are now. I also trust her with anything. I know that if I tell her something, she will not go and tell other people; which is something I have learned by being friends with her for so long.