Time is love

Being a BYU-Idaho student, who is almost 20 years-old and single, I find great knowledge in taking a Family Relations class that teaches a lot about marriage, and is helpful to me in my preparation to be a wife and mother. Brother Williams this week, explained to his students how many young adults don't realize that preparing for marriage starts now. I need to be keeping the commandments, preparing to enter the temple, and building a relationship with Christ now, because those principles is what will lead me to meet the right person with the same standards, and create a strong marriage.

In my personal dating patterns, at times I have had to take a hard look at the guys I have dated and had to change my mindset and habits of what I deserve. It is easy to be consumed with the physical or fun parts that dating can bring, but it is much more important to date someone that I know, trust, can rely on, and share the same standards with. From personal experience, when a relationship is built on physical touch, it fails. I want a relationship that is built from a friendship.

I feel like when two people start out as friends, they get to know one another without any pressure of having to date yet. I want to be married to my best-friend, and someone I can get along with easily. Growing up, I always imagined that the romantic part of a marriage is the most important, and what I should be looking for. However, romanticism is not always going to be there between two partners during difficult trials, and adversity. If two people are good friends, they love each other for who they are as people.

Another topic we discussed in my Family Relations class, is the amount of time that you should date a person before marriage. Personally, I want to date the person I am going to marry for a year. I want to know weaknesses, strengths, and things about that person that I will have to handle throughout our whole lives. I know many people who get divorced, and it stems from their dating life. Three months of dating, is not enough time in my opinion, to get to know a person on a deep level. I have lived with some of my roommates for four months, and I still do not know everything about them; and I LIVE with them, and am close with them! Time is love, as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints once stated. Although every person and every relationship is different, every person should not feel rushed to get married.

I am grateful for this class, and the tips and gidgets that Brother Williams teaches. Although they may seem small, they are key to creating a healthy marriage that is founded on time, patience, knowledge and keeping Christ centered in the relationship.