Brynlee Cook

This week in class we talked about effective communication in a relationship. This is something that I was super excited to learn about because I know that it is something that I need to be better at. I know that I am not an effective communicator because I hate confrontation. I chose not to communicate at all if I feel like there is a possibility that it could turn into confrontation. It has always been something that I struggled with, but we learned some good ways to be an effective communication through confrontation. The following steps come from a book by one of the apostles of the church. The first step is called the disarming technique. In order for this step to productive you have to take out your defensiveness. This is something that is really hard for me, I like to be able to defend myself, but I can also see the benefits. When you get rid of your defensiveness the other person doesn’t feel like they have to fight back. Another big part of this step is finding “kernels ...

This week in class we talked about Intimacy and Infidelity. This was in interesting week because I think these are two topics that worry unmarried people the most about marriage. In regard to intimacy I will only briefly touch on it because I personally believe that is a personal discussion to have with your spouse and I have yet to experience it, so I don’t feel qualified to dwell on this topic. The one comment that I loved regarding intimacy was that it is the biggest piece of God’s power that we have access to. That comment made me think of the quote “Where there is great power comes greater responsibility”. Ok now moving on to infidelity. This is such a scary thing to think about. Every little girl imagines meeting her Prince Charming and having a happily ever after. I have always my future as meeting this perfect someone and growing old with them, happy and wrinkly. This unfortunately is becoming more unrealistic. That used to be the story for a lot of people, get married an...

This week in class we talked about marriage and early marital adjustments. Something I don’t think I have mentioned before is that I am going on a mission for my church in two months. I will be serving in the Calgary, Canada mission for 18 months. The reason I am even bringing this up is because I have noticed that when people find out I am going on a mission they seem to feel the need to tell me the hard/bad stuff about their missions. They don’t know that I am already nervous about this new chapter in my life that I know is going to be hard. Instead of helping me feel better by telling me all the good and happy parts of their mission they tell me how hard it is, how they would never do it again, and to make what they said better they end with “but my mission was a great experience”. This is a trend I see with marriage too. I feel like most people who talk about marriage don’t have many positive things to say, this leads to fear being installed in the younger generation who still ha...

This week in class we talked about attraction and dating. Now as a single college girl this seemed to be the most important topic for me to pay attention to. Ha! Kind of kidding. But this was a topic I was genuinely interested in, reason being I want to know why I am attracted to the people that I am. There is an actual science to attraction, and it is proven that people with more symmetrical faces are more attractive but for me personality seems to play a big role. During the initial meeting of a person their physical appearance is the only thing I am relying on for attractiveness, but that person can quickly loose or gain that attractiveness based on what comes out of their mouth. I am attracted to someone who is kind and motivated. Another interesting thing I learned in class this week was that women tend to rate men more attractive after participating in an activity that gets your adrenaline going. For example, there was a study done where some couples were separated and asked to...