Intimacy, a Blessing of Frustration

     Intimacy is a challenge! It can be hard to make it happen. I know, most younger people are probably wondering if I'm serious, they might even be thinking something along the lines of, "How could it be a challenge? I couldn't turn these feelings off, even if I wanted to!" A sexual relationship between a man and a woman has many challenges, benefits, and can bring harmony to a relationship. Some of those challenges might be incorrect judgements or misunderstandings, frustration, anxiety, vulnerability, and resentment. Some of the benefits could be harmony within the relationship, a growth in love and closeness, protection, communication, children, interdependence, and vulnerability (I know, weird that it's a challenge but also a benefit). I might not have enough space here to write about everything, I would love to shed light on some of the challenges and solutions.

    Often times one of the most common incorrect judgements is caused by the different ways that men and women crave sex. Often times, a woman wants to feel safe, warm, and close to someone before they want sex with a man. Man, in most cases, requires sex to feel safe, warm, and close to someone. Can you see where this might cause some problems? Often times this leads to women thinking that men are pigs and only want sex, or men thinking that women are prudes or withholding intimacy from them (and in turn withholding love and closeness). This causes disputes and unfair judgements of one or both of the partners, because both just want to feel closer, safe, and grow a deeper love of the other. I think to overcome this problem, it is important for both parties involved to step past their nature in part and do their best to make sure the other's needs are met. This helps grow the relationship in more than just intimacy, but helps both partners grow aware of each other in a new and extraordinary way.

    Another challenge to intimacy is frustration. There are many different ways that a couple could become frustrated during or around intimacy. One way is the different arousal periods that each other have. Sometimes one or the other isn't feeling aroused and that could bring sexual frustration into the equation. I don't think this is inherently wrong, its okay to not feel aroused exactly when your partner does feel so. I believe it becomes an issue when it happens frequently, thats when frustration comes into the equation. I think the best solution to this is to remember the above. It's also important to remember what both parties need to feel aroused. Often times, due to the nature of our genitalia, men feel more arousal; Physically it is easier for a man to become aroused and often times the time from arousal to climax is shorter than women's. Men also cannot climax more than one time in a short period, there is a refractory period in the which our bodies need to recover. This could also be another source of frustration, but for the female party, which would be left unsatisfied. Females often take longer to climax, and are able to climax multiple times. I believe that this challenge can be overcome with one of the benefits of intimacy: communication. When a couple participate in intimacy, it can be a scary thing. It requires that both parties communicate their preferences and help each other with those preferences. This helps couples be more comfortable with the idea of communicating, especially communicating needs, and listening to each other. Once again, overcoming this challenge can deepen a couple's love for each other and help them in more aspects of their relationship than just intimacy.

    The last topic I would like to touch is vulnerability. It is a challenge because while being intimate, you are exposing yourself completely to another person, in both an emotional and physical manner. This is the most vulnerable position you are able to put yourself in. The beautiful part of this though, is that it can also be a benefit. It teaches interdependence, being able to rely on the other in a vulnerable moment, and honesty with issues. These skills directly translate into other aspects of life, and help a couple to grow with each other, and deepen their love for one another.

The Lifecycle of a Healthy Relationship and Modern Misconceptions

     A healthy marriage is founded on friendship, dating, courtship, and engagement. Often times, our modern cultural norms prompt us to skip these steps. We go straight to exclusivity and courtship, a facebook engagement event (that was completely planned beforehand), and then directly to marriage. Planning for this marriage normally excludes the groom completely and takes place with the mother of the bride and the bride.

    I know what you're thinking, why does all that matter? Or you might even be choosing those things because they seem like unnecessary risks.

    Well dating is crucial because it helps us to know our preferences. It needs to be a casual, but special event between two potential mates. It needs to remain non-exclusive, but at the same time display interest in getting to know each other. It needs to be planned, paired off, and paid for. This type of dating will help both parties recognize traits in each other and see if they would like to continue with one another. It also helps the couple to learn how to share responsibilities together.

    The planning of the marriage is an opportunity for the groom and the bride to practice planning together. It is one of the first large events that they have the opportunity to do so together. It allows them to strengthen their relationship. Following our societal norms, this relationship is not strengthened, but rather it strengthens, or destroys, the relationship between the mother of the bride and the bride. In the case of my wedding, it almost destroyed my wife's relationship with her mom, and my relationship with her (because I saw how she was treating my bride to be and I did not like it one bit!). Either outcome is undesired, because marriage and engagement is a specific time to strengthen the new couples relationship and start to build boundaries with their parents. It seems scary, but it's important to start building these boundaries to protect their own marriage. If they have no/open boundaries with their parents, it can cause uncomfortable things to happen, like talking about their spouse behind their back to their parents, in turn making the in-law's relationship with the spouse deteriorate. 

    Sometimes there are cases where a parent has a very open boundary with their child; they confide in them by talking to them about marriage issues. The parent could even expect the same type of relationship back from the child. Just because one person has a very open boundary (even if it is unhealthy) doesn't mean that the other has to reciprocate that same boundary. In fact, it is crucial that the child builds up their boundaries to have a healthy relationship with their spouse. If their spouse is not someone that they can confide in about ANY issue, there may be more serious underlying problems that need to be addressed.

    This planning together, can be a great benefit in teaching the couple how to adjust to married life. They learn how to talk, compromise, and work together. It teaches them how to share responsibilities like finances/debt, purchase, and time (instead of killing time together, they share/plan their time). They put everything together, becoming unified as a couple.

    Some of these things seem really scary, because they are not what we have been taught to do or have seen other's do. In fact, we might be warned by some to not do things this way, or that the societal norm is just fine. I just want to let you know, the loudest voice is the one that is going to be heard. Not many people advocate for these things, because they seem 'old fashioned'. The benefits of doing these things will strengthen your marriage and relationship with the person that you love.

Dating, A Progressive Disappointment

    As time has progressed, many aspects of our cultures, habits, understandings, and traditions has changed. Out with the old and in with the new. This has formed a new and modern culture, which we have yet to seen the effects of because of just that, it's new. We can see how older culture affected us more because it has had time to be tested. New culture, from what we have seen, has brought several good and several bad effects about.

    A specific topic of the effects of changes in dating. In a more historical context, dating was more structured, but at the same time it was more casual. I know those aren't two words that we normally use together, but let me explain myself. Historically, you could go on dates with multiple people at a time, and it wasn't considered something exclusive. It was something that you could use to get to know more people, yourself, and your interests. You could date without an eye to marrying someone. In contrast, I believe I know one phrase that nearly sums up a modern view on dating, "Don't spend money dating someone else's wife." I first heard this when I returned from Ecuador and I laughed at it. I personally liked going on dates and had no qualms with spending money on dates. I loved the experience of trying new things, and it was even better if I could bring a pretty girl along. Although, I feel like most young men and women would share beliefs in what this phrase describes, or rather, "Don't waste time or dates." I think that it shows a huge difference in the amount of effort we are willing to expend now.

    Modern dating is all about putting the least amount of effort you can in, or making it so extravagant that you could only go on a date every so often. The extreme is where the danger lies. Dates are now seen as so extravagant, that it is easier to date someone by hanging out. In fact, it is becoming increasingly popular that some couples try and spend every waking moment with each other, only taking breaks to sleep. A reason why this may be popular is because it seems easier than actually trying to take someone out on dates. This, however, is dangerous because it has so little structure, and truly limits the capacity of how well you can get to know someone. Crucial dates with trust building activities turn into, "Let's just watch a movie" or "I'm going to work on homework while you..." It is no longer seen as a special time to bond and learn about one another.

    So, how can we change this? I think the most important thing to realize is that dating can be casual, fun, planned or spontaneous, and structured. Something that I have done with my wife, to help us have dating ideas, was to buy a book of dating ideas. I know, it sounds a little dumb, because you could just search up date ideas on the internet. We end up choosing a random date idea from the book, and commit ourselves to do it, even if it sounds like something that we might not be the most interested in. This has been a way that we can do something creative and new; It has helped us to further getting to know more about ourselves as a couple and as individuals. Now I know everyone isn't married, or even consistently dating a single person, but I still think this principle applies to everyone: don't be afraid to try new things. Make dating easy, and not feel like a huge commitment or obligation, but rather a way to experience something new with a special person.

Societal Roles and Gender

    Being recently married has been one of the most exciting adventures of my life. I get to learn, grow, and see the world in ways that I have never thought of before. I care about my wife deeply and was very selective in the process of finding someone to marry. I chose to marry my wife because she demonstrated the characteristics that I was looking for in a future spouse and partner in raising children.

    One of the reasons why traditional marriage is often times so successful at raising children is due to the natures and traits of men and women. We compliment each other deeply, and bring balance to each other. Men often times are seen as less likely to ask for help (independent), spatially oriented, object focused, rough housing, competitive, and more likely to show physical aggression. While women on the other side are caregiving/nurturing, open communicators, relationship/people focused, detail oriented (seeing more colors and hearing more sounds), oriented (physically) by landmarks or where things are in relation to each other, and more likely to be verbally aggressive. Now, not all men and women are the same, but we see a pattern in behavior between the two genders.

    At a glance, it may seem like I just made a list of opposites that men and women have, but it is much deeper than that. Each parent has separate and distinct responsibilities as individuals, and their traits help them to complete theirs. Men often times are usually seen to provide, protect, preside over the family, while women nurture and care for the family. Looking back at those traits it seems obviously clear how each of them tie back into the usual role of a family.

    Now that brings forth the question, "If I don't fit these general roles, is there something wrong with me?" Often times, when a woman displays traits of a man, it is seen as an extremely positive thing. They are applauded by society and encouraged as progressing. This can be positive and negative for several reasons, but is highly dependent on the situation that it occurs in. I mean, personally, some of the reasons why I decided to marry my wife is because she shows some of both gender's traits. That is what I was looking for to compliment myself; I also show several traits from both genders. 

    On the flip side of how we see women who show masculine traits, we often see men who show feminine traits in a negative connotation. We seem to see them as lesser than other men, and tend to de-masculinize them. This is common not only in young children who make fun of the boys who are different, but also in adults! How sad is it that we bully men into being men! What woman wouldn't want to marry a man who is tender, kind, detail oriented, people focused, etc? The worst part of this, is the trauma that occurs because of the separation from certain social groups that these men face. Often times these men are chased away from being in social groups of their same gender. They are different, and in turn they are cast out. This creates a void in that man's life, because they are no longer accepted within their own gender group. This can cause them to crave that acceptance and subconsciously become confused about their role in society. 

    My invitation to all those who read this would be to stop, and help encourage acceptance and love towards all of our cohorts in life. It is to help those that might be different, to be accepted and love them for who they are. There is no reason why we need to put those men, who might be tender hearted, down and cast them from societal acceptance.  

Family Structure and Status

    I've often thought about what types of opportunities have been afforded to me, while some people don't have those same opportunities: A stable job, a high school education, higher education, not having to worry about where my next meal is coming from, having access to clean water. While I was living in Ecuador, I saw many people from all sorts of social status backgrounds. Some people lived in extremely nice houses with beautiful furniture and a beautiful view. Others lived in shacks with walls made of sugar cane and dirt floors, the only source of water being a hose ran through the wall to a makeshift bucket sink. I have often thought, what affords the opportunity to live on a certain rung of the social status ladder? Is it pure luck? Being born rich or poor? Can those who are on lower rungs work their way up to the top easily?

    I believe it could be a mixture of all these factors, but I think that it has to do much with the family structure that we are born in. The reason why is because that is how we learn the way life should be, and it influences the decisions that we make as we create our own models of our families. It's not set in stone that we have to live in the same way our families did, but we learn certain habits, behaviors, cultures, and traditions from them. Family culture passes through generations, this helps us to develop into the people we are actively. This pattern continues unless something specific intervenes with it. That brings forth the question: Are all family structures valid?

    To answer this question, I would like to share more of the meaning behind the word "valid." Something that is valid produces a desired result or is effective. My opinion of the validity of family structures is that they are not all the same. Since families follow patterns and traditions are inherited, it causes that certain results may be accepted in some families, but may be rejected in others. Or rather, different family cultures produce different results in how a person grows. If I grow up in a divorced family, it makes it much more likely that I would imitate that same family structure in my life.

    For example, this family structure could affect status due to the resource constraints that exist when only a single parent is raising several kids. These resources not only include food, money, or living conditions, but also things like time. A single parent has much less time to raise their children because they need to provide necessities of life. This not only causes financial difficulties though; it could also cause an imbalance of the family structure. Rather than having a traditional two parent unit, there is only one parent, that is only in the picture part of the time. This causes the children to start taking leadership positions within the family. You many be wondering, why is that such a big deal? Well, think about it, how could a 15-year-old raising their younger sibling go wrong? They don't have the same life experience, that adults do, to be able to help their children. The scariest part is that since this is how the children are raised, they are more likely to raise their kids with the same family structure. In turn, this causes them to have the same disadvantages of resources. Although, this type of influence is also seen on the opposite side of the spectrum: a traditional family will raise children more likely to have that same family structure, with its advantages.

    Now, in no way am I saying that all children of single parents are doomed to fail or that a single parent family cannot be high class. Nor is every traditional family ideal and advantageous. I repeat, our lives are not set in stone based off of what our parents lived. A situation as above may end up being okay too, but we must be wary of the influence our family's structure have on us. I feel like the most important question to ask ourselves is, 'Does the culture that we are making meet the children's needs?' Our future generations are affected most by what we do now.

The Key to Understanding Behavior

        Have you ever wondered, “why doesn’t my family understand me?” or, “why is [insert family member's name here] acting the way they are? I just can’t figure them out.” I have had both of those thoughts before, and this week I spent time trying to understand different social science theories that explain certain familial behaviors. A theory is an attempt to make an explanation to a phenomenon (an observation), and we make them because we want to predict, influence, or explain certain outcomes. We each make our own theories, whether we want to or not, consciously or subconsciously. The different theories that we make about behavior ends up influencing our behaviors. We change our own behavior to receive positive or desired outcomes. There is one specifically that I would like to bring to your attention because I think it can help you learn more about how to interact with your spouse, in-laws, immediate family, and extended families.

        This crucial theory is called, "The Family System Theory." This explains that inside of the family system, there are sub-systems that group together. An example of this would be a husband and a wife working together or all four sons creating a support system within their family. The purpose of this is to help back up each other in difficult times and help give a feeling of security. This is especially true when multiple children come into the picture. This is important due to the boundaries that we put up to others inside and outside of our sub-units in the family. Some rules that apply to certain family members might not apply to others because of what sub-unit they fit in for my perspective of the family system. For example, I might let one of my brothers criticize me because I feel like they are in my support group, but I might get offended if one of my in-laws would make that same judgment. I believe this is important so that we can understand where we fit in to other’s perspective of family systems, and what types of actions we can do without over stepping our boundaries. 

        Some boundaries might be too closed; for example, we can’t discuss anything and don’t feel comfortable letting each other in. This would be like putting up a 12-foot-tall cinderblock fence around your house, with barbed wire. Scary, right? Other boundaries may be too open; this would be letting people overstep and do things that would be out of the normal for a healthy relationship, but not doing anything out to fix it. This could be like having no fence, and letting others to cut their own paths in your lawn, or even wandering into your house. Then there are clear boundaries, or a more balanced boundary. This would be like having a picket fence outside of your house, with a clear path leading to the front door. This is letting others know where your property is, but letting them know when and how it’s okay to get in. Another good way of looking at this type of boundary is, “we can talk about this…. and we can’t talk about that...” Both parties understand where the relationship lies and what is acceptable. Understanding how we fit in to a family unit, combined with an understanding of how boundaries work, allows us to work on making a more functional relationship.

        Another important factor of understanding family systems are family roles. Relationships and roles can be fluid and flexible, nothing is set in stone. Examples of roles within a family would be: leaders, troublemakers/rebels, or peacekeepers. These roles are sometimes assigned, volunteered for, or just end up forming due to circumstances. These roles can affect both boundaries and sub-units within a family. Certain roles are crucial for having functionality and optimization of an entire family, like the roles of both males and females in parenting/upbringing situations. Roles can help us work together or tear us apart depending on how we choose to view and fulfill them.

        I hope this shed some perspective on how family relationships work. I also hope that by taking a step back and examining your own family systems, boundaries, and roles/relationships you can decide where you would like to fit in and take steps towards achieving a happier family.

    As a young missionary in Ecuador, we had the opportunity to attend many religious meetings. In one of these meetings, I heard a phrase I will never forget, "How much time a day do you spend ironing your socks?" I was very confused in that moment. In these meetings we talk about many topics, with the goal to improve ourselves. 

    You may be wondering what that might mean. I remember asking myself 'what sane person would ever iron their socks?' Most socks are elastic so they don't really get wrinkled at all, along with the fact that almost nobody sees them because they are in our shoes or pant leg. What a waste of time.

    It was exactly that, let me rephrase it for you. How much time are you wasting on things that may seem important, but aren't truly so?

    In 1968 a book name, "The Population Bomb" foretold that at this point in time, with a continually growing population, we would have desolated the earth. It explained that millions of people would starve to death and the environment would be pushed to its limits by straining all natural resources. The book was written when the estimated world population was around three and a half billion, and stated much more than that would be the maximum population before we brought these atrocities upon ourselves. The presented solution to these issues was extreme population control. The author necessitated a lower fertility rate to slow growth or lower population.

    In retrospect, it seems obvious that this isn't the case. We have far more than three and a half billion people on earth right now. The thing is, many people believed this, and soon people began to follow. They stopped having children and the fertility rate of many countries have fallen in response. In fact, many industrialized countries are having large decreases in population, meaning cultures are at risk of dying out. This may not seem to be such a large problem for those of us who are in the United States because our culture is a large mixing pot of other cultures. It is easy for other ethnicities to identify as 'insert ethnicity here'-American. This, however, is not the same case for the majority of the world. Many other cultures do not so easily adopt each other. They continue to see each other as separate, even as they immigrate to other cultures.

    One of the scarier reasons that this is an issue, is that the United States' largest export is its culture. Often other countries and cultures follow the trends and actions that we have here. We are seeing our influence of a diminishing population trend pass on to other countries. 

    Now the reason that I bring this up is because I believe it was a turning point in society. Family by many of a young age is now seen as impossible to achieve, they do not have the confidence in their ability to raise a family. They have lost their faith in themselves to even be or find an acceptable partner. 

    Others have deemed the family as not important to nurture. It has almost become an outdated belief. Many have put other aspects of their lives such as work, financial responsibility, hobbies, travel, or one of the many other parts of their lives as more important than the family. I am in no way saying that these aspects of life are not important. They are crucial for the majority of people, and help us live, learn, and grow as human beings. The danger is allowing them to surpass the importance of the family unit.

    The implications of this are crucial to understand because it is having serious consequences on modern infrastructure. There are not enough workers to replace those who are retiring out of the workforce. This means that we wont have enough people to work and support modern society. This will also cause a catastrophe with social security, supporting those who have retired out of the workforce.

    My invitation to all those who read this is to not use your time ironing your socks. For those who are able, please don't give up the opportunity of a lifetime to bring children into the world. It is a scary thought, but it is possible to do. It is a responsibility to support modern society.

 Hello! 

My name is Travis Jensen and I grew up all over Southern and Northern Utah, Texas, Idaho, and Nebraska. I also lived in Ecuador for two years doing volunteer work. I love woodworking, pottery, or really anything else that is hands on. I just got married to my lovely wife Mackenzie in December of 2021. I come from a split family, so not only do I get to enjoy my parents and three brothers, I also get a bonus mom, a bonus dad, three bonus brothers, and a bonus sister as well!

I love to learn, and I feel like I have so much to share about the importance of family, especially as a newly wed, I am starting to understand about family relations and why they are so important. In this blog I will share my experiences, understanding, and insights of what family truly means to me. 

I can't wait to share with all of you!