Are we dating or hanging out? Are we trying to find a husband or a friend? Some will argue that we want our husband or significant other to be our friend, and we do in a way, but there needs to be more. We will not find our husband by simply hanging out with someone until curfew or until we have to clock into work.
Dating is a huge indicator about how life will be after marriage and can often foretell the problems that will be found ten years down the road. When we are dating we form habits for our future. These habits should be guided by the three P's that summarize the role of the man in the relationship and by the divine role given to women. The three P's are preside, protect, and provide meaning that the dates should give the guy opportunities to fulfill all three of these areas. An example of presiding in a date setting is planning. A guy should be considerate of what the girl is interested in. Does he give her a heads-up of what the plan will be? Does he just tell her a time and hope she is magically dressed for what he has planned? The next P is provide, meaning paid for, but as college students this one is hard, and then you mix in today's culture of the women wanting to help pay, and we are just making it harder on these guys to follow their divine calling. It is also just hard to let a guy pay for us, I admit it I have trouble with it myself. The last p is protect, this one is extremely important to me. How does the guy treat you? Does he think about your safety when he is planning these activities? Does he know the sidewalk rule? Another way to see if he fits the protect area is if when you are out he is aware of where you are and of your surroundings. Dating should also give the woman an opportunity to nurture and to show that she is willing to be apart of a team. We show this by listening and being comforting. Another example of being nurturing while dating is inspiring the guy to become better and to make the hard decisions to change what needs to be changed.
Another important part of dating is analyzing the R.A.M. continually. R.A.M. stands for Relationship Attachment Model. This model has five key components which are know, trust, rely, commit, and touch. It is important to continually analyze this as you are building a relationship to make sure that each area is growing equally. When I talk about growing equally, think about each of them as a volume slider on a sound board that you see in the movies. We want the first four meaning, know, trust, rely, and commit to move up first and at a steady rate. Yes that means no big sudden movements and yes, leave touch at zero. Slowly, very slowly, touch can start to move up but we never want it to make sudden jumps or to be higher than the other four. This allows for time to get know someone before chemical interference as my dad loves to say. It also stops the heart breaks that come from getting overly physically attached. In conclusion people should date following the the three p's and the R.A.M model. I firmly stand by this conclusion because it will create a relationship that is worth being in, and it will also create habits that will lead to a healthy marriage.
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