Patterns Established During Dating and Engagement Stick!

Do you ever find yourself ever saying “Oh my goodness I sound (or act) like my mom (or dad)!” Why is it that we find ourselves acting like our parents sometimes? It’s because patterns stick and are carried out throughout your life unless you recognize and change the pattern. Some patterns can be good like cleaning up after yourself, doing exercise, communicating your feelings, and more. An example of a negative pattern for me is overthinking. My mom is an overthinker and I didn’t realize I was an overthinker until I went to see a therapist. I was able to recognize all the harm it was causing me physically and mentally to overthink every little detail. It affects my relationships with others and my own sanity. Another example could be swearing. If we make it a pattern or in other words a habit, to swear frequently, it is something that happens naturally.

The patterns or habits we establish will follow us into the future. One of the misconceptions an engaged couple can have is that their situation, problems or bad habits will change once they’re married and that everything will be fixed. An example of this could be finances. If as a couple you go out to eat a lot and don’t worry too much about finances and expect that to change once you get married, you are looking at a rough financial future.

Planning a wedding is a huge opportunity to practice either good or bad habits. The average cost of a wedding in the United States is $35,329. How are you going to pay for your wedding? Do you have enough savings? The statistics say no. Are you going to let your parents help you out? Go into debt? The amount you’re planning to spend on your wedding, may not be this high, but there’s a high probability that you don’t have the full amount of money needed to pay for it.

Let’s say that you do have some savings, but that you ask your parents to help you out with the rest. By choosing this, you make your parents a bigger part of your relationship than they should be. They’ll want you to pay them back whether it be with actual money, wanting to plan the wedding for you, or something else. By this stage in the relationship, you should be practicing being independent instead of relying on your parents.

Now, this isn’t always the case. Some parents set certain amount of money for each of their children and let the child decide if they want to use all of or use part of it and take the rest to start their marriage.

Are you going to go into debt? Starting off your marriage with debt limits your freedom. It can limit your freedom to go on dates together, do thoughtful things for each other, you can’t start having children, and may cause you or your spouse to find a second job to pay of the loan or pay bills.

Practicing decision making is important. By practicing frugality, you’re able to use your creativity by drawing to different resources. By doing this, you’re practicing budgeting! Make sure it’s the husband and wife planning the wedding, although mom and dad may provide outside resources.

Practice communication! Talk about important questions before marriage. When do you want to have kids? How many kids? Will the wife have to work while trying to raise children? What are their morals and values?

Knowing your spouse’s weaknesses, strengths, values, morals, goals, habits, patterns, etc. is an important part of knowing who he/she is. Remember to practice making good habits and not negative habits. You can’t expect to plant an apple tree and expect an avocado tree.

Additional Information:

Boyde K. Packer, a form educator, and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explained how a couple should not pray before marriage or go to the temple together before marriage. He suggests this because it confuses the spirit with your own emotions. Another church leader mentioned how it might not be the best idea to even read scriptures together before marriage for the same reason.