I'm 22. I am currently in my 6th semester at BYU-I. I'm graduating at the end of this semester, then going to culinary art school shortly after.
I am in Independent Beauty Consultant for Mary Kay.
In class we discussed the many important factors that a person will go through starting with marriage, then going to trying to get pregnant, having children, becoming empty-nesters, becoming grandparents, retirement and experiencing the death of a spouse. Some of those will be in opposite orders, but that is generally the order they go in. We start off with marriage because that is the factor that leads to complete companionship with another, moving out of the parents house and making a career and life for oneself. Becoming pregnant is a struggle for a lot of couples and can take a toll on marriage if one is not able to get pregnant, or there are disagreements on when it is appropriate to have children. Empty-nesters is the next one and that is just when the children move out for good and the husband and wife have to readjust their lives to only being with their spouse and in some cases, getting to know them all over again. Becoming grandparents is a great gift because they form a bond with the grandchild and they aren't the ones that need to discipline the child. Retirement can make it hard on marriage because the couple are not use to spending so much time together and they can become very bored and start getting "annoyed" with each other. The worst out of all of these is experiencing the death of a spouse. It is extremely hard on every couple, but the longer you are with your spouse, the harder it is to give them up and say goodbye because they are not use to being apart. It is hard for them to deal with, but the best option is to volunteer and do service for one another so they can feel needed and forget about their problems. There are some who remarry (more likely for the males to remarry than females) because they are looking for that companionship again.
People think that divorce is no big deal, but what they are failing to realize is that divorce doesn't only take a negative effect on the people that are participating in it, but if there are children, they suffer the most. Children suffer the most because they do not know how to adapt to their parents being apart and taking on different roles inside the family. If there are many children, usually the oldest son takes over the father's role since the father is no longer available for the job. There are many negative effects, mostly emotional that the children suffer from without that male role model and just knowing that the father is no longer a big part of their family makes things worse. One of the hardest parts of divorce is the effects that come after with remarriage. For some people, getting remarried is a very joyful and good opportunity, but for others it is a hard adjustment. The reason it can be hard is a new family is trying to adjust to a new dad or mom and them taking over the role of their other parent. Also, if one of the children took over the absent parent's role (son takes over father's role or daughter taking over mothers role), then it is a hard adjustment for them to give up that role and go back to taking orders from a parent who hasn't been apart of their family before. When remarriage occurs, it does take time for the children and spouse to adjust, but it must be done so in the right manner or else the marriage can fail.