FHS 2400 ePortfolio Reflection Paper

Throughout this semester I learned a lot about family values, experiences, the union of
marriage, and most importantly, I learned a tremendous amount about myself.
Throughout our weekly readings I was able to identify areas that were relevant to myself
and my current situation as it relates to what I want in life and in a future
marriage/relationship.

The first assignment I chose for my ePortfolio was IRE #7 from chapter 5. For that weeks
IRE we had to identify 15 traits that we felt were important in our future spouse. The
reason I chose this assignment is because it made me really analyze who I was as a
person and what I really wanted out of life. I had to identify traits that I felt were
important in life, justify my answers from a personal standpoint, use critical thinking
skills and support my stance and answers from facts/data within our readings for that and
previous weeks reading assignments. The answers I had chosen and the traits I felt were
important for a future spouse had dramatically changed from when I was in my early
20s. Things that I felt were important in a woman then didnt make my list nor were they
in my current thought process when creating this list. The readings up to that point
focused on relationship satisfaction, maturity and personal growth. I was able to use the
information found within those readings to analyze the person I am today to really
support why I find those traits to be important and how those traits carry a significant
amount of weight and importance within marriage.

The second paper that I chose for my ePortfolio assignment was from chapter 13, IRE
#21. This paper focused on the mindset of marriage and those people that look at divorce
as an easy solution and fix to issues within a marriage. The question that we were asked
to answer was how we felt about the following statement, When people get married
today, they dont need to make commitment because it is so easy to get a divorce.
During this semester we learned about many factors that play into divorce. Some of these
factors include financial stability, maturity, age of marriage, children, and many other
aspects associated with marriage and everyday life. This assignment really made me take
a look back over the previous weeks readings to determine what factors were talked about
that played into the stigma and mindset of those that think divorce and commitment can
easily be used to resolve marital dissatisfaction. I had to use critical thinking again as
well as support my stance by using references and valid research to support my stance on
if this was a correct statement or not.