March 9, 2012

FAMILY of ORIGIN

I graduated from college in 2004, earning a Bachelor's degree in Family Studies.  I also minored in Psychology.  The plan was to go on to graduate school, but life had other plans for me.

I have never professionally used my degree.  Upon graduation, I started working full-time for a large oil company in which I dealt with things that couldn't be further from what I studied day in and day out for four years.  However, my degree has never gone to waste, and I carry the things I have learned with me everyday.

The first class I took within my program was Marriage and Family Relations.  It was a lower division course, but we talked so much about many useful things, things that have helped me in my relationships {specifically my marriage}, ever since.

For example, we talked about the importance of a person's family of origin.  I remember my textbook specifically stating:  "If you want to understand someone, you must first understand his/her family of origin."  In other words, the family they were born and raised in.

I cannot even begin to explain how useful this information has been for me.  As newlyweds, my husband and I struggled at times with how to work through problems, how to communicate with each other and overall just how to live together.

A lot of our issues boiled down to how we were raised and even where we were raised.  I grew up in the city {not that Salt Lake is a huge city, but a city it is} and he grew up in a small town in Wyoming.  Our life experiences were very different.  Our parents did different things for a living and handled situations differently.  My parents hired everything out.  His family was all about the DIY.  I grew up going to the mall and seeing movies on the weekends.  The closest mall to him was 2 hours away and the first movie theater wasn't built in town until he was in high school.  In short, we had very different perspectives on life.

Despite all of our differences, though, we still get along swimmingly.  But, we're not without our disagreements.

I'll always be grateful for the knowledge I learned about the importance of one's family of origin.  It has helped me understand my husband and has helped me understand his point of view when we haven't seen eye to eye.

{Oh, and in case you're wondering, I LOVE my husband's family of origin.}

9 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you love us....even though we're 'hicks from the sticks!' :) WE LOVE YOU, TOO!

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  2. This is super interesting... my family and I come from completely different families of origin, and I do believe that many of our differences stem from that. Dr. Emily, in our next session, you'll have to give me suggestions on how to get past that! :)

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  3. It makes a lot of sense. I've had a lot of friends who suddenly made so much more sense to me after I met their parents and/or siblings.

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    1. Ya, me too. Isn't it crazy how we can really be so much like our immediate family members?!

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  4. I totally agree! Me and my husband were raised very differently and it's caused a lot of conflict over the years. We're learning to accept the differences and embrace them.

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    1. That's great. I think getting to the point of knowing that you're different and accepting it is the hardest step. After that, it's all about adjusting and tweeking and compromising. :)

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  5. So true. It's always good to look at things through someone else's lense. Especially in marriage. So hard to do sometimes too. I love making a new family culture for our family from both of our different backgrounds. Taking the good stuff from both sides.

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    1. I agree. I try to put myself in other people's shoes all the time!

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