Dating is a concept most of us if not all understand. Dating is when two people go out for food and some kind of activity. Many people do selective dating when we should be dating a wide variety of people doing a variety of activities. However, dating has changed over time and is disappearing in our culture. Today, it has become very common to date less and to hang out and/or hook up more. A research team described dating as “sex without strings, relationships without rings.” Why are young adults today less inclined to date or marry early? A few reasons are because they enjoy the single life and want to enjoy it as long as possible, fear of commitment, too many changes and compromises, and last but not least they are able to “hook up” or have sexual relations with nothing further expected of the relationship. Dating helps us learn more about the opposite sex and ourselves. Dating also helps us learn how to trust others, how to work well and interact with others (particularly the opposite sex), and develop new skills and/or improve already acquired skills.
While dating, we look for and find qualities that we are attracted to. The first quality men and woman look for is physical attractiveness. There is nothing wrong with physical attractiveness to be first because it is necessary for one to be attracted to the other person. With that being said, it is important to understand there is more to a person than their looks. Other qualities to look for can include forgiving of others, understanding, have a desire to have a family if that is your desire, compatible, and have the same religious beliefs. Attraction is not enough when dating with the end goal of marriage. That is where the Relationship Attachment Model (R.A.M.) comes in. This model was produced by Dr. John Van Epp. The R.A.M. model helps us understand how a relationship should grow.
Here is a breakdown of the R.A.M. model…
- Know: bonding with and getting to know someone
- Trust: the more you come to know a person, trust begins to develop
- Rely: reliance comes from trusting someone. It grows from how you meet their needs and they meet yours
- Commit: this is when you become “official,” or are belonging to a relationship
- Touch: physical touch and feelings of romance and intimacy
When dating, it is important to follow the R.A.M model and to make sure that one step does not proceed the one step before it to create a healthy, long-lasting relationship. Jim Gascoine advises couples to date and get to know each other for the first 6-12 months before talking about a long-term loving relationship because this allows the couple to get to know each other in multiple different contexts. Jim states,
“If I only know someone in a small area of my life, I may overgeneralize. I may assume that the knowledge I have of them in one small area is applicable to many other areas of life, and that’s not always true. If I jump right to a heavy reliance, and rely on the other person to meet my emotional needs while they rely on me to be a caregiver, I may really not know how trustworthy the person is in many other areas of life. If I’ve only gotten to know someone by continuing to go to dinner together or on traditional dates, that’s a very narrow context. I don’t know what that person is like around family or friends, especially if we haven’t been in a group together.”
After dating, we transition to courting or as we know it as today, we become “official.” This is when we stop dating a variety of people because we have found one person we are interested in who we possibly believe could become a spouse. The next step after courtship is engagement followed by marriage. In each step, it is so important to keep dating! Don’t call staying in and watching TV a date. Like in the dating phase, make a plan that has you go out of your home and do some kind of activity where you can converse in conversation to maintain your bond and keep the romance alive. Dating helps couples to keep the marriage strong. To enrich the marriage and keep the bond between the two individuals, couples need to continue dating.
For additional information on R.A.M., visit the link below.
Family Relations 