Dating and sacrifice

I'm sitting here in the family history section of library, typing on this annoyingly loud keyboard. But, I guess it's not inhibiting my thinking that much, just enough as to where I decided that I wasn't going to be able to read the article for my family processes class because all the other keyboards are too loud as well. So, I will join the typing.
Yesterday was one of those days where the world kind of stops and you realize that you can't control everything. You can't control the fact that two months from now you will either be driving or flying to Georgia or that you now realize that you and your best friend won't be living anywhere close to each other because neither of you got into the graduate programs you needed to. It's definitely one of those days.
So, I've decided to "focus" on my studying. An article about sacrifice as a predictor of marital quality. Along my bookmark bar I had noticed lds.org and decided to see what they had to say about comparing ourselves to others, something adding to my large amounts of stress in the past couple of days.  Which leads me to a question: what do we sacrifice in dating, or in order to date? Well, lots of things.

Family of origin. This is temporary, but I've noticed that I often feel as if I have to choose between my present family and my future family. I came out to BYU in part to date and marry. The marriage part hasn't happened, but I'm happy for the experiences I've had in dating. It's taught me a lot about myself, particularly how much I can handle and how gosh darn strong I am (yes, I still hold on to my Southern roots).

The future. Dating changes a lot of things about our futures. I have friend who is currently dating a young man, and even though they are not talking about marriage yet, she is pursuing the relationship in spite of graduate school plans. I'm actually very proud of her, because that is courageous.
Friends. This one doesn't always happen, but a lot of the times as you date you spend more and more time with your significant other and less and less time with your friends (atleast your single ones). This is so sad. I just really like people and want to stay their friend inspite of recent relationship changes.

What I really like about the research is that it shows that sacrifice of ideas, those separate from your core values, helps to strengthen a relationship because it shows your investment. So, make sure you invest more than money into your relationships. Invest love, concern and time. Remember- Love is spelled T-I-M-E.