Accepting Influence and Pride

 Power is craved by the natural man.  Power is the ability to act or produce an effect or the possession of control, authority or influence over others.  Some men and women often feel the need to be in power or control their marriages and not let the other spouse have any influence over them. Historically, this has been a man’s issue where they are the ones in control, but I believe it can shift and become the woman’s issue.  Influencing our spouse and accepting influence from our spouse is not giving up power or control.   It is allowing spouses to honor and respect each other.  As Dr. Gottman puts it, husbands who are emotionally intelligent tend to have happier marriages because they accept the influence of their wives.  This leads the wife to be less negative and nagging to her husband.  And the opposite is true as well.  Dr. Gottman states, “Accepting influence is an attitude, but it’s also a skill that you can hone if you pay attention to how you relate to your spouse.”  

I agree with Dr. Gottman.  Attitude makes a difference.  I know if I have a negative attitude about a problem in my marriage, then talking about the problem is not going to go well.  For example, I have a negative attitude about budgets.  I am not sure exactly why I have such a negative attitude, but I feel constricted and very uncomfortable with one.  For many years, I avoided talking about a budget with my husband.  I would not accept any of his influence in this area.  Over time, I have learned how important it is to have a budget and that it is not constricting, but freeing.  By finally allowing my husband to influence my attitude about our budget, I have been happier about keeping one and it has become easier to adhere to it.   And, I admit it, he was right all along, which leads me to that word, pride.  I had to be humbled in order to accept my husband’s influence.  I needed to put away my selfish pride.

Pride is the universal sin.  It affects each and every one of us.  Pride causes us to fear what men think of us by making us competitive with one another and to look down on each other.  Pride causes us to not accept God’s will in our lives.  Pride causes us to become more selfish and feel we always have to be right.   Allowing pride to enter into a marriage can have devastating effects on the relationship.  I love what H. Wallace Goddard said about how to deal with pride, “Two processes were named above for dealing with natural human narrow-mindedness: getting heaven’s perspective and being open to our partner’s point of view.”  Humility and repentance are the keys to unlock heaven’s perspective and our partner’s perspective.  We can see those perceptive when we turn ourselves over to God and see things through His eyes.  President Benson states, “Think of the repentance that could take place with lives changed, marriages preserved, and homes strengthened, if pride did not keep us from confessing our sins and forsaking them. …“The antidote for pride is humility—meekness, submissiveness. …“Let us choose to be humble.”   I am choosing to work on being humble, to repent and to forgive.  Each of these is necessary to make my marriage an even happier one. 

Reference
Power (2017) Merriman-Webster.com.  Retrieved on February 24, 2017 from http//www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/power.

Gottman, J. M. (2015) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  Harmony Books. New York, NY. 

Goddard, H. W. (2009) Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships. Joymap Publishing. Cedar Hills, UT.

Benson, E. T. (1989, May) Beware of Pride. Ensign, 4.

Turning Toward Each Other: Week 7

   

                                           

                                                Fishing In Alaska, by Martha Arnell
     One important aspect of a marriage is to show interest in your spouse's interests. Through the years I've tried to be a cheerleader when my husband brought home game after hunting, fishing etc. My father wasn't a hunter or fisherman, so this was a change for me. We have a set of mounted deer and moose antlers on our wall in our family room. Also, since my husband has been into running and especially marathon running, I've tried to be his greatest supporter and cheerleader. We now have 19 marathon medals hanging on the deer antlers in our family room.
    My husband has always desired to travel to Alaska to go fishing in a back-country river-trip. His opportunity came the summer of 2009. Of course, I was also invited. Traveling down a river in a raft all day and camping in tents in the wilds each night along the side of the river was not my greatest desire (I enjoy camping in my fifth wheel!). Anyway, I committed to my husband that I would go on the trip, support him, and not complain. The first day on our week-long river-trip, some no-see-um bugs and some horsefly type bugs bit my ears and face. When I awoke in the tent the next morning I felt strange with large swollen ears and eyes. I luckily had brought some over-the-counter allergy medicine, which helped somewhat with the swelling. But the greatest help was the blessing I asked for from my husband that morning outside our tent. He enjoyed his trip greatly, a life-time experience. I didn't complain and survived my bitten face, which took another month to look normal.
After reading the story form Martha Arnell, “Fishing in Alaska,” I had to ask myself, would I go through that experience for my spouse?  Well, maybe not that particular one, but I know I have gone through experiences where I was not the most comfortable, but I did it because it was important to him.  My take away from the story was we do things for our spouse we don’t necessarily want to, but because we now it is important to them and we want to make them happy, we do it anyway.

     I know I want to make my spouse happy.  I do have to work at it and I know I make many mistakes along the way.  Dr. Gottman’s information about turning towards each other instead of away helps to build that emotional bond between husband and wife.  As I look back in my marriage, I can see when I turned towards my spouse and when I turned away.  These bids for attention from one’s spouse are important to keeping the relationship in a positive state. This week, I have already noticed some bids for attention from my husband and some bids I have sent to him.  So far, these bids have resulted in a turning towards each other and the benefits from doing so have increased my positive bank account and I think it has for my husband as well.

     The emotional bank account is an account that can be either negative or positive.  As Dr. Gottman describes it, “Each time partners turn toward each other, they are funding what I’ve come to call their emotional bank account.  They are building up savings that, like money in the back, can serve as a cushion when times get rough, when they’re faced with major life stress or conflict.” Sure, our bids are not always met with a turning towards each other, but the swelling feeling of love is definitely worth the effort to try.

     Turning toward your spouse can take a leap of faith.  We might be hurt by being turned away or we could be doing the turning away.  Faith is marriage is necessary and Goddard’s thoughts on faith in how it pertains to marriage are also pertinent to this week’s discussion.  He talked about how we sometimes in this life focus too much on the mundane and trivial stuff, which causes us to find fault with our partners, but having faith can change our perspective to an eternal one giving us more patience to deal with each other’s faults. Faith causes us to look outward instead of inward.  We spend less time dwelling on negative things and more on positive things.  I loved this from his book, “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ requires that we trust God is working to rescue our spouses even as He is working to rescue us.”  We are all in need of God’s rescue, or to have the faith to become even a little bit more like Him as we journey through our time on earth. President Uchtdorf said in a recent conference address:
“Somehow, as the days multiply and the color of romantic love changes, there are some who slowly stop thinking of each other’s happiness and start noticing the little faults. In such an environment, some are enticed by the tragic conclusion that their spouse isn’t smart enough, fun enough, or young enough. And somehow they get the idea that this gives them justification to start looking elsewhere. Brethren, those who save their marriages understand that this pursuit takes time, patience, and, above all, the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It requires you to be kind, envy not, seek not your own, not be easily provoked, think no evil, and rejoice in the truth. In other words, it requires charity, the pure love of Christ.1  All this won’t just happen in an instant. Great marriages are built brick by brick, day after day, over a lifetime.  And that is good news.  Because no matter how flat your relationship may be at the present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.”

   Our marriages will be enhanced as we let the power of the Atonement work for each of us as we work through our irritations with each other and follow President Uchtdorf’s advice to build our marriages brick by brick.

References:

Gottman, J. M. (2015) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  Harmony Books. New York, NY.

Goddard, H. W. (2009) Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships. Joymap Publishing. Cedar Hills, UT.

Uchtdorf, D. (2016, May) In Praise of Those Who Save. Ensign.

Love Maps: Week 6

After reading the title of the first principle, “Enhance Your Love Maps,” in Gottman’s book, I was intrigued.  What is a love map?  A love map is the area of the brain where you store the relevant information about your spouse.  It reminds me of intentional living.  We make room in our brains for important information about our spouses for us to refer to in the future.  This information helps us to really get to know our spouses on a deeper level and by doing so we come to really love the true them.  According to Gottman, it is with this knowledge that we will have the strength to withstand the storms that may come to our marriages.  I can see how this would be true.  If we are intentionally trying to learn about our spouse, find out how their day went, and keep up with likes and dislikes, it can only serve to help us when trials arise and keep the connection we have alive.

Working on our love maps requires some sacrifice on our parts.  We have to be willing to invest the time and effort it will take to get to know another person on a deep level.  Marriage can be a series of negotiations over who sleeps on what side of the bed, who pays the bills, who takes care of the trash, who plans date night, what cereal are we going to buy, how are we dividing up household chores, and other tasks that a marriage will face. As we work together to negotiate, having a love map helps us to understand the other person better and see where they are coming from.  It will keep the negotiations on a more stable level instead of turning them into a more difficult challenge.  Goddard stated that “marriage is God’s finishing school.”  As we work through our trials and challenges in marriage, we learn to look for the good instead of the irritations.

I really liked this quote from our readings this week,

“Avoid ‘ceaseless pinpricking.’ Don’t be too critical of each other’s faults. Recognize that none of us is perfect. We all have a long way to go to become as Christlike as our leaders have urged us to become.

“ ‘Ceaseless pinpricking,’ as President Spencer W. Kimball called it, can deflate almost any marriage. … Generally each of us is painfully aware of our weaknesses, and we don’t need frequent reminders. Few people have ever changed for the better as a result of constant criticism or nagging. If we are not careful, some of what we offer as constructive criticism is actually destructive”

                    - Elder Joe J. Christensen

This is a great reminder to look for the good and try to work through the irritations. It gives us the opportunity to work on our love maps.  I know I struggle at times to share the more detailed information about my life and my world.  My husband and I have been married for almost 23 years.  There have been years where I did not share some of my more personal thoughts and feelings, mostly because I felt embarrassed by them.  I could feel the distance between us and I did not like how it felt.  I have personally been working harder to be more open and willing to share my struggles and dreams.  It has made a huge difference in how I view my husband and how I view my marriage.  I do still feel embarrassed to share some of my feelings, but I do it anyway and it is becoming easier.  I can see how the use of a love map can greatly enhance a marriage for the better.  Does it mean that all the work is done?  No, it will be an ongoing process to always discover something new about our spouse.

References

Gottman, J. M. (2015) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  Harmony Books. New York, NY.

Goddard, H. W. (2009) Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships. Joymap Publishing. Cedar Hills, UT.

Friendship: Week 5

The definition of friend in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “one attached to another by affection or esteem or a favored companion.”  When we get married, I agree with Dr. John Gottman that we should not only be in love with our spouses, but we need to be friends with our spouses.  Friends are the people who are cheering for us and supporting us.  Friends help us to achieve our dreams and goals.  Friends are there when life does not go right and help us through our trials.  Sometimes we fight with our friends, but we make up.  Why would we not want our spouse to also be our friend?   Gottman stated, “Friendship is a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company,” and, “Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse.” I agree with him. 

I have noticed through the years that friendship can sometimes wax and wane.  It takes work to maintain a good friendship where good feelings override everything else.  There have been times in my marriage where those good feelings have been overridden by negativity and criticism.  It takes a concerted effort to turn those feelings around to the positive.  In reading H. Wallace Goddard’s book, "Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage," it reminded me we have to change our mindset.  Instead of focusing so much on myself, I should focus on my spouse and what feelings he may be having.  I have been blessed with a very compassionate spouse.  He is very even in temperament.  He is also good at reminding me when I am getting a little out of control with my tone of voice or words.  This always brings me right back to looking at my spouse as my friend and not my enemy.

I know no marriage is perfect and I know no marriage is the same.  I always fall back to the example of my paternal grandparents’ marriage.  It was not perfect, but I could clearly see how much they loved each other and how devoted they were to each other.  My grandparents raised six children, owned their own business and worked together at it, and never tired of being together.  You could always find my grandmother in the kitchen cooking something because she wanted to make sure her husband had good food to eat for all his meals.  My grandfather always worked hard and would come home to enjoy his meals, which he always thanked grandma for profusely.  After retirement, grandma was still always in the kitchen with grandpa sitting at the bar of the kitchen to be with her. They were a model of friendship and love until the end.   It reminded me of the comparison in Goddard's book on the Good Samaritan.  I had not looked at the story of the Good Samaritan and compared it to marriage, but what an effective way to show how marriage should be.  The Good Samaritan did all that Christ would to help ensure the safety of the battered man on the road.  He cared for him and paid for his continued care.  I hope to continually grow in compassion like the Good Samaritan for my spouse and keep improving my marriage.  Marriage is a good proving ground, which helps us to grow in gospel concepts as we support and lift each other up. 

References

Gottman, J. M. (2015) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  Harmony Books. New York, NY.

Goddard, H. W. (2009) Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships. Joymap Publishing. Cedar Hills, UT.

Friend. (2017) In Merriam-Webster.com. Retreived January 31, 2017, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/friend#h1

Henry Ford. Brainy Quote.com. Retrieved January 31, 2017, from//www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_friendship.html

Henry Van Dyke. Brainy Quote.com. Retrieved January 31, 2017, from //www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_friendship.html