Pride

This past week I've been studying more about pride, specifically on how it can affect our marriages. In a General Conference talk given by Ezra Taft Benson in 1989 he said, "Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. (See 2 Ne. 9:42.) There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous." Often times you won't recognize the pride in yourself because you are being prideful. So how do we fix that. The key to fixing it is first to recognize that you are being prideful, and then to humble yourself and turn toward others.

In Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage by H. Wallace Goddard it reads, "In great literature—including scripture—the highest and noblest service entailed sacrifice and selflessness. In contrast, evil was always self-centered and self-serving." How true this is, at least in all of the books that I have read it's usually when the protagonist gives up everything that the situation turns around and actually gets better. In Goddard's book he also said, "To the modern mind, it doesn’t make logical “sense” that if we sacrifice our own wants and needs, in favor of our spouses, that we will find true joy and happiness."

I know that even though this doesn't follow with what the world tells us it is absolutely true. I have found that it is when I am serving and helping my husband Richard and my son Gideon, that I am at my happiest, even if it's when I'm doing something that I don't particularly like, like cleaning, it's when we're serving each other and working together that you can find great joy and watch your marriage grow.

Turning to your Spouse

With the "me" culture becoming so prevalent in today's society, how do we turn away from ourselves and toward our spouse? This past July my husband Richard graduated and  is currently in the process of waiting to hear back from Grad Schools for a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, he's currently driving school buses for the Middle and Elementary Schools. This April I will be graduating. I've found that since Richard has graduated, the little things have started to revolve more around me. This is mostly because I'm also working in the Sewing Labs, taking 14 credits and have had homework, and I'm also Pregnant and morning sickness has not been very nice to me. Because of these and other reasons Richard has ended up being the one doing the dishes, tending to Gideon, making dinner, all of the little  things that add up. 

To be honest even though the arrangement we have works, and makes sense for the situation we are in, I've been feeling like a bad spouse since I'm not participating in the traditional marriages allotment of chores, and things have been more focused on me and my needs, instead of Richards. Now I know that everyone's circumstances are different and adjustment need to be made so that each family is doing what's best for them, but that's simply how I've been feeling.

In Gottman's book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work he states, "The first step in turning toward each other more is simply to be aware of how crucial these mini-moments are, not only to your marriage's trust level but to its ongoing sense of romance. For many couples, just realizing that they shouldn't take their everyday interactions for granted makes an enormous difference in their relationship."

In looking over this past semester I've realized that while my relationship with Richard is not imploding, I haven't actively been working on it either. Going forward I'll start with at least one conscious act each day, that I will do specifically for Richard. I know that by doing this we'll be able to grow stronger and not let our relationship fall by the wayside.

It's the Little Things

Since I love sewing and working on lots of different projects, I have been getting a couple different things together for Richard, Gideon and Me, (We're going to be going to a Renaissance Fair soon, and want to go all out.) For my costume I wanted to find an epic chain belt to complete the ensemble. After looking through Amazon and other online stores and not finding something that I liked. I decided to see if I could make one. So I got Gideon ready while Richard changed into warmer clothes and off we went. On the way down we were listening to John Gottman's The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. We stopped it often to discuss the different principles and go over the relationship quizzes. Unfortunately about 10 minutes from Lowe's (where we were looking for some decorative chain) Gideon decided that he had had it with the car-seat and started screaming. Richard and I immediately started rattling off the different  nursery rhymes that have constantly been stuck in our heads to help calm Giddy, and it seamed to work. We even alternated the different lines in the songs. It felt pretty good to be in sync like that.  When we got to Lowe's and were able to get Giddy out he was ecstatic. He insisted on walking everywhere. He took hold of Richards finger and we proceeded to look around, Richard decided to race and see who would find it first, he did. Unfortunately it wasn't quite right so we continued on our quest and ended up in Joann's. Gideon was much happier on this shorter car trip. When we got to Joann's we decided that we would make my belt instead. Richard and Gideon helped find all of the pieces that we would need to make the best belt ever. Once we had checked out we stopped next door at the "free zoo" aka Petsmart so that Giddy could get all of his wiggles out before the long (at least for him) trip home. 

Now you may ask, "Why did I need to read the long spiel about your shopping trip?"

The reason I did this is because to me it illustrated Gottman's principle of Love Maps. He said, "There are few greater gifts a couple can give other than the joy that comes from feeling known and understood." While I could have easily gone down to Idaho Falls by myself and not had to deal with a screaming child, I wanted to do something together as a family. It is when you let the little everyday things become mundane that you can grow apart as a couple. Letting the trip to the store become more that a checklist of things to do. Ultimately it is when the little things fall to the wayside that the cracks and bigger problems occur in your relationship. Now you don't have to always make a trip for eggs a family outing, but sometimes it's a great way to shake up the little things.

Are argument's always bad?

Two weeks ago we were staying  with  family down in Utah. One night everyone was winding down for bed so I suggested to my husband that we hit the hay as well, it wasn't too early for us night-owls only about 9-ish. I had recently finished listening to the audio book for Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. As Richard was getting ready for bed, since it was unusually early for us to be going to bed, I figured that we could stay up just a bit longer and watch one of the Frankenstein films in our bedroom. I started looking up which one we could watch while Richard was snuggling down into the air mattress and fluffing up his pillow. It was at about this point that I found the version that I wanted to watch and excitedly told Richard that I had a surprise for him. (We had talked previously about finding a film adaptation of the book to watch earlier, but hadn't settled on a time, version, or place to watch one.) 

What happened next was not what I expected.

Richard was very adamant that we should just go to sleep, while I simply wanted to watch the movie. We ended up getting into a debate as to whether or not we should or should not watch the movie in bed or not and our reasons behind our choices. Both of us were very frank with each other and I even admitted that I was feeling childish but still didn't want to give in. Some people might even call it an argument. Ultimately it was all a matter of miscommunication mostly on my part. After talking for a couple hours we both felt better and had come to a resolution. Got to sleep and watch the film once we got home.

The next day while we were on the road we started  listening to John M. Gottman's The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. I have to say that we both started laughing when in Chapter 2 he started talking about conflict in marriage, since we had argued the previous night. It was however a wonderful experience to look at the argument we had just had with the new knowledge we were gaining from Dr. Gottman. We must have paused the book 500 times so that we could continue discussing and analyzing what we had each experienced and the advice from the book.

While I don't recommend arguing on purpose with your spouse, if you do,  John M. Gottman's The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, is a wonderful book to start reading together as a couple and hopefully you'll be able to laugh and gain a better understanding like Richard and I did.

Is Marriage Fair?

On my husband's wedding band I had the words  "For Time and all Eternity," engraved into the inside of his ring. This line is taken form the sealing ordinance performed in the sacred temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What a grand and wonderful prospect, to know that this is only the start of eternity. Most all of my immediate family are members of the Church and as such being married in the Temple has been instilled in us from our infancy. However living a life to be temple ready is not an easy one, there are many sacrifices that must be made. Society today loves to focus on the individual instead of the partnership that has been created once married. Things will never be the way that they were before the marriage, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Just before I got married my father told me the counsel that his father had given him before he got married. And it went something like this:

"Son, you're getting married, tell me, when you're married how is it best to divvy up all of the work?"

"Well, I think that 50/50 would be best."

"No... You have to be willing to give 100%, 100% of the time."

"But that's not fair."

"It doesn't matter if it's fair Son there will be days when your sweetheart for whatever reason can only give 36% and you can't just stop when you get to your 50, you have to be willing to go that extra 14 or even 50%, because you love her. And it works the other way as well, for those days when you can only give 22% she'll compensate for your missing 28%"

If you want a marriage that will last throughout all of the eternities, you need to be able to dedicate your whole self to it. Only then will you be able to weather the good and the bad, the joy's and the tragedies, the sunny weather and the hurricanes, together as equal partners for time and all eternity. After all this is only the beginning of your story together.