Cherish your Spouse (lesson 6)

Marriage comes with so much joy and love, but it also comes with lots and lots of sacrifice. You have to take your life which up until this point has been all about you, and share it with another person. That may sound selfish and you may think “no I’m not like that, I think of others,” I am not saying that you are not considerate of other people, but your main focus in your life is probably your plans, and your goals. When you get married one of the huge sacrifices is that you have to turn the “I, Me and My” into “Us, We and Our.”  It can be an extremely hard transition; I know that for my husband and I we are still working on it. It can be difficult to take two lives and turn them into one, and turn them into a life that you want them to be. I know that my husband and I have had many of the conversations that sound like, “I know that it is not very important to you, but it is important to me.” I think that is a huge sacrifice once you are married, taking interest and doing the things that are important and fun to your spouse that you may not particularly like to do. It is a learning curve and the main thing that I can think of to help this transition is be willing. Be willing to try the things that your spouse likes, and be willing and open to the idea of the new. New ways of doing things, new ways to learn and to grow. Be open to those new things and be open to making it yours as a couple. Also remember that contempt can easily slip in and when that happens Gottman suggests “the key to reinvigorating fondness and admiration is to get into the habit of scanning for qualities and actions that you can appreciate, And then let your partner know what you observed.” Another suggestion is to be willing to compromise and make traditions that are unique to you, that is how you will take two completely separate lives that grew up in different ways and create a new dynamic that is beautiful and unique.

I know that in my marriage when the fire has started to dwindle a little bit taking a step back and finding something to appreciate, or working through how we can compromise something into one thing it has always been worth it and has always strengthened us in the end.