The In-Laws (lesson 13)

I met my In-laws very early on a very cold foggy morning, in the spring of 2018. I had volunteered to come help with a community Easter Egg hunt that my Mother-in-law is in charge of. My husband had not told them that I was coming, so when I showed up at the crack of dawn at the same time as the family instead of the other volunteers, they all thought that I was an exchange student who misunderstood what was going on! Because they thought I was from somewhere out of the States they thought that I didn’t speak English, and nobody wanted offend so nobody talked to me. However, once my husband introduced me, and they recognized that I was the girl that he had been talking to them about, they welcomed me with open arms. I would love to tell you that from that point forward we just clicked and I fit right into the family, but I didn’t. It has been almost two years since that day, and it hasn’t always been easy. I would compare joining a new family to a dance. In the beginning you are just learning the steps. Figuring out what is and isn’t acceptable in the family, what the household rules are, and what the family likes to do together. Within the first 6 months you are starting to understand, or remember the steps. It begins to become familiar. As time continues or as you keep practicing you get more and more comfortable with the way things are, and you begin to find you place and space in the new family. However, just like learning a dance, you have days that are hard and you make mistakes, but there are also times where you nail all of the steps, everything goes right. In “Helping and Healing our Families” it says “Even before they are married, couples begin to learn that their families are different. The more a person can learn and talk about the unspoken rules in the prospective spouse’s family, the easier it will be to feel included.” I completely agree with this statement, I felt like I had gotten to know my husband’s family pretty well, and we have still had some moments of struggle trying to understand each other, but I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything in the world. The biggest thing that I have learned over the last year and a half is to be open and honest, and to communicate. Talk with the family, in group settings but also one on one. If there is an individual whom you are struggling with talk with them try to understand them, it will help you grow closer, but to also understand the unspoken rules of a family. When you communicate your feelings and understanding with the purpose to clear the air, then you will resolve conflicts easier than you would just letting things sit and build.

Power of relationships in Family (Lesson 12)

I recently read an article by Richard Miller called Who is the boss? Power of Relationships in Families. I love that the first two bold points that are made are that parents are the heads of the family and they are in charge, and then the second point is that parents must be united in their leadership. I completely agree that with both of those points, Parents need to lead and guide their families in love and righteousness, because that is where children learn and become who they are. We teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ, what is right and what is wrong, we are also their first and biggest influence. I think that it is extremely important that we as parent’s understand that we are a team? When we understand that, the family runs a little bit smoother. I also like that in the article they quote President Spencer W. Kimball says “Parents… should love and respect each other, and treat each other with respectful decorum and kindly regard, all the time. The husband should treat his wife with the utmost courtesy and respect. The husband should never insult her; he should never speak slightly of her, but should always hold her in the highest esteem in the home, in the presence of their children… The wife, also, should treat the husband with the greatest respect and courtesy. Her words to him should not be keen and cutting and sarcastic. She should not pass slurs or insinuations at him… Then it will be easy for the parents to instill into the hearts of their children not only love for their fathers and their mothers, not only respect and courtesy towards their parents, but love and courtesy and deference between the children at home,” I think that those words are straightforward, maybe a little blunt. However, I think that this way if the golden rule! If you respect someone then they will respect you back, and in marriage that is key! Respecting each other allows for so much growth. I am grateful for the words in the article and know that in marriage it is a combine effort, and that we both need to give 100%, respect each other, forgive each other, and above all love deeply.

Fidelity in marriage (lesson 11)

One of the most important things to have in order to create a strong and lasting marriage is fidelity. It creates a strong and trusting relationship with our spouse. Sadly, no one is immune. We all have to safeguard ourselves when it comes to our marriage. Fidelity is defined as faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. I believe that we all marry with the intent to remain completely faithful to our spouses but there are times when infidelity sneaks its way into our relationships without either spouse really noticing. According to Goddard there is a pattern of progression towards unfaithfulness. It starts with behaviors that seem innocent, then an affection begins to develop, this step claims a part of one’s heart, even if it’s a really small part it takes a part of your heart. The next step is extramarital flirting, and justification saying that nothing is going on or what is going on is not wrong. This new relationship is declared as special, which leads to you creating opportunities to see your “special friends”. Excuses are then made. The special friend then begins to replace the souse on an emotional level, Faultfinding in your spouse, fantasies then begin about the other person, then physical affection sets in, lastly you reach sexual relations with that person. Infidelity can come in many forms and can be tricky to spot because it creeps in slowly. One of the ways my husband and I keep our relationship pure is to share prayers together every night. It is one simple way that we are able to continue connecting with each other and our goals as a team. We also get ready for bed together every night and talk about the day. We talk about the things that went well things that we wish we had done differently and so on, doing this activity on a regular basis helps us stay on the same page, express concerns and talk things over. Those are things that we do to help our personal relationship stay strong, other things that we do, let each other know all of our passwords to phones and computers. If there is a work, or study meeting that involves the opposite gender we always make sure that there are other people attending and that it is never one on one. The last thing that we do is my favorite and we go on a weekly date night together. This helps us connect and keep the spark alive, but it also keeps it fun. I know that these are not the only ways to help protect your marriage but these are some of the things that we have found to have worked for us in our marriage.

Seeking to Understand (Lesson 10)

At this point in the semester it is time for reflection. To look back and see how far we have come. It is amazing to me the progress that can be made. I can only speak for myself, but I know that my marriage has changed for the better over the time it has taken us to read a majority of “The 7 principles for making marriage work.” John Gottman is a very smart man, and he knows what he is talking about. Through reading his book I have learned many little lessons, but I think the number one lesson I have learned is to be purposeful, and consistent with your marriage. Have a scheduled consistent date night, have a set time for just you and your spouse every day, and regularly check in with your spouse about how you are doing as a couple. When you are doing these things then it is easier to keep the spark alive, but to also compromise with each other.

Since the semester started, my husband and I had a big change happen, we had our first baby. Only being married a year and a half we were no where near experts on marriage and how to perfectly get a long, but we had a really good relationship. Once the baby arrived, we became so sleep deprived that our bodies were thrown into survival mode. Our marriage was sort of put on the back burner, here we were trying to figure out how to keep this little human alive, balance work, school, and family all at the same time…… may I just say that we were a huge mess for a couple of weeks. During this time, we were reading the chapters on connections, and how to turn towards each other. One night we took the time to do the activities that were included in the chapters we were reading for that week. Even though we missed maybe an extra hour of sleep collectively, I know that it helped us remember each other. I also believe that it helped prevent our marriage from suffering. After that we have continued to regularly check in with each other, and I know that it has made our relationship stronger and I am looking forward to what we can become, as we continue with these patterns.

Managing Conflict (Lesson 9)

In the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by Dr. John Gottman there is a chapter, he discusses two types of marriage problems, perpetual and solvable. Perpetual problems are issues that will be a part of our lives forever in one form or another. Things that you and your spouse seem to revisit time and time again. According to Gottman “69% of all problems in marriage are perpetual.” I think that is pretty accurate in marriages throughout the world. I know I believe it for my marriage. I know that there are problems for us that we go back to, and it seems like they never go away no matter how often we talk about them. Sometimes it makes me just shut down. I don’t want to talk about them and I don’t want to keep bringing them up, but sometimes they are issues that I really want to solve. I realize though that sometimes I am not the most tactful the way I go about talking to my husband about them. I typically use a harsh start-up, which then leads to him being defensive. Once either of those things happens we never get anywhere, and the problem stays the same as it was before, unresolved. In fact after a conversation like that sometimes our situation is worse because now we have negative feelings attached to the problem.

In the book, it shares different keys to help resolve conflicts. The first key it mentions is that “No one is right.” The next key is that “acceptance is crucial” and the last key is “focus on fondness, and admiration.” I think that these are so important to remember in a relationship. If we can learn to use these keys then I don’t believe there will be fewer issues in the marriage but I think that with time it will make it easy to approach issues happening in a marriage. I know that I am grateful for challenges we face in our marriage as it helps us become closer when we are willing to work through them.

Pride (Lesson 8)

Pride is one of those things that we all fight. President Ezra Taft Benson gave a wonderful talk titled “Beware of Pride” in that talk he states “The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.” This definition of pride took me back, and humbled me a little bit. I am so guilty of those feelings, of being hostile or in a state of opposition. How many times in marriage do we look at the way our husband is doing something and tell him that he is doing it wrong, or we feel like our way is better and we aren’t open to other possibilities.

 Let me tell you a story about my husband and I. We had been married about four months when one Sunday after coming home from dinner at my parents’ house my husband says you know I really prefer my family’s mashed potatoes over yours. I thought that was incredibly rude because I was the one in my family that makes the mashed potatoes, and I had them down to perfection at my house. I was known for my potatoes, and here my new husband was telling me that he thought they were bland and dry. Potatoes are not a big deal, right? In fact, they have absolutely nothing to do with marriage or pride, but here I was letting my pride of my potatoes drive a little wedge into our marriage. In the end we talked about what he liked more in his potatoes and I explained how I felt about my potatoes. We ended up deciding that neither of the families were that great. We put our heads together and made our own mashed potatoes recipe that is perfect to us. In fact, we made a date night out of it, we boiled a pot and then split it up, then mashed them up in a variety of ways. It was a quirky date night but remains one of my favorites to date.

In the talk mentioned earlier, president Benson also says “The proud stand more in fear of men’s judgment than of God’s judgment. (See D&C 3:6–7; D&C 30:1–2; D&C 60:2.) “What will men think of me?” weighs heavier than “What will God think of me?” When we are wondering how others view us instead of how Heavenly Father views us we are falling into the sin of pride. This week has made me want to improve my life in this aspect. To not worry so much about what others think, and to worry more about what my Heavenly Father thinks.

Bids for Love (lesson 7)

If you are ever looking for something to read, I suggest reading Seven principles for making marriage work by John Gottman, it is amazing, and gives you so many new ways to look at your marriage.

           Ok! now to talk serious, this week we read a chapter in the book I mention above, and it was all about turning towards your spouse and not away from them. In this chapter Dr. Gottman talks about how we as human beings do something called “bids for attention.” I think a simpler way to put it is drop hints. I hope I am not alone in dropping hints, or bidding for attention because I know that I definitely do this. In the book Dr. Gottman gives the example of his wife grumbling something as she was taking the laundry out of the dryer, he says this was her bidding for attention. He as a husband had the choice to either ignore the bid, or take it. In this case he took it and asked her what she had said and she responded with something like you know I really don’t like folding the laundry, to which his response was I love being able to mindless tasks and help out, here let me. He continued by saying they ended up listening to jazz music together while they folded the clothes together, which reminded them of a jazz club that they liked to go to, so they went for dinner and ended up having a great night together. I loved this story! Granted not every bid you take is going to end up that nicely, but it makes me want to have the goal to be a better wife and be more in tune to my husband’s bids that he gives me.

 I think taking more of my husband’s bid will help our overall happiness level in our home and marriage. One that I see him give me him asking what my plans are for the night, I know when he asks this, he has something in mind already, whether it is something that he is wanting to do himself or something he wants us to do together. Why I don’t ask him what he has planned every time he says this to me, I’ll never know. I hate to admit it but I don’t take the bid every time, and I’ll just shrug and say I don’t know. That’s not the shameful part though, the issue is that we will have that conversation and I’ll say I don’t know then get upset later if he isn’t stepping up to my expectation of the evening, or…. what I did indeed actually have planned for the evening.

I am inspired by this week’s readings to try and take more of my husband’s bids, but to also be more honest with him about my bids. I think it will make a huge difference when I say what I mean and I what I am really feeling, without hoping that he will just figure out what I want.

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.

Make Marriage Work (Lesson 5)

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is all about marriage, right? Well it is that but it is also all about friendship. How is it that marriage is so happy and successful you marry your best friend that’s how? Something that I have always thought best friend duo’s have is that of unconditional forgiveness. It seems that they are willing to forgive and forget in the blink of an eye. In Gottman’s book he talks a lot about the different way’s friendship can build and help when conflict arises. When we have a friendship-based marriage, we tend to be able to have another way of looking at our relationship, it is not a relationship solely based on puppy love, it is built with trust, goofiness, adventure, and forgiveness. “In the strongest marriages husband and wives share a deep sense of meaning. They don’t just get along-they also support each other hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together. That is really what I mean when I talk about honoring and respecting each other. Very often a marriage(s) failure to do this is what causes husband and wife to find themselves in endless, useless, rounds of argument or to feel isolated and lonely in their marriage.”(John M. Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work)  I think that is what marrying your best friend works so well. I know that in my marriage it would be extremely difficult to keep things together if I wasn’t able to be funny and laugh and play with my husband. It adds a different element to our marriage that we wouldn’t have otherwise, I also think that it helps keep the base stable elements of marriage glued together. My husband is an extremely playful person, he likes to goof off, he also loves nerf guns. That was one of his valentine’s day gifts to me, my own nerf gun that matched his. Since that anniversary I have been shot while I was sleeping, when I come home from work, while I’m making dinner, doing homework, basically anytime anywhere is free game. I am not as fun as my husband. I will admit that upfront, and I tell you this because there are times when he shoots me with that gun that I laugh and run and grab the other one to get him back, but there are other times that he shoots and I give him the death glare and tell him to stop. Those times that I don’t participate I can see a light dim in his eyes, and it makes me think whether or not it is worth it to be upset and not take a few minutes of my day to have fun with him. I have recently come to the conclusion that it is not worth it. I don’t want to be the wife that sucks all the energy and fun in life away from her best friend. It has been a work in progress, but one of my more recent goals is to remember my inner child and take some time to simply play.

Marriage contracts (lesson 4)

This last week in my marriage studies we were asked to read a couple of different talks, one of those talks was Covenant marriage, by Bruce C. Hafen who was a member of the quorum of the seventy Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He gave this particular talk back in 1996, but it is still incredibly relevant for our day.  In this talk he makes a point of not letting our marriages simply become contracts. Which I believe that there is a legal part to marriage that is a contract, but he is encouraging us to make our marriages more than that. Realize that when we are married, we are working with that person to reach heaven again. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints, we believe that we will be able to live and be with our sweetheart for eternity. Only if we remain true to covenants, we make in the temples. When we are married in the temple, we make a covenant, to heavenly father, and to our spouse. Elder David A. Bednar talks about being married in the temple and how traditional marriage is important, he says “More recently the devil has attempted to combine and legally validate confusion about gender and marriage. As we look beyond mortality and into eternity, it is easy to discern that the counterfeit alternatives the adversary advocates can never lead to the completeness that is made possible through the sealing together of a man and a woman, to the happiness of righteous marriage, to the joy of posterity, or to the blessing of eternal progression.” Getting to eternity can be a lot of hard work, and as we have talked before sometimes it doesn’t work out the way that we have planned. However, there are somethings that we can do in order to give ourselves a little help in our relationships. One of the things that I try is to always find something to be grateful for about my spouse, and some days this is incredibly hard when they are just driving you up a wall. I promise it will catch them off guard if things are a little tense between you two and then you just pipe up and say something like “you know I’m thankful that you went to work for us today and worked hard while you were there.” It helps you remember to appreciate the little things, and it helps them know that you recognize what they are doing. Another thing that is a fun thing to add to your marriage, is keeping the honeymoon phase alive, that is easier said than done but sometimes all it takes is leaving cute little notes around the house for your spouse to find. The last thing that I would mention is to never forget God. He is the reason we are here, and here together with our sweethearts. Make sure we put him first in our day, then as we get closer to him individually we get closer together as a couple. 

Have a Happy Day! 

Defenders of Marriage (lesson 3)

“Let us help build the kingdom of God by standing up boldly and being defenders of marriage, parenthood, and the home.” Bonnie L. Oscarson

Traditional marriage is seen as marriage between a man and a woman. It has been like that since the beginning of time. However, as a society we have decided to change that, and go against the normal. In the first place we as a society adopted acceptance of cohabitation over being married first to now, even marrying their same gender. This way of marriage is not the natural or traditional way of marriage. When the supreme court ruled in same-sex marriages’ favor they said “The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. Marriage is sacred to those who live by their religions and offers unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm. Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.” I think that they said it perfectly “marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.”

 If you value the traditional marriage, and want to preserve it. How is it that you can protect, teach about the importance of a traditional marriage? One thing that you can do is defend marriage on social media. If you hold a youth calling or work with youth, you can show them how you value marriage and teach them the importance of marriage. There are many children who are living in single parent homes, working with them and simply talking with them, being a friend that they can confide in. There are many ways that we can defend marriage, each one is a step closer to a certain kind of fulfillment.

How to keep the honeymoon stage alive just a little bit longer (lesson 2)

The world is constantly changing around us. We are stuck in the middle of a society that is constantly evolving, coming out with the next best thing, and running to the next item on the check list. With this default lifestyle we often forget the things around us that matter the most to us. For example, our family. Now it is almost impossible to fully forget about your family because that is who and where you come from. However, with our busy schedules and fast paced style isn’t it incredibly easy to put our family on the back burner. Justify spending our time with little excuses like “they will always be there,” or “I just need to finish this before I play for the day.” What happens though when we lose that moment? Can we gain it back? It’s sad to think about how many opportunities we pass up with our family members because they are always around, they can wait. I want to talk today about something that should never be put on that back burner and that is our marriages. When a marriage gets put there it can easily end up burnt, as in divorce. Divorce is something that is all too common in the United states today. It affects almost every family in America.

            What can we do? When I was first married it seemed like things would never be hard, we would be able to with stand anything because we were just so in love. Well, let me tell you! That did not last forever, in fact I don’t think it even lasted a month. We had arguments and disagreements almost daily, but we both decided that was not how we wanted to live in our marriage so we decided to try some new things to help us out.

1.    Spend 10 mins of technology free time with each other. We picked a spot where we would sit together and simply talk, we are allowed to talk about anything except disagreements or arguments.

2.    Get ready for bed together. Something that I always had pictured I would do with my husband was get ready for bed with him and then talk about our day as we fell asleep, but for my husband that was never something he thought would happen. This one took us time to get into but has been where some of our silliest and happiest moments have been.

3.    Date! Going on dates, it reminds us what started it all in the first place. If I could recommend anything it would be to go on a variety of dates, try to do new things. Also, with this it is smart to have a set date night, and then to guard that date night with your life.

4.    Say prayer together morning and night. We are still working on this because sometimes we wake up at different times and our schedules do not always align but I have noticed when we are more consistent in our prayers together our lives are smoother, and we have a smoother relationship.

5.    Study the Scriptures together. This is another thing that we are working on making a habit. It surprises me how hard doing the simple spiritually things can be but when we encourage and do them together, they are so much easier and we have a lot more love in our hearts, for each other and for others.

These are just some simple things that have helped me and husband personally, hopefully something simple like this will be able help you strengthen your marriage for when tough times come up. Marriage is not always easy and divorce is something that has become a large part of many Americans lives. These are ideas and ways that my husband and I have decided together to try and prevent divorce from entering our marriage, I hope this helps you in one way or another.

Wholesome family recreation: Building strong families. (Chapter 22)

I LOVE this topic, love love love it. Hopefully I will be able to put my excitement into words so that you guys can share some of the love that I have for family activities. Family time is a time where magic happens, you are learning pretty much all of the skills of life when you are spending wholesome time with your family, you learn team work, how to work, communication, forgiveness, how to be sensitive, how to be observant and realize that there is more going on around you, and so much more. I had moments with my family and with my husbands family where I swear I caught a glimpse into what heaven is going to look like. Time with family is priceless, there may be better activities then others and better days than others but it is always worth it and there is always a lesson to be learned when spending time as a family. One of my favorite family activities was when my family went and hikes up to a hot spring ins Salmon Idaho, called Gold Bug. It was the best and we had the best of times up

there. The pictures in this post are from that day. We laughed together, got scared by some snakes together, swam together but I think the most important part of that day was talking about how beautiful gods creations are and how blessed we were to live in the world he created.

Yep, I think that family time is the best no matter what it is that you are doing together it is always a blast. The Book Successful marriages and families talks about wholesome recreational time as well, in there they share that humans beings naturally want the comfort and peace of ease and pleasure, but we can almost never satisfy that thirst. We are always looking for the next best thing, but then here is what they say in context to family activities. "activities requiring concerted effort can be considered less pleasurable than relaxing activities, and such less-pleasurable activities are not accompanied by a separable stream of positive emotion like most pleasurable activities. Rather, these activities often consist of total engagement and loss of self-­consciousness. Research suggests that feelings arising from overcoming challenges are rated as much more meaningful than pleasurable activities, such as watching television, which pale by comparison (Seligman, 2002)." Family time may make us learn a new skill or try something that we have never done before but research has showed us that we get a more satisfying feeling from overcoming those fears than we do a simply having pleasure at our finger tips. This is a lesson that I am constantly learning with my new family, they love sports I am not the biggest fan of playing sports but they get me off of my backside and encourage me to try new sports all the time, and in the end we always have a blast. So my challenge to you this time is to find a new activity one that you are not sure about something that you have wanted to try but have been to scared, then invite your family to join you and try it. Try a New family activity to give your family memories to hold forever!