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.