W13 Transitions in Marriage

This week we read about relationships with in-laws and parents.

“This may be difficult for daughters who have close relationships with their mothers. Marriage, to be successful, requires married daughters to share more with their husbands than with their mothers.”

Dealing with parent-in-laws is never an easy task, especially when both are fighting for your time and attention. Before couples decide which parent-in-laws to spend time with they must decide what is important to do as just them as a new founded family.

“Married couples should discuss what they will do to protect, maintain, and repair (if necessary) the invisible boundary or fence that guards their marriage.”

One thing me and my husband have decided for our marriage is to always do Christmas just our small family. We will go over and say hi to the in-laws that we live close to but the main event will be just family. We have also decided this with Thanksgiving, because of some fiascos in the past, it is better for us personally. We need this time to be a happy time of making our own traditions. We still make sure to spend some time with our in-laws, but we keep main events to our small family.

“Parents who are secure in their relationships with their children understand that married children can be emotionally close without always having to be present.”

When parents and parent-in-laws are secure they are able to have a healthy relationship with their married children. They are able to give them space but also be there to support them.

“It is important for parents-in-law to find ways to personally build relationships with their children-in-law as individuals. Often interactions are with the newly married couple or the larger family group rather than with individuals. Mothers-in-law might consider inviting their daughters-in-law for a lunch and then work toward a balance of self-disclosure and acceptance in the conversation. Fathers-in-law could do something individually with their sons-in-law, again with the purpose of building a positive, accepting relationship. The burden of acceptance rests with parents-in-law in these situations. Children-in-law want nothing more than to be accepted and respected.”

Just because a new couple is their own family does not mean that the in-laws should not try to reach out and become close with their new daughter or son in-law. I loved this quote and the advice that is given, I feel it is important for in-laws to really work and make a relationship with their child’s spouse.

Harper, J. M. & Olsen, S. F. (2005). "Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended Families." In C. H. Hart, L.D. Newell, E. Walton, & D.C. Dollahite (Eds.), Helping and healing our families: Principles and practices inspired by "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" (pp. 327-334). Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company.

W12 Unity in Marriage

Fun side note- Richard Miller is my father-in-law! So this was fun reading this article by him. I really liked all the quotes he used in his article. I found it interesting that he talks about once children become adults the parent-child relationship changes. He says “In healthy families, the parents no longer exercise control or expect their adult children to obey them.” Families are always adapting and changing and this is one big change that happens. Richard Miller also quotes President Spencer W. Kimball (Marriage, p. 17) who said, “Well-meaning relatives have broken up many a home. Numerous divorces are attributable to the interference of parents who thought they were only protecting their loved children… Live your own life.”

Richard then goes on to talk about how husband and wives need to work together as equals and that is how healthy marriages work. A quote he had that really stood out to me was:

Sometimes a husband may believe that his role as head of the house gives him a right to be exacting and to arbitrarily prescribe what his wife should do.  But in a home established on a righteous foundation, the relationship of a man and a woman should be one of partnership. A husband should not make decrees.  Rather, he should work with his wife until a joint decision palatable to both is developed ( H. Burke Peterson, Ensign, July 1989, p. 9).  

In Elder Eyrings talk That We May Be One he talks about how through the church we are able to become one in our marriages. We do this by having the Spirit and utilizing the Atonement in our lives. He then talks about how remembering the Savior helps us to remember his patience and love and will then fill our hearts with love. This talk reminds me of a common drawing that is shown to newlyweds that is a triangle with God at the top and the husband and wife on the bottom and the closer you get to God the closer the couple grows together. That is the same idea of this talk, as you remember God, and draw closer to him, we will draw closer and become one with our spouse.

W11 Intimacy in Marriage

“In summary, sex should be a celebration. It comes from God. He created our sexual appetites and natures. He has ordained us to make love both physically and spiritually. He is pleased when He sees us bonded together sexually, in love, for this is the plan of creation. And this plan permits the husband and wife to jointly participate in creating new life and, in a sense, perpetuate part of themselves into eternity through their children. The sexual embrace should never be a chore or a duty, but a loving part of a larger relationship. Of giving to our partner, cherishing, respecting, protecting each other. It won't always be easy. But the rewards can be incredibly great if we choose to make them so.” (How to Make a Good Marriage Great, 1987, p. 39) 
 

In the LDS culture we are taught the law of chastity and more often than not, only the part about how we need to abstain from having sexual relationships until we are married. There is usually not much talk about how once you are married sex is a good, and important thing. This quote really stuck out to me, especially the first line, “sex should be a celebration”. How often are we taught that sex should be a celebration? This week I really appreciated all of our readings about the importance of intimacy in marriage and the good it brings.

“Sex is for procreation and expression of love. It is the destiny of men and women to join together to make eternal family units. In the context of lawful marriage, the intimacy of sexual relations is right and divinely approved. There is nothing unholy or degrading about sexuality in itself, for by that means men and women join in a process of creation and in an expression of love.”—Spencer W. Kimball

Intimacy in marriage is a good thing! This is one quote that I want to remember, there is nothing “unholy or degrading about sexuality in itself”. When done in the right setting, with a husband and wife, sexual relations are meant to show love and bring the couple closer together.

Of course, with the good also comes the bad. There are many ways that intimacy is tainted, infidelity and pornography, to name a few. As a mother of a son, it is something that I have thought a lot about. How will I protect my son? My husband? My household? How will I teach my children that sex is not a bad thing, it just has to be done within the boundaries the Lord has set. I believe this starts with me and my spouse. If together we can show our children, what a happy, healthy relationship looks and acts like we can help protect them from what the world portrays as acceptable. In my marriage there are boundaries we have set, if one of us texts someone of the opposite sex who is not family, we inform the other. It doesn’t happen often, but the few times it has we are open and the other always reads the messages. There are no secrets. We are open with our phones and passwords. Not that either one of us has reason to worry or even a real reason to not trust the other, we have those boundaries to protect ourselves. We do this to be overcautious because when it comes to Satan and technology, I believe you can never be too safe. We learned in Goddards book that there is a pattern to infidelity. I was surprised at how quickly innocent and even good behaviors can turn to cheating on your spouse.

W10 Gridlock

 

This week we learned about overcoming gridlock and how we can get past something that seems impossible to overcome. Gridlock is a problem in a marriage that is impossible to overcome, it’s one that every time you talk about it, it gets worse. The best-case scenario for a marriage is that they can avoid gridlock at all costs, but that does not always happen. The majority of the time when gridlock occurs it is because of a hidden dream that one of the spouses has, when you can get to the deep-rooted meaning of the gridlock and figure out the dream, that is when you can learn to overcome it. Gottman gives us four steps to get over gridlock which are:

1. Explore the dream- in order to explore the dream, you must both speak, and listen, without criticizing or judging your spouse. Both spouses need to explain why they feel the way they do about this issue. Learn to respect your partners dream, even if you don’t understand this dream.
2. Soothe- make sure during this conversation that neither of you are feeling flooded, and if you are, take a break to calm down.
3. Reach a temporary compromise (the two-circle method)- in a gridlock situation you aren’t going to be able to just solve the issue, but if you both write down your nonnegotiable areas and your areas of flexibility, you might be able to come up with a compromise. Try this out for a while, and then come back to the issue and see how it’s working.
4. Say “thank you”- always show gratitude for your spouse after these sessions. Talking about your gridlock issues is never an easy thing, show appreciation for your spouse.

Gottman also talks about a “marital poop detector” and how once a week we should check in with ourselves and ask certain questions to make sure we are feelings alright. If we do this check in and find that there is a lot of negativity or irritability then we should set aside time to talk to our spouse about what is going on. This can help us resolve problems before they get to an overwhelming point. There have been a couple times in my marriage where I have noticed I’ve been grumpier than usual, or irritable for seemingly small things. When I have taken the time to step back and figure out why, and talk to my spouse we have been able to work through it without it blowing up into an argument.

W09 Consecration in Marriage

“Consecration is a covenant that moves us from asking how we can get our needs met to asking how we can bless and serve. We become more grateful.”- Goddard (Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage)

I found it interesting that this week everything we read was slightly different, but all tied in so beautifully. We read about an array of things which included:

• Marital conflict and the importance of solving our solvable problems 
• Consecration
• Agency and anger
• Forgiveness

As I was reading I was thinking about how all of those are so important in a marriage. No matter the marriage there will be marriage problems, but if we are consecrated, and give everything we have to our spouse we can surmount those problems.

When we take the advice from Elder L.G. Robbins and apply that to our marriage we will be able to work through our problems, even perpetual ones. He says, “A cunning part of [Satan’s] strategy is to dissociate anger from agency, making us believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control. . .The family is also Satan’s primary target. He is waging war on the family. One of his schemes is the subtle and cunning way he has of sneaking behind enemy lines and entering our very homes and lives. He damages and often destroys families within the walls of their own homes. His strategy is to stir up anger between family members.” And he does such a good job! It is amazing to see how easy it is for us to become angry with those we love most. If we can learn to control our anger starting with our families we can win that fight against Satan!

One of the best ways to recover from anger is to forgive. I never realized how important forgiveness is in marriage, until I got married. In a way learning to change our way of arguing into soft start-ups rather than harsh start-ups we are teaching ourselves to push aside the anger, be humble, and forgive.

Week 8 Pride and Humility

 

When I got married I quickly realized how important humility is in a marriage! Humility is the opposite of pride and because pride seems to play at least a little part in every marriage, there needs to be humility. In his book “Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage” Goddard said, “In fact any time we feel irritated with our spouses, that invitation is not an invitation to call our spouses to repentance but an invitation to call ourselves to repent. We are irritated because of our own lack of faith and humility.” I have noticed whenever I am irritated with my spouse if I take time to sit there and think, I can ALWAYS think of something I did that either made the matter worse, or cause the irritation. There have been times when pride has gotten in my way and all I can see are my husband’s mistakes. But early on in my marriage I decided to try and find something to apologize for in every argument. Even if I don’t think I’m in the wrong, or my husband hurt my feelings, every time I’ve made the effort to humble myself and apologize for something I’ve always found something, and the fight ends pretty quick. My husband is really good at doing this as well, not to say pride doesn’t play a role in our marriage, because it does, but it is something we are always actively working on.

In President Bensons talk, “Beware of Pride” he says “God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.” This quote really stood out to me! One way or another we have to be humbled! I would much rather choose to be humbled than compelled! There is another quote by Goddard that says, “When we humbly turn our minds, our lives, and our purposes over to God, He will refund us. We begin to see with new eyes. We feel with new warmth and goodness. We gladly give our time and energy to bless those around us- especially those with whom we have made covenants.” When we are humble everything in our life gets better, including our marriage!

Marriage is not a walk in the park always and sometimes it can feel like we don’t have the tools to fix it but Goddard said, “Rather than depend on our own limited abilities, we can have the humility to ask God for help. And he is mighty to save- both souls and marriages.” God will help us, especially in our marriages. He knows we are not perfect, he knows that the natural man will sneak in at times, but when we do our best to work on it he will help. One quote from Goddard that really hit home with me was, “Appreciating is more powerful than correcting. Appreciation inflates the tires in which we travel. Criticism is a slow leak in those tires.” This is like anything, when we look for the good we see it, when we look for the good in our partner we see the good.

 “Love is not a happy accident; it is a choice.” – Goddard. As we choose to be humble and overcome our pride our love will blossom and grow.

Week 7- Turn Toward One Another

“Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”- D&C 64:33

Turning toward one another in marriage can be hard at times, it is easy to want to turn inward and think about your feelings. Yet if we listen to this scripture it teaches us a lot about turning toward one another.

Be not weary in well-doing- sometimes turning toward one another can be tiring, sometimes we would rather relax than do something for our spouse. But if we are not weary and do the little things constantly that is what will build our marriage.

Ye are laying the foundation of a great work- doing the little things for our spouse is what builds the big things. If you are constantly working on the little things, the big things won’t be as hard. When there is a disagreement, you will already have a positive sentiment override and it will be easier to get over.

Out of small things proceedeth that which is great- Out of these little acts our marriages will thrive. In Gottmans book we learn about how turning toward one another is better for a marriage than a two week get away to the Bahamas. This is because small acts that we do everyday to show our spouse that we love them and cherish them is what will bring romance to our marriages.

Although I am not the perfect example of turning toward my spouse, I do try very hard. When I make him lunches I try to leave cute notes or funny inside jokes in his lunch box. When he is unwinding and playing a video game after we put the baby to bed and asks if I want to play with him, although sometimes I would rather just relax I play. I play because it means something to him and it helps me show interest in what he is interested in. And honestly, I’ve started to enjoy it and have fun.

Christ is the perfect example in all things, even marriage. Although we don’t know if he was ever married he taught us to serve, love unconditionally, and always look for the good in others. This is what we need to do in a marriage. The more Christ-like we strive to be the more Christ-like love we will have for our spouse. There’s a really famous saying that goes around about how a marriage is a triangle. God is at the top and the husband and wife are at either corner, the closer you draw to God the closer the husband and wife become.