Marriage According To Me

"Creating Healthy Ties with In-laws and extended Families" by James M. Harper and Susanne Frost Olsen really hit home to me.  Our biggest struggle in our marriage has been our extended family. I come from a large loud family with seven siblings.   My husband has two siblings.  Obviously there is a big difference.  We love to play games, make each other laugh and tease each other and play sports.  My husband's family is more quiet and generally just sit around and talk.  I love his family but it was just a lot different than what I was used to.   Our families were in the same ward and one of the things that made it harder when we were first married is that we lived in the same ward after we were married as well.  We both wanted to sit by our families in church or go to our families house for Sunday dinner. We didn't have a plan starting out was also a big mistake.  We later developed a plan but we both would have been a lot happier if w...

I really like Richard B. Miller's speech titled "Who is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families."  It was direct and to the point.  One section that stood out to me were his thoughts on equal partnership in a marriage.  He said, 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). They [husbands and wives] should be one in harmony, respect, and mutual consideration. Neither should plan or follow an independent course of action. They should consult, pray, and decide together... I have seen so many marriages that are unequal partnerships, either the wife is more...

Be Faithful One of the things that stood out to me was just to be faithful.  I liked the idea that was shared that if your spouse knew what you were doing would they approve?  If your spouse was doing something that you were doing right then would you approve?  If you have to ask those two questions you probably should remove yourself from that situation.  Luckily my spouse and I have been very faithful our 23 years of marriage, but there was a time that a man paid me some attention, not in a sexual way but just as a friend and I didn't think anything of it at first but quickly realized I could not give him the impression that it was ok for us to have even a friendship, because I could see where it could go down the road.  There was also a time that a man from our ward was texting me, nothing inappropriate but it made me uncomfortable after a few texts that were innocent but he just kept texting me.  I told my husband about it and again they were innocen...

I learned several things from Gottman's book.  Guess what, I don't have it all figured out! Haha, no really.  I love my relationship with my husband, we have fun together and typically communicate well and enjoy being with each other.  I learned that there are many areas I can improve upon.  I learned that "stonewalling" or a "cold shoulder" is how I typically deal with conflict and usually that perpetuates the problem. It has already helped us in our marriage by me recognizing that and making sure that I am communicating instead of trying to pretend it's not there.  I learned that repair attempts help make a disagreement not become a huge deal.  I learned that there is nothing a couple cannot come back from if they are both willing to be humble and do the work that is required to have a happy marriage.    Gottman sums up perfectly how we can continue to improve our own marriages.  He said, "Even making just a small gently shift in the tra...

The underlying key to successfully address conflict I think is the feeling you have towards your spouse when not discussing conflicts.  What is your relationship based on?  How do you feel about your spouse typically?  I think when you truly love someone you don't want to hurt them or be little them even in the midst of conflict.  When you can communicate your issue in a humble and teachable manner then the issue is solvable or at least workable and you can maintain the loving feelings for your spouse.  Obviously, sometimes we have quick reactions but as we learned from Elder Robins in "Agency and Anger," we can control our anger and our responses in these situations.  Elder Robins stated, " Unchecked, anger can quickly trigger an explosion of cruel words and other forms of emotional abuse that can scar a tender heart."  I really loved this quote and it was a great reminder.  I think my husband and I have a good handle on controlling our anger ...

I loved the readings this week and they really inspired me.  The talk from President Benson was really good and it helped me see where I can improve in my own life.  I also sent it to my siblings because I loved it so much and they loved it too.  It sparked some great conversations with my family and I am going to share it with my kids next.   On thing I talked to my sister about is how our kids sometimes don't understand pride and why they need to be cautious about it. I think defiance is also related to pride and how destructive it can be just because we don't want to conform to what society, our parents or even the church wants us to do.   I agree with President Benson that pride can be misunderstood and loved all of his examples that he shared.  One quote that stood out to me is: 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 ...

Turn Toward Each Other I recently read a paper about a husband who decided to turn toward his wife more abundantly.  In his experiment he learned that he felt more love for his wife and that in turn she learned to turn toward him more as well.  I loved this story because it reminded me so much of me and my husband.  He is a very good example to me and has been patient with me as I learn to turn toward hime more as well. Growing up in a broken home showed me what I didn't want in a marriage but it was by faith that I was able to attain a happy marriage.  I had faith that Heavenly Father would teach me what I was to do in order to have a happy marriage.  My patriarchal blessing described my future marriage as always having an excitement and friendship in being together.  I knew that I was going to do whatever it took to help make that promise come to pass.   This quote from Goddard helps remind me to rely on Him more and put my trust in His ...

Sacrifice Sacrifice can be a learned behavior.  It can come easily to some and very difficult to others.  Sacrifice in marriage comes down to selfishness, in my opinion.  Are you more concerned with what you are giving up or are you more concerned with what you can gain if a sacrifice is given.   It is hard for me to pinpoint one thing that I have sacrificed in order to make my marriage work or be better.  At first glance I feel like I haven't scarified enough.  There are many things that I can do to help make my marriage even better now.  The only thing that I feel like I have sacrificed even if in a small way is time.  I have given up time I could spend doing what I want to spend time doing what he wants.  There are many things I do for my husband but I don't feel like they are big sacrifices.  I genuinely enjoy spending time with him, just talking, traveling or sitting on the couch holding hands.  I am sure there are thing...

I would say that my marriage is characterized by a positive sentiment override an hope that my husband would agree.  I think we have always been like this even from the very beginning.  He came from a family where he never even saw his parent's disagree much and wasn't sure how to handle conflict in a marriage and I was well versed in how not to handle conflict in a marriage by watching my parents.  Learning all that I am in these marriage classes, really surprises me I am not more crazy than I am.  Haha. I know that sounds odd but I can see the effect my parent's marriage has had on my siblings marriages and it really comes down to the kind of spouses that we married.  Luckily all seven of them are saints and put up with our crazy, mostly.   I grew up being shy and quiet and observed behaviors well.  I learned by watching the mistakes and successes that others made.  Some mistakes I watched my older siblings make, secured my conviction in not ...

Bruce C. Hafen talked about three wolves that can be detrimental to a marriage in the November 1996 Ensign titled,  Covenant Marriage .  The first he said was, natural adversity, basically when trials come, they can cause us to falter or cause us stress.  The second is "the wolf of their own imperfections," this one is looking for faults and pointing them out in our spouse or ourselves or others.  I think there is one wolf that as a whole is the most damaging to a marriage, the third one, and he describes it as, " . . the excessive individualism that has spawned today’s contractual attitudes. A seven-year-old girl came home from school crying, “Mom, don’t I belong to you? Our teacher said today that nobody belongs to anybody—children don’t belong to parents, husbands don’t belong to wives. I am yours, aren’t I, Mom?” Her mother held her close and whispered, “Of course you’re mine—and I’m yours, too.” Surely marriage partners must respect one another’s individual ide...

Marriage was defined for a millennia that it is a union between man and woman.  Only men and women together are able to conceive and bare children.  Marriage was established to promote the result of a union between a man and a woman namely children.  That is the fundamental reason marriage exists and has been recognized sine the dawn of time.  It is for the rearing and raising of children to the only two who can create children together, a man and a woman.   The majority Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of same sex marriage in essence overturned the law and what has existed since the beginning.  The dissenters, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito proved their argument well, but the majority disregarded it and went with loud, opinion, not popular opinion but the side that had the biggest bark.  In the majority of states where same sex marriage was put to a vote, the majority voters agreed that marriage is defined as man and a woman.  O...

Divorce has impacted me in my life.  My parents got a divorce when I was 24, after I was married and had started a family.  My parents obviously divorced for a reason, but I am not sure if in long the run they should have.             They argued a lot and didn’t seem to like each other very much.  My dad would try to make grand gestures, but they were a bit too little too late. In the grand scheme of things obviously I wish they could have got a long and worked it out, but I think they would have had to be two totally different people.  What it came down to was stubbornness and selfishness.  My dad was abrasive, loud and quick tempered.  My mom was jaded and unforgiving at times.  They tried marriage counseling a little as far as I know, but nothing really changed.  When I was in high school my mom would gather all of us older kids and ask us if we thought she should divorce Dad, most of u...