Fondness & Admiration

Sigh....do you ever feel like sometimes you take one step forward and two GIANT steps back?  That's how this week was for us.  The last couple weeks were great and I felt like we were really learning.  I was really looking forward to this week, too.  And then something came up between us which escalated and, basically, we haven't spoken to each other in 24 hours.  Pretty sure that's not what I've been learning about in this class.  It's been a tough week, to say the least.
This week's reading in Dr. Gottman's book was, partially, about nurturing your fondness & admiration for each other.  He says that when a marriage is in trouble, as long as a couple can look back on their past with fondness, the marriage can be saved.  I think that's pretty cool.  And I'm happy to say that despite the anger and tears this week, the stuff that I read kept creeping into my mind and I was able to think fondly about my husband an my past together.  I'm grateful for that.  Dr. Gottman also says that the antidote for contempt is reminding yourself of your spouse's positive qualities.  Now that is something I should have worked harder on this week, despite our situation.
In Dr. Goddard's book, he talked about the power of faith in our Savior, and the effect that it has on our marriages.  I loved this chapter.  It went really well with the Gottman book, as it talked about focusing on the positive, replacing judgment and condemnation with compassion and love.  He said that we are "nobles who are on a journey Home to the King!"  Don't you love that?  In my religion class, we read D&C 42:22-23 which says that we must cleave unto our spouse and love them with all our hearts.  In our accompanying study manual it says, in regards to this scripture, "Only tow commandments i all the scriptures require us to love with all our heart.  We are commanded to love God with all our heart (see Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37), and we are commanded to love our spouse with all our heart.  Think about that for a minute.  Doesn't that illustrate so beautifully the importance of marriage, and also how we should be treating or spouses?  Pres. Spencer W. Kimball said, "As we should have 'an eye single to the glory of God,' so should we have an eye, an ear, a heart single to the  marriage and the spouse and family."  He also said, "When the Lord says all thy heart, it allows for no sharing nor dividing nor depriving."  Love God and love your spouse with all your heart.  All of it.
As the week progressed, my husband and I were able to work through the situation that came up.  It's always so nice, so refreshing to get back to normal, to work through a problem and put it behind you.  I have enjoyed working on the assignments for class this week, looking for the bids that we make for each other's attention, and for ways that we turn towards each other.  And I look forward to continuing each day in this class as I/we learn how we can improve the most important relationship I've got, second only to the one I have with my Heavenly Father!

Love maps & The Master Architect

This week in class we started some fun assignments.  For starters, we're required to go on a date every week for the next 5 weeks.  Best assignment ever.  And I've been bugging my husband about making date night more of a priority so now that it's an assignment, well, we just have to do it.  O.k., I make it sound like he's not game...he is.  It's just that thing called time.  And money.  But we're encouraged to be creative and I've got some plans for some fun, free date nights so that we don't have to spend money every time we go out.  One of the keys to a long, lasting marriage is the friendship that you share with your spouse.  So the date night assignment is part of that.  Going out to get to know each other better, spend quality time together, etc.
We also took a "Love Maps Questionnaire" from the Seven Principles book by Dr. Gottman.  In this book, he said, "Emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other's world.  I call this having a richly detailed love map - my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner's life."  So in the questionnaire, we answered questions about each other and then got points based on whether or not we answered those questions correctly.  I'm happy to say that my hubs and I did great on this little activity and scored very high!  It's good to see that we've both been paying attention to each other for the past 14 years.  :)
We also read chapter 2 of Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, by H. Wallace Goddard, PhD.  This, is a great book about drawing God into your marriage and making your marriage stronger by following gospel principles.  As we make Heavenly Father a partner in our marriage, he can do amazing things with us.  I loved this line, "We can ask Father to help us see our partner and his or her struggles with the loving-kindness with which He views them."  I love that.  If we pray to see our spouse the way that Heavenly Father sees them, instead of how we, with our flawed, mortal minds will see them, we will be able to better understand them and love them with a purer heart.  I also loved this.  Dr. Goddard included this passage from C.S. Lewis, "Imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.  But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense.  What on earth is He up to?  The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace."
Dr. Goddard said of this, "If we trust the Master Architect and appreciate the style of (our house), God will turn our jarring differences into lovely courtyards and magnificent towers."
Isn't that great?  By letting Heavenly Father be the Mater Architect of our lives, including our marriages, he can make us better than we ever imagined.  

We started reading The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by Dr. John Gottman.  I am really excited to start this book – I’ve heard great things about it and so far it is great.  I really like that a major theme of his book is that married couples should be great friends.  I like how he pointed out that finding hobbies to do together can be good if you both enjoy them.  I have been telling my husband lately that we need to find some things that we like to do together, just the two of us, and that thought had definitely crossed my mind.  Honestly, it’s more about date night.  We are really bad about making time for a regular date night each week.  So I think it'll be fun to go out and try new things together and to make date night a bigger priority.  And it will be a good opportunity to strengthen our friendship.  I also really loved that he said, "Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse."  There was really so much in the first 3 chapters that I won’t go into it all here, but I will say that I was alarmed to see some of the warning signs in my marriage.  At the same time I’m thankful to have the opportunity to read this book so that we can learn how to change what we’re doing wrong, how to improve, and how to increase what we’re doing right.  

Eternal Marriage

I gained so much from the talks that we read in class this week.  One of the most important principles that stood out to me was how much our examples teach our children and also those whom we come into contact with in our daily lives.  This principle tied in beautifully with a thought from Elder Foster during General Conference – “Our children are the largest group of investigators of the Church.”  I just loved that and yet, I’d never really thought of my children as investigators.  But it’s so true.  They watch every single thing we do and it’s true that our actions speak louder than words.  I loved the story that Pres. Benson shared about his mother teaching him about the temple.  She was busily ironing the temple clothes and she took the time to stop what she was doing, and lovingly taught her little boy about the sacredness of the temple.  I love attending the temple and I know that the blessings of the temple are real.  I'm so grateful for my eternal family.  

I also loved that in Elder Hafen’s talk, he said that contract companions give 50% but covenant companions give 100%.  My husband and I and our kids were just sealed last January.  Since my husband joined the Church, and since we were sealed I have noticed a marked difference in how we handle things.  We are far from the “perfect” marriage but it’s been a true joy to see the blessings that have come into our lives as a result of making these sacred covenants. 

Last, I really took to heart Elder Bednar’s thoughts about understanding the intent of our enemies.  It reminded me of our readings last week.  As we strive to learn and grow, as we pay attention, we can learn what the enemy’s strategy is and then we’ll be more prepared to fight them.  I think that this is so important, on so many levels in our relationships.  From defending marriage publicly and privately, to knowing who our kids are hanging out with, knowing what they’re being taught in school, etc. etc.  I love that as a husband and wife strive to move closer to the Savior, it brings the husband and wife closer to each other until all are one, united.  That is what I want my marriage to be, as I believe that this is the only way to achieve true happiness and success in our marriages and in life in general. 

Redefining Marriage

This week in class we learned about the effects of redefining marriage. 

I believe that redefining marriage is detrimental for our society.  There are many reasons why marriage should never be redefined.  It deeply affects all of our civil/religious rights, as well as the future of our children.  Lynne D. Wardle said, “How marriage is defined sends signals to and reflects common understandings about the expectations of the relationship.”  What kinds of messages are we sending our children if we allow the definition of marriage to be redefined.  Marriage is central to Heavenly Father’s plan.  Everything else is built around it.  It’s vastly important.  We read an article written for the gay community about how to “overhaul straight America”.  It was rather eye-opening and unfortunately we see those tactics being used all around us.  While there are some exceptions to the rule, the general state of a same-sex partnership is not one of commitment or love, or one of deep-rooted values, but rather it’s a relationship based on selfish desires.  The rates of “divorce” and multiple partners in a same-sex partnership are staggering.  How can an innocent child who is brought into such a situation learn about proper relationships?  Children need a mother and a father because men and women both offer different characteristics and differences that complement each other and that are both necessary for the proper upbringing of children.  A marriage is the union of a man and a woman, who, as a result of that union, bring children into the world.  It’s natural and it’s God’s design.  One only has to look at nature to see this.  There are no same-sex relationships amongst animals or plants or insects.  God’s design is that man and woman are meant to be together to replenish the earth.  As marriage is being redefined in the world around us, we who oppose it are seeing our civil liberties threatened – everyone from teachers, to therapists, to church officials, and more.  Why a cake baker should be forced to make a cake for someone, or a photographer be forced to photograph anyone's wedding is beyond me.  I don’t understand why someone can’t just move on and happily give their dollars to someone else who would be happy to oblige.  It seems that it's o.k. that we should give up our rights, and be forced to go against the very values that stand for,, but not the other way around.  
I believe that two people should be free to live their lives however they choose.  A person can love whomever they choose.  However, redefining marriage, which is the oldest and most vital institution that we have, is not necessary.  It’s not necessary and it is damaging.  Sadly, we won’t know the full effects of this for a long time, just as it took a long time to see the full effects of things such as no-fault divorce laws.  Unfortunately, our children will be the ones who have to deal with the effects, unless we stand together now to prevent any further damage.  We are taught to hate the sin, not the sinner.  I believe that to be true.  We should indeed treat everyone around us with love and compassion, as we are all sons and daughters of God.  However, we do not have to accept the sin.