This week in my marriage class was all about pride and how detrimental that can be to a marriage. Pride is one of those universal sins. There isn't a person in the world who can escape pride in one form of another. Only Christ, our perfect example lived his life 100% humble.
I feel like we all have times in our lives where we realize that we have a particular struggle and hopefully we try and make things better and change ourselves. Anyway, I had a moment like that this week. While talking to a Marriage and Family Therapist of mine he opened my eyes to one way that I could improve my marriage. I love my husband and I feel like we have a pretty quality relationship. But I know I really struggle to talk about things that need to be talked about regarding our relationship. My counselor friend pointed out that a marriage is meant to grow and flourish. I feel like our marriage is flourishing, but it can't grow if there is nothing to work on. My husband and I need to be able to talk with each other about the things we can do to improve together and individually. I feel like in a strange way not telling my husband what I think will improve our relationship is an aspect of pride that I've found in my self. I've found that I'm either thinking that he will figure it out by himself (which isn't fair). Or I don't want to seem like the bad guy.
One fear in confronting the challenge I have with avoiding talking to my husband about our marriage and bringing up things that are troubling me is that I don't want to swing to the other end of the pride pendulum. I never want to criticize my wonderful husband. From reading Dr Gottman's book
(7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work) we know that there is hardly ever anything good that comes from being critical.
I really appreciated what Dr Goddard said in his book Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. Quoting Pres Ezra Taft Benson he said, "when we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities" (p. 57)
To me this means that if I'm keeping the Lord in the fore front of my mind it's less likely that I'll be nit picky towards my husband which leads to criticism. I'm going to be more likely to notice the things in myself that I need to change before I try to change my husband. And the things that are really important that will help us to stay together forever will be apparent such as how we can grow closer to the Lord together, how we are going to raise our kids, and how we need to help one another to accomplish our goals.
I'm really grateful for a perfect Savior who can help me to be able to get over my current struggles with pride and help my relationship to continue to be strong. In a previous class we looked at a great family counsel resource that I feel is appropriate to share here. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-family-councils?cid=HP_MO_9-1-2017_dOCS_fBLOG_xLIDyL2-4 I particularly like section 2 and I feel like it's worth checking out.
I feel like we all have times in our lives where we realize that we have a particular struggle and hopefully we try and make things better and change ourselves. Anyway, I had a moment like that this week. While talking to a Marriage and Family Therapist of mine he opened my eyes to one way that I could improve my marriage. I love my husband and I feel like we have a pretty quality relationship. But I know I really struggle to talk about things that need to be talked about regarding our relationship. My counselor friend pointed out that a marriage is meant to grow and flourish. I feel like our marriage is flourishing, but it can't grow if there is nothing to work on. My husband and I need to be able to talk with each other about the things we can do to improve together and individually. I feel like in a strange way not telling my husband what I think will improve our relationship is an aspect of pride that I've found in my self. I've found that I'm either thinking that he will figure it out by himself (which isn't fair). Or I don't want to seem like the bad guy.
One fear in confronting the challenge I have with avoiding talking to my husband about our marriage and bringing up things that are troubling me is that I don't want to swing to the other end of the pride pendulum. I never want to criticize my wonderful husband. From reading Dr Gottman's book
(7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work) we know that there is hardly ever anything good that comes from being critical.
I really appreciated what Dr Goddard said in his book Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. Quoting Pres Ezra Taft Benson he said, "when we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities" (p. 57)To me this means that if I'm keeping the Lord in the fore front of my mind it's less likely that I'll be nit picky towards my husband which leads to criticism. I'm going to be more likely to notice the things in myself that I need to change before I try to change my husband. And the things that are really important that will help us to stay together forever will be apparent such as how we can grow closer to the Lord together, how we are going to raise our kids, and how we need to help one another to accomplish our goals.
I'm really grateful for a perfect Savior who can help me to be able to get over my current struggles with pride and help my relationship to continue to be strong. In a previous class we looked at a great family counsel resource that I feel is appropriate to share here. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-family-councils?cid=HP_MO_9-1-2017_dOCS_fBLOG_xLIDyL2-4 I particularly like section 2 and I feel like it's worth checking out.
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