A Family United

This week, we have been learning about counsels and family unity, especially unity between a husband and wife. I took a parenting class last semester and it was one of my all time favorite classes. A major component of that class was dedicated to learning about counseling together, one on one and as a whole family. I think that counseling together is something that can really make or break marital relationships and is something that is often over looked between couples. 

When I was younger, my dad would do father's interviews on fast Sundays. We would have the opportunity to sit down one on one with him and talk about things. He would as us about our lives, friends, struggles we were having and offer advice and guidance where he needed to. I wish that I had taken those moments to build a better relationship with my dad than I had. My parents also would talk together, for hours it seemed sometimes. They would pray together and go to the temple when trying to make decisions. I didn't always feel they were very united, but I know that they put effort into doing so and things worked out in the end. 

My husband and I have been married for over three years now. When we were engaged, I had a mini panic moment, I was so worried that once we got married we would run out of things to talk about with each other because we would know everything already. We haven't been married for very long, but for the three years we have, we have never run out of things to talk about. We talk to each other about pretty much everything, any chance we get to be together we are talking to each other about something.

My husband is my best friend. We do everything we can together and I miss him when he is gone. We are so similar, yet we are so different. I love how Elder Eyring puts this, he says, "A man and his wife learn to be one by using their similarities to understand each other and their differences to complement each other in serving one another and those around them." Men and women are two different parts and neither is perfect, but together we create a whole that can become perfect. 

Eyring, H. (1998). That We May Be One. Ensign. [online] Available at: http://file:///C:/Users/mcgil/Downloads/faml300_document_lds.orgEnsignArticleThatWeMayBeOne.pdf [Accessed 27 Nov. 2019].

Have Courage and Be Kind

When I was engaged, I told my now husband that I was worried about getting married. I was worried that we would never have anything to talk about once we had been together for so long because we had already talked about everything. I was worried that I would never be able to reach my potential or live my dreams out because I was going to stop everything once I got married. I haven't been married for very long, but from the few years of marriage I have I can say that my husband and I can talk with each other for hours and still have more to say, I have grown so much since I have gotten married, and my dreams have changed for the better. 

When you reach gridlock in a marriage, you get stuck and feel like your dreams haven't been met or realized by your partner. I have seen many couples sacrifice their dreams for their spouse, but they never gain new dreams and I often see this tear them apart and cause marital problems. Something I have seen help this (and yes I know everyone says this for everything), is communication. Sharing your wants and ideas with your partner and talking to them about the future is the best way to let them know what your goals are. You can't read their mind and they can't read yours, so open communication is the only way to understand each other and know what your dreams and goals are so you can work towards them as a couple. 

This week, I have also been thinking about having a softer heart and being more open to your spouse. For another class I am in, we have to pick a goal to work on to become better people. The item I am working on is patience. As I have been working on this. I have come to learn that it all has to do with what we choose to do not what the other person does. Our spouse can be exactly the same but depending on how we react and look at things can change the situation entirely. It is up to us to decide to suck it up and be the better person.

To bring these two thoughts together, it reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite princesses. She says to have courage and to be kind. We need to have courage to step out of our comfort zone if we need to and talk to our spouse. We also need to realize that it is up to us if we are kind or not.

Conflict

Conflict is something that every marriage will face. Some couples are really good at figuring things out and working through things. Most marital problems are perpetual, they are things that come up multiple times. It can be hard to be patient with your spouse, especially if it is something you have had happen multiple times, but marriage is a commitment that we work on over and over.

When I first got married, my husband and I rarely had conflict. We were really poor, but we had what we needed and we were happy. It was pretty calm for three years, then my daughter was born. When she was born, we had life hit us like a brick wall. We had medical problems, job changes, moving multiple times and almost no sleep on top of everything. I quickly learned that my husband wasn't the most patient person in the world when he was tired, and I wasn't very patient when he was impatient. We got more picky at each other and brought things up that bothered us. It was easy to point something out when we were already frustrated and tired. 

Our daughter is now nine moths old. We still haven't figured everything out but we are much better at being patient in our exhaustion. It has taken a lot of time to work on it but it is so much better now that we aren't so easily annoyed with things. I think that our ability to work together has also made other things much easier, being able to work through them together rather than on our own. 

Another concept of marital arguing that I thought was interesting was flooding. This is when your heart rate gets fast and you are instantly just really angry and be hard to calm down from quickly. Men are more likely to hold onto the state of flooding than women are. 

Emotions are a rough thing to understand. It's hard to balance your own emotions and try to figure out and help another persons emotions. Doing all of this on top of everything else life throws at us seems impossible sometimes. Having this ability is something that takes practice and patience, with yourself and your spouse. 

Pride and Prejudice, or Mainly Just Pride?

When I was younger, I hate to say but I was really prideful. I thought that I knew everything about everything and that I was "all that" as the kids would say today. Now that I have gotten older, I realize I wasn't at all who I thought I was. People are naturally prideful I think. They like to think highly of themselves and like to think they know things, at least that is how I have perceived things through interactions with others. We all want to be right and "in the know" and we want others to see that in us as well. 

In a marriage, pride can tear you down. When I first got marriage, I quickly learned it was ok not to be right. There have been times where we would argue over something and I would just say ok, even thought I knew I was right, but he does the same for me. For me, realizing that our relationship was more important than a simple argument was what helped keep things in perspective. 

We always hear that saying of walking a mile in their shoes, this totally applies to marriage but for some reason I never hear it applied to a marriage. By stepping outside of ourselves and looking at things from the other side can drastically affect our response to things.

My husband is pretty tall, he is almost 6 feet tall, but I am just over 5 feet tall. When we first got married, he would ask me if I had cleaned the kitchen recently and I would tell him that I had. He would then say that there were places that I was missing. It made me so angry, I had cleaned every inch of the kitchen, how could I miss anything. One day, I stood on a stool to get something off of the top shelf, I turned to get down and I saw there was a layer of dust on the ledge of our stove and fridge and cupboards. I realized that I couldn't see over the ledge so I had been missing those places the whole time. I thought that I had been cleaning the kitchen all that time, but he had a different perspective than I did. 

Pride can break things, but learning to over come pride can give you such a wider perspective on the world. I can still have my prideful moments in my marriage, but gratefully my husband is patient with me and knows I am working at it. Next time you feel you know it all, take a step back and pause and look to make sure you aren't stuck in your own shoes all the time. 

Turning together

Your husband is your greatest ally in life, so wouldn't you think that you should band together when faced with trials? That makes sense, yet for me it seems to be the exact opposite of what I do in hard times. Let me know if I am the only one, but I feel that many times in my life my husbands ticks and odd things that sometimes bother me get even more bothersome when things aren't going great. I then am angry at him for things that I have known about or have gotten over long ago.

Something I have learned in my married life is that is so much easier to be on each others team when it's hard if we are constantly working together and turning to one another the rest of the time. This doesn't always have to be a grand thing. This could simply be doing the dishes together when the kids go to bed or cleaning out the car together on a Saturday afternoon. My husband and I like to eat together. We love to try new foods and sit down and just talk with each other. We also love to drive places together, this gives us a quiet environment where we can just be together.

The past month has been very stressful for my family. We have moved, had a couple of major illnesses pop up, and so on. There where times where my husband and I both had our moments of frustration or anger, but because we are working together and turning to each other through trials, we got through them without any major problems. There is a lot still ahead of my family that we will need to push through, but by keeping up on our togetherness my husband and I can work through anything.

“So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Always Dating

When I first heard the idea of always dating your spouse, I thought it was so dumb, don't you get married so you don't have to date anymore? This week we learned about building a love map. This map that we build with our spouse helps keep us together through hard times, it gives us happy moments even when we are being dragged through the mud, they "enable a couple to adjust and adapt to changes or upheavals that may occur during the course of life." . We can make these maps by continuing to work on our relationship and friendship with each other.  

When my husband and I first got married, we were both still students. We had a tiny apartment in Rexburg Idaho and we loved it. We had a few classes together on campus and ate lunch together in between our jobs and classes. It was great, we saw each other all the time. That perfect semester only lasted for well, a semester, then life hit us pretty hard. I had to work almost full time to help support our family so my husband could finish school, he was taking 20+ credits so he could try and get done faster so I didn't have to work so much. It was rough, we hardly saw each other and when we did we were so tired we would sleep. 

We thought life would get easier when my husband's schooling was done, but we sure were wrong. Things like new jobs, kids, moving and family struggles hit at us left and right. I will admit my husband and I haven't gone on a real date together in a long while, but we still have our mini dates every day. After our daughter goes to sleep, we will play video games or watch youtube together. We laugh together, talk and just be together. I think that these nightly moments are what have helped keep our marriage so strong through our trials. We always put each other and our relationship first. 

As we build our love maps, we need to set aside time with our spouse to make sure we still know them and their interests. We need to spend time together that isn't just sitting on our phones. As we build on those small little love moments, eventually we will have love so big, its unimaginable. 

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” - The Fault In Our Stars

For Time and All Eternity

A family psychologist, John Gottman says that a good, strong marriage needs to be founded on friendship. For a friend, you would go out of your way to help them, you have fun together, you laugh with them. When you get married, you need to be marrying your best friend who you can do all of these things with. 

My husband and I met through my roommate four years ago this week. We became friends first and just hung out and did things together as friends. He was my best friend before we even thought about dating. He still is my best friend today. There have been points in our short marriage where we have had struggles, every marriage has them, but we tend to get over them fairly quickly because of our the times we work on things together. 

Something I learned about marriage very quickly is that it's not a 50/50 give and take or an I scratch your back you scratch mine kind of relationship. Marriage is giving and taking constantly without keeping track of I did this so you do that. A year and a half ago, I felt so frustrated, I was giving my all for my family and felt like I got very little back. My husband was in school and I was working and trying to take classes and pregnant and I had to pack and clean our whole apartment by myself because my husband was swamped with school. It was really hard and I felt hurt in the moment. I quickly realized that there will be times that I give more, but there are times that he gives more to me. 

There is a song by Ingrid Michaelson that I love when thinking about a strong marriage:

If you were falling, then I would catch you
You need a light, I'd find a match
'Cause I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am

If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching, I'll make it better
'Cause I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am

I'd buy you Rogaine
When you start losing all your hair
Sew on patches to all you tear

'Cause I love you more than
I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am
You take me the way I am
You take me the way I am

 

I am so grateful for my husband and the sacrifices he has made for me. I am grateful for his love and support in the crazy that I am. I pray that everyone can find the joy that I have.