One of the first topics often introduced when speaking of marriage in general is divorce. I have heard many times that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. This statistic is flawed. Yes, over time the divorce rate has dramatically increased, but not half of all marriages ever have ended in divorce. But who wants to talk statistics in regard to divorce? There are more pressing matters. Divorce has more problems to it than the many numbers it forces into our calculators. If you have been through a divorce or are going through one, or even considering it, I mean no ill and still think the world of you.
I grew up the product of an adulterous relationship. Due to my very presence, my mom and my older sister’s dad divorced, and my biological dad did what he must have felt was rational: packed his bags, changed his number, and took off as much as the marines would allow. Three years later, my mom remarried to my younger siblings’ dad. After nine years, another divorce occurred, and she married my current step-dad just over a year later. Through all of this, we several stigmas often presented in divorce:
My eldest sister had eating issues stemming from emotional issues. Her dad and our mom frequently fought, and she was always stressed about who to impress. She grew to not only blame everyone else for her choices, but also avoids serious relationships like the plague for fear of serious commitment (her words, not mine).
I didn’t know my award worthy father and felt alone and alienated from the others, never quite fitting in with any family. I grew with the solemn vow to not have my children go through this and became what is known as the transitional character. I got married to a wonderful man in the same faith as me BEFORE sexual relations and am still married (with 3 beautiful children I might add). We focus on church in our home and on the family.
My younger brother became quite the delinquent, having been in and out of jail between ages 14 and 18, barely graduating high school, living a very risqué lifestyle, and essentially being ostracized from the rest of us.
My youngest sister ran away at 12 years old and was gone for nearly 48 hours. That was scary. She had a conglomerate of emotional issues through high school and currently cohabits with her newest boyfriend.
“A transitional character is one who, in a single generation, changes the entire course of a lineage. The changes might be for good or ill, but the most noteworthy examples are those individuals who grow up in an abusive, emotionally destructive environment and who somehow find a way to metabolize the poison and refuse to pass it on to their children. They break the mold. They refute the observation that abused children become abusive parents, that the children of alcoholics become alcoholic adults, that “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation.” Their contribution to humanity is to filter the destructiveness out of their own lineage so that the generations downstream will have a supportive foundation upon which to build productive lives.” (Broderick, 1992, p. 18)
Carlfred Broderick (1992). Marriage and the Family. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Each of these are very common things found in children of divorced parents as outlined in, ” The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation,” by Paul R. Amato.
I graduated from high school less than ten years ago with a class of 43. Of my few classmates, over 12 of use have kids, 17 or so are married, and maybe 5 have had kids within the bounds of marriage. Several unmarried classmates have said they refuse to get married because they are scared of divorce. Often, their parents had a divorce. I would like to put out for the world to know this: divorce is not a disease or contractible ailment upon saying “I do.” It is a choice. Yes, there are often very valid reasons for divorce such as abuse of any kind, neglect, and serious issues. Some choose divorce for lesser reasons. Nonetheless, divorce is a choice that is between two people. Those who make that choice are not terrible and I don’t judge your choices.
I make a plea for all the kids like me or any of my siblings and ask that those considering divorce or going through it consider the children. What example are you setting? Is it worth it for them? What are the repercussions? How can you help them? What is best for them?
Not one person on this earth is perfect and neither are their decisions. We can put forth the perfect effort in showing compassion for one another, kids, and the institution we entered when getting married by looking at divorce as less of a parasite, solution, or option and more of a consequence of decisions and action.
Since being diagnosed with depression I have been on about 5 different medications. Each one has a similar side effect that my husband hates: lowered libido. He often jokes that he can pinpoint the conception of our last two kids because they correspond with blue moons. He hates being a mid-twenty year old man living a nearly celibate life. Over time, we have both learned that sex and intimacy are not the same. One is physical and the other is emotional.
The biggest part of intimacy in my own marriage is our need to feel needed by the other. He loves helping me with every little thing and I love helping him. We also love knowing we can trust each other. being able to trust is a huge part of intimacy. It is trust of not only their actions, but of their need and love for you.
I spoke not too long ago about the need to allow the other person influence you. Joining in their hobbies or shows is a great way to do this. when I began watching Star Wars with my husband, he became so excited. It is so nice now to have that time where we do “our thing” together.
Those small intimate times are what make a relationship stronger. They are building blocks. That being said, there is still a natural need for sex in life. It is a physical representation of your pure love for one another. It can be intimate but it can also just be it.
Strive for intimacy each day and try to do it with the small things. It will help your relationship and every other part of making yourself feel whole.
“In an effort to understand charity, it is important to know what it is NOT. It is not artificial good cheer. It is not a thin veneer of politeness on a distressed soul. It is not holding our tongues while judging and resenting others. Rather it is a sacred and heavenly gift,” (Goddard, 2009).
Ho can charity apply to marriage. If we look at what Goddard says, I think there are perhaps 2 things to really look at and remember. First is that it is a sacred gift from Heaven. Do you remember one of my earlier posts about about the triangle in marriage. If not, quick recap: Man and wife on base of triangle and Christ at the apex. By using charity, you are drawing you marriage closer to Christ and therefore drawing closer to each other.
I have often heard people ask, “what can I sacrifice to be charitable?” The answer is nothing. In reality, charity shouldn’t be a sacrifice, but a nature about you. The benefit from it is so substantial that any “loss” is overridden.
The next part to consider is “it is not artificial good cheer.” I remember my brother frequently trying to impress our step-dad by doing all of these intense “boy” things, such as football. He pretended to like it, but actually hated it. He would skip practice and play sick at games. It not only made things hard on himself, but those around him and on his team. His effort was to make my step-dad think he was happy when he wasn’t and it made himself more miserable. One day, everything came to a head and my brother got very mad at my step-dad, accusing him of forcing him to do things.
How does that make sense here? My brother’s hard work and effort to do something begrudgingly to make another happy only made everyone mad and upset. In a marriage, this can leave lasting damage and cause more problems.
Doing charity is doing things not for the effect from the recipient, but out of pure love for the other. Next time you think of doing something for your spouse and then wait for their reaction, try instead doing it and waiting for nothing at all. They will more than likely express gratitude, but you heart and spirit will fell more if you just leave it as an “I love you,” and go on with your day.
According to Gottman (2015) in his book about marital principles, there are 2 forms of conflict: perpetual and solvable. Perpetual would be problems that don’t go away such as one wanting a baby and the other not being ready. Solvable are just that. Neither issue is easy or painless, but both are very real.
I seem to really enjoy sharing stories from my own marriage, so here is another. I grew up in a very abusive home. If the laundry wasn’t folded correctly, you could bet that my grandmother would take out that entire drawer and throw it at my head, wood and all. Fast forward to now and our perpetual problem seems to be that my husband can’t fold towels correctly. He does try, but the creases still aren’t right. I have this nagging feeling like someone is going all but kill me for the creases being wrong and he thinks everything is fine and I need to get over it. Every week. For six years.
But how do we problem solve? For us, it took a lot of therapy on my part and an agreement that I would not fix any of the things he folds until he is out of the house. Really, it is communication.
We all have needs. Perhaps the biggest one we seem to all forget is the need to express them. We deserve it too. With that, comes listening.
Many have heard the parable about the blind men and the elephant. If not, here is the paraphrased version just for you:
A handful or so of blind men go to see and elephant wanting to know what it looks like. Each touches a different part and comes up with very different notions of what the elephant must look like based on that small part they touch not realizing that the elephant is all of their parts together.
This is conflict in marriage. Each person sees on part and determines that is the issue while neglecting to attempt to see the other parts of the problem. Stop and ask if you have any negative part in the matter. Have you tried to help it? what is your spouse seeing or feeling?
Trying to see the whole elephant and communicating to get the full image can help with both perpetual and solvable issues and possible save your sanity when folding laundry.
It is amazing that my husband and I have lasted as long as we have considering we are both some of the most bull headed people ever. Neither of us are willing to take criticism, ask for help, apologize first, or just straight drop our pride. It is a surprise it hasn’t ruined us, though it could also just be so immense that it is what is keeping us together.
The biggest issue is influence. Gottman’s (2015) seventh principle of marriage is allowing your partner to influence you. My husband’s least favorite questions are “do you want help trimming your beard?” and “do you want me to cut your hair?” He knows these are silent reminders that I think he is unkempt.
I absolutely hate hearing, “honey, I can fold the laundry,” or even “you look tired, why don’t you let me help?” Each of these is an example of how we genuinely want to make what we believe to be a positive impact on our partner only to be shut down because of pride.
Everything is full of opposites and letting down your guard and ego in order to allow your opposite try more to be that other half can be beneficial. Yet, why do we say no?
There is a primary song from my church about the foolish man who built his house on the sand and the wise man who built his house on the rock. What happened? “The rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the sand washed away.” It this scriptural sense, the rock is Jesus Christ and the sand is the world. If we look at it from a different view, the house would be our marital well being and the floods will the the struggles of life. The sand would be our pride and the rock would be our spouse. Get the picture?
You need your spouse to whether the storms of life. You need every part, not just the parts you want to accept. Let down your guard and allow them to help and to teach you.
Perhaps the hardest point of my marriage was when my husband and I lost our youngest son. We were only 10 short days from our due date when it happened. Our due date, oddly enough, was also our 4th wedding anniversary. That entire experience was hard, but the month after was the worst by far.
I distinctly remember yelling a lot and fighting about every little thing. Nothing we did was right and the spark we had was gone. At one point, we gave each other our rings and put our thoughts and emotions on hold for about a week. I honestly thought everything was over.
At the end of that week we realized our issue was we were telling each other how to grieve and move on from our loss instead of supporting each other. Gottman (2015) has a principle in his book about turning toward each other. We had to learn this.
One activity he has in this principle is the emotional bank account. It is essentially where you and your spouse go over thoughts, needs, and emotions with each other and how to fulfill those together. It also has activities to help fill that account we all have. I wish had this then. It really would have helped us to focus on each other instead of ourselves and our own grief.
Perhaps our biggest struggle was our inability to cope with each other’s fear and stress. We both shut ourselves inside mentally and refused to not only allow another in, but also to try and open up enough to be able to care for the other.
After a long knock down, drag out, screaming match until 2 in the morning, it clicked that what each of us needed was the other. We needed to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start to feel sorry together. If only Gottman had been there to help from the beginning. So much time and breath waste on yelling and hurting could have been avoided.
I am happy to say that everything is better now. We focus on each other and, a year and a half after the event, are doing remarkably well. Our communication and ability to turn toward each other in order to find strength has increased dramatically and we have honestly never been happier in our marriage.
What in the world is a Love Map? In his book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” (2015) Gottman describes them as a portion of your brain that is dedicated to the most important person in your life: your spouse (p. 54). Page 56 and 57 of his book continue with a questionnaire regarding this intricate map of memory. Questions include things such as their favorite music (question 8) and thoughts of your spouses knowledge about yourself.
I have this thing with new books where I immediately begin flicking through them the moment they enter my hands. I also sniff the pages, but that is irrelevant. When the Gottman book entered my hands, there was no difference (yes, even the sniffing). I happened to turn to this questionnaire on my first opening of the book. For fun, I did it with my husband and was surprised of how close we had become in 5 years of marriage.
In the last five years, I have learned that my new best friend in life had become this quirky weirdo I fell in love with. Why do I still fight with my best friend? No, our marriage isn’t perfect. I think the biggest reason lies in this love map proposed by Gottman. While we have grown more in love and more deeply involved in every aspect of our lives, we have stopped striving to learn those gnitty gritty details about each other.
In exercise 3 of the same book, beginning on page 62, we find a questionnaire about you. While looking at this, I learned that after having kids, I lost myself. My husband figured this out about me as well. I found the questions extremely difficult to answer from my heart. I found that my interest in my marriage had become stagnant because my interest in myself had done the same.
Marriage is so important and I value and love mine. Gottman taught me that I also need to value the “me” portion of my marriage. I don’t mean going off some adventure or going on a crazed spending spree to to do so. I mean valuing and finding time to not only asking and seeking more information about every inch of your spouse’s mind, as well as pondering your own thoughts.
Don’t you find it interesting that when faced with a conglomerate of information, only parts stick out to you and you often dwell on those parts? You see it in so many things in life between politics to TV dramas. I am no different, especially when learning of divorces and marriage this past week. I have already dwelt on divorce, so how about I tackle another thought?
Have you ever been thrown headfirst into the dreaded “friend zone”? I have. This guy I had a serious crush on left me there feeling absolutely useless. Fast forward 8 years and He is now sitting on my couch watching Justice League while I type and sip my coconut milk. I am still in that “friend zone” but in the best of ways. I would consider him my best friend and confidant and I think he would too except in the moments that I ask him to go across the house to get my glasses because I am too lazy. I am blessed to call him my husband.
I don’t think we are the only couple to consider each other best friends though. One of my dearest friends and her husband are a great example. For the sake of privacy, I will refer to them as Leslie and Joe. They have been married for 14 years. When they first met, she hated Joe. She thought he was a cocky jerk and only went on one date out of pity. That one date turned into several more. They got engaged and he got stationed in Germany. From across the sea, they planned and prepped for the big day. Then a slip up happened. Joe, in a poor mental state and being a hormonal person made the mistake of cheating on Leslie. What happened next shaped the rest of their life together.
LESLIE FORGAVE JOE.
It was a long and hard road, but they fixed it. It wasn’t just an, “I’m sorry,” and “great, thanks.” It was a year of talking, working, reaching out, digging deep within, and truly turning of both their hearts.
In his book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” Gottman (2015) speaks of this as a “repair attempt” (p. 27) This is the basis of creating a great marriage with flaws. It isn’t just apologizing but working hard each day to make things better. It is about striving to prove your willingness to change. It is also striving to forgive.
My husband holds grudges like it is nothing. I forgive too easily. I think we balance each other out. There have been moments I have had to forgive him for serious things and he me. We have done things like giving gifts, giving time, giving foot rubs, or even sitting through a movie or show we sincerely dislike for the joy of the other.
Being friends means sacrificing the need to fight and control everything and allow your heart to submit and understand. Strive to reach the comfort and accessibility of the “friend zone” and don’t always expect perfection.
Growing up, I played frequently with my little sister’s Bratz dolls and little brother’s G.I. Joes. I was not only too cool to own my own, but my sisters and I were collectively too cool for Barbie and Ken. While on the floor playing, I can’t count the number of weddings put on and broken up by some dramatic event like Yazmin irresponsibly losing her pet dog or my Harry Potter rag doll having a secret crush on Chloe. Please don’t judge my story lines as my mom seemed to only have the Hallmark Channel.
No matter the drama enveloping the event, weddings always happened. It was a beautiful thing that had daily occurrence. Weddings are still beautiful and I know they can last eternal spans and not just the playtime. Today, I feel so many see marriage as an act between two people that almost mirrors those playtime dramas. How can we make them more?
Sacred, NotSecret
Have you every speculated about those glowing buildings all over the world that are so revered by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Those are temples. A lot of things happen in temples and perhaps on of the most sacred is that of marriages. Men and women can be sealed here by making sacred covenants with God and that sealing is also a legal marriage. People even go to be sealed after getting civilly married. What could possibly be so important that people already married are trying to go to achieve?
Have you ever made a pinky promise? What am I asking for, of course you have! As a child, things don’t get much more serious than the awkward interlocking of two dirty pinkies and a promise. That is temple marriage. It is a serious promise to not only love your spouse, but to devote your life to them AND GOD.
Consider this diagram as described by Elder David A. Bednar in a 2006 talk titled, “Marriage is Essential to His Eternal Plan.” (para. 15).
This is the most basic way to describe the importance of a temple marriage and the eternal perspective. How does the marriage happen and what exactly takes place? I can’t say a ton as it is a very sacred thing that takes place. I will say that it is a beautiful ceremony that can be viewed by anyone invited and holding a current temple recommend of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Future andPast?
Part of this class that got me started on this blog is a genogram which is essentially family history. How in the world can that tie into marriage? In every temple there are mirrors on either side of the alter in the sealing rooms (where the weddings take place). They are angled and position in a way that no matter which you look through, it is repeating forever. The first time I saw it, it reminded of the gas gas station Icee cups with the polar bear holding a cup that had a picture of a polar bear holding a cup that had a picture of a polar bear… you get it. When I was married to my husband in the temple, the sealer (person performing the marriage) had us look in each mirror. In the first, he told us that those 10,000,000,000 images of us represents those in our line who brought us to that point. After looking in the other, we were informed that those were the generations to come and that we are the link. How beautiful is that?!?!
Genealogy and family history are more than that though. While it is amazing to think that you are this important point in time, there is a bigger picture. I hate going to the doctor and filling out the 20 pages of medical history for me, my mom, my non existent father, and my 10th cousin 5 times removed. These are important though. Did you know that genealogy can help give us insight to medical conditions, cancers, addictions, and so much more? It is the key to helping solve future problems with the past!
I know marriages are eternal and the benefits can reach far and wide. President Ezra Taft Benson said of his mother, “She also expressed her fervent hope that some day her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would have the opportunity to enjoy these priceless blessings,” (1986, What I hope you would teach your children about the temple, para. 20). I have that same hope for my children and their children and so on for more generations than that Icee polar bear! I feel so blessed to be a member of such a wonderful church and to have the gospel that we do and to have had the opportunity to marry my best friend in the Denver Temple for time and all eternity (see picture below). It is my sincere hope that the world can once again view marriage as attainable as we made it for our dolls but much more lasting.
Since the beginning of time, especially for those of Christian faiths, there has been a man and a woman in marriage. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, members often view marriage as a very sacred entity and one that should follow the same patterns. The document, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” put out in 1995 by the First Presidency of the church says:
“WE, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.“
That is pretty straight forward, right? With thoughts such as this, the 2015 ruling proclaiming same sex marriage legal in all states was a pretty big deal. Here is how it affected me:
I grew up with a flamboyantly homosexual brother. I have a cousin who proclaims herself to bi-sexual. I have had many friends over the years proclaim different sexuality preferences. I do not have a relationship with my brother due to poor choices he has made and my choice to keep him from my kids because of them. I do still talk with my cousin and show love in all the previous ways I have before. I honestly hold the message brought forth in The Family: A Proclamation to be completely true. Does this mean I love my brother, cousin, or friends less?
NO!
In his talk, “Disciples of Jesus Christ – Defenders of Marriage,” President Russell M. Nelson (2014) says, “The greatest guardians of any and all virtues are marriage and family,” (paragraph 11). Marriage has a lasting effect on more that people involved and leaves it’s imprint on the world. Family is meant to be full of love, nurturing, and support.
I believe to be a defender of marriage is to keep the bonds between man and wife and to build up the next generations. It is also a great way to keep virtue in the world.
To Eternity and Beyond 