The Effect of Pride in Marriage

In Gottman’s book, the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he says that “Obviously, it takes two to make or break a marriage” (pg. 116). This is an important thing to remember. Gottman goes on to tell of examples of couples who fall into pride, many fight and think that they are right. However, if you were to look at the others point of view, you could understand more fully what is actually happening. It is important to remember that it does take two in a marriage, and that there are many contributors to making a marriage work. In your marriage you and your spouse are going to influence each other. This is a good thing. You should be taking influence from your spouse and learn to become a better spouse.

Gottman says that being “emotionally intelligent” is important in a marriage. Being emotionally intelligent is when you try to understand your spouse, and accept their influence in your life, and in your decisions. Gottman writes “Accepting influence doesn’t mean never expressing negative emotions toward your partner. Marriages can survive plenty flashes of anger, complaints, even criticisms. Trying to suppress negative feelings in your spouse’s presence wouldn’t be good for your marriage or your blood pressure.” (pg. 120). Being emotionally intelligent isn’t just agreeing with everything your spouse says, everyone disagrees, and everyone fights. This is normal, in fact, it’s actually expected. Gottman explains that “The problem comes when even mild dissatisfaction on the wife’s part is met by a barrage from her husband that, instead of toning down or at the most matching her degree of negativity (yelling back, complaining, etc.), goes beyond it.” (pg. 120). Although fighting is expected, it’s important to not escalate fighting. It’s important to respect your spouse and their differences. Often, if you calm down, and express your side of the argument and work together to understand each other’s points of view, the disagreement can be resolved.

The big problem that couples run into in this situation is pride. President Ezra Taft Benson, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said that “Pride is essentially competitive in nature.” (Beware of Pride). When you fight with pride in a marriage you are just competing to be the one who is right. When you fight with pride, often, when you are wrong, you will do all in your power to be the one who is right. It’s important to put aside your pride and focus on making your marriage a happy one.

I am the youngest of five children, who are all very close in age, so when I was right, or when I did something better than my siblings, I took great pride in it. This led me to grow up and to take pride in when I do something better than anyone else and had to prove that I was always right. This had not been a real problem until I got married. For the first few months of my marriage, I would act this way with my husband. My husband was very kind and didn’t say anything about it, however, I could tell that it did bother him slightly, that this is something that I did. I took that influence from my husband and stopped focusing on being right, instead, I focused on my marriage, and how we could work together to be happy.

I personally think that pride is very lonely. Yes, it can make you feel gratified at first. However, if you keep focusing on pride, or yourself, instead of others, it can be quite lonely. I believe that it is important to focus on the important things in life, instead of just always being right. Marriages take hard work to make them happy. But let me tell you, IT’S WORTH IT!