Resolving Conflicts in Marriage

In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John M. Gottman says “Every marriage is a union of individuals who bring to it their own options, personality quirks, and values. So, it’s no wonder that even in very happy marriages spouses must cope with a profusion of marital issues.” (pg. 137). Conflicts are going to happen in any marriage. Conflict is normal, parents and children have conflicts, siblings have conflicts, roommates have conflicts, friends have conflicts. CONFLICTS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN. Some conflicts are going to be minor and honestly quite unimportant. However, some will be more severe and difficult to overcome. It is important to have steps to overcome conflict together in a marriage. 

Gottman gives 5 steps that couples can take for resolving conflict in a loving relationship:

1.      Soften your start-up

2.      Learn to make and receive repair attempts

3.      Soothe yourself and each other

4.      Compromise

5.      Process any grievances so that they don’t linger

Gottman goes on to say that “Most of these steps take very little training because we all pretty much have these skills already; we just get out of the habit of using them in our most intimate relationship.” (pg. 161). Creating habits in a marriage can be difficult, but beneficial! I there was anything to work hard on in life, marriage is the thing!

When you take these steps, you can overcome the conflicts that are going to arise together and focus on having a happy marriage. It is important to remember that there are two of you in the marriage and that you are not always going to be right. This is something that I have had to realize in my marriage. I always like to be right it is something that I have always struggled with. I am grateful for my amazing husband because when this tendency would come up, he wouldn’t fight me. Instead, he would just say “Ok, you’re right. I love you.” Instead of focusing on the conflict he would focus on our marriage.

When conflict arises, you are going to put hard work into some part of it. You could put hard work into avoiding the situation, which in the long run will make it harder to overcome the conflict. You could put hard work into fighting and making the conflict worse. Or you could put hard work into resolving conflict with your spouse and having a happier marriage. Wherever you chose to put your hard work, make sure the result it worth it!

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!

Turning Towards Your Spouse: Bid's For Attention

In John M. Gottman’s book the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work he talks about the importance of turning towards your spouse, to create a long-lasting happy marriage. Gottman says “In marriage, couples are always making what I call “bids” for each other’s attention, affection, humor, or support. Bids can be as minor as asking for a backrub or as significant as seeking help in carrying the burden when an aging parent is ill. The partner responds to each bid either by turning toward the spouse or turning away. A tendency to turn toward your partner is the basis of trust, emotional connection, passion,”. It is important to turn toward your spouse when they “bid” for your attention.

I have experienced this is my own marriage, and I am grateful to my husband for turning towards me and doing all he can to help me. Gottman goes on to say “The first step in turning toward each other more is simply to be aware of how crucial these in moments are, not only to your marriage’s trust level but to its ongoing sense of romance. For many couples, just realizing that they shouldn’t take their everyday interactions for granted makes an enormous difference in their relationship.” You should be turning towards your spouse in the little day to day things. Gottman goes on to talk about how his wife doesn’t mind doing the laundry, but that she hates to fold it, so he decided that he would fold the laundry because he didn’t mind, and it would be a little thing that his wife would appreciate.

My husband and I both work full-time jobs, but my husband has Fridays off, and I do not. One thing that my husband does to turn towards me, is that he will bring me lunch on Friday to just spend that little bit of time with me. Friday’s at my work are always busy and stressful, I am grateful that my husband spends just a little bit of time to help me relax before I have to go back to work.

It’s not always a big gesture that is going to turn you towards your spouse, it’s just the little things. Gottman says “One virtue of turning toward each other is that it is so easy to accomplish. It only takes a small gesture to lead to another and then another.” We see this portrayed in movies all of the time, a couple grows apart and when they try and do a big gesture it doesn’t work. What works is when they spend little bits of time every day to just say “thank you” or to help do the dishes. I think that it is important to turn towards your marriage and to focus on the little day to day things that are what really bring you together.

Love Map Game

In my marriage class, we are reading the book the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman. In his book Gottman says a “love map—my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life.” I found this to be an interesting concept, so I went online and found a “Love Map Game” and I did this exercise with my husband. It had two steps to it. Step 1: Write the numbers 1-20 down a column on the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Step 2: Take turns asking your partner the questions on the list. If your spouse answers correctly (you be the judge), he/she receives the number of points indicated for that question, and you receive one point. If your spouse answers incorrectly, neither of you receives any points. High score wins.

I asked my husband the questions first, and I was happy to see how much he knew about my life. He got 70 points, out of a total of 77 points. It was great hear the detailed answers my husband gave, showing me how much he cares for me. What I found to be remarkable was that when I totaled my score, I also got 70 points! I thought that it was great to see just how much my husband and I know about each other, and how much we care what is going on in the others life.

Gottman said that “From Knowledge springs not only love but the fortitude to weather marital storms. Couples who have detailed love maps of each other’s world are far better prepared to cope with stressful events and conflict.” Being able to know what is going on in your spouse’s life can help you through stressful times, because you better understand what is happening. When you don’t know what is happening in your spouse’s life and something stressful occurs, it’s harder to understand the situation because you don’t know all that brought up the stress. Showing care of what happens in your spouse’s life, regardless of if it is a stressful time or life is important to a happy marriage!

Friendship in Marriage

This week in my marriage class we read a few chapters from John M. Gottman’s book the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. In the first few chapters he talks about the importance of being friends with your spouse and sharing a sense of meaning. These topics really spoke to me. I think that both of them are important when creating unity in your marriage.

Being friends with your spouse is so important, we see it all the time that people started out as friends. This is because you have a basis for your relationship in that friendship. I was friends with my now husband a little over a year before we started dating. My husband and I met on our service missions for The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were both serving in Texas together. We served together at the end of my mission and become really good friends. I came home 14 months before he did, but we actually emailed each other over the 14 months and became really good friends. When he got home, we hung out a few times and then started to go on dates. This helped us to get to know each other well before we started dating! This also helped us have a strong foundation in place before we were together.

Having a strong foundation together is very important. This means that you and your significant other are on the same page, you have a sense of meaning together. In his book Gottman says “In the strongest marriages, husband and wife share a deep sense of meaning. They don’t just “get along”—they also support each other’s hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together.” I loved this quote from his book because it doesn’t say that you have to have the same hopes and aspirations as your spouse, but you should be supporting each other! I have seen this in my relationship with my husband.

My husband and I have very different interests. Our biggest difference that we have is in our taste of music. Music has always been a big part of both of our lives. I come from a very musical family, and my husband has always used music as a stress reliever. My husband likes country, rock, and heavy metal music. I mostly listen to Broadway Musicals, and occasionally pop music. My husband and I both like to listen to music in the car, and it can be difficult for one of us to give up listening to our music. However, we give up our wants to be able to support the wants of the other. Now this may not seem like the biggest hopes for a person. But when you care about music the way my husband and I do; it is actually a big deal to us. It is important to recognize that you won’t always see eye-to-eye in everything, but that you can still support them!

Covenant vs. Contractual Marriage

In my marriage class this week, we were posed the following question. What things particular are you going to implement into your life to ensure that your marriage is a covenant marriage and not a contractual marriage? This helped me to pause and look at my marriage and think about what things we are doing, as well as things we are not doing. This made me want to address two things in my post this week. 1. The importance of having things in place in marriage to make sure that it is a covenant marriage, and not a contractual marriage. 2. What I am actually doing, and what I could change.

1. The importance of having things in place in marriage to make sure that it is a covenant marriage, and not a contractual marriage.

Having certain habits or routines in place with your spouse is essential. Knowing what both of you are expecting out of your marriage is very important and if it is avoided it can lead to a contractual marriage. Knowing your spouse before you are married and setting those expectations can help you start to build a strong marriage. Once you are married it is important to make sure that you are talking together and are continuing the things you said you would establish together. For example; if you said that you would pray together every morning and every night, it is important to talk together regularly to ensure that you are praying together. Communication is key. Building off of these things will help you ensure you have a covenant marriage.

2. What I am actually doing, and what I could change.

My marriage is still quite new. I have only been married for 5 months, needless to say, we are still in the honeymoon phase. However, I was grateful for the time I had to ponder this question, because it helped me realize the good things we are doing. It also helped me to see where we have room for improvement. Currently my husband and I are called as primary teachers, and we do all we can to prepare our lessons, and make sure that we know our kids, and how best to help them. This is one thing that I really appreciated us doing. Another thing is that we make sure that we spend time as the two of us to make sure that we are happy and doing all that we can for each other as a spouse. However, there are many things that we could improve on. One thing for starters is that we are not very good at praying together. My husband and I have different schedules, so it’s hard to find the time to actually be together and remember to pray. Another thing is that we don’t go to the temple very often. These are important things to make sure that your marriage is a covenant marriage and not a contractual marriage. Elder Hafen said “Covenant marriage requires a total leap of faith: they must keep their covenants without knowing what risks that may require of them. They must surrender unconditionally, obeying God and sacrificing for each other. Then they will discover what Alma called “incomprehensible joy.”” When we follow this counsel we can lead healthy happy marriages!

Threats to Marriage

Marriage. The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). There are many people who agree with history, that marriage should be between a man and a woman. However, in this day and age there are also many people who don’t. I am going to put aside that argument and focus on why a traditional marriage is important to those in one.

Marriage can also be defined as a combination or mixture of elements. This definition isn’t speaking directly about how man and woman are bound together but has its applications. President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said that “There is great power in a strong partnership. True partners can achieve more than the sum of each acting alone. With true partners, one plus one is much more than two.” (Disciples of Jesus Christ—Defenders of Marriage). Marriage is not a happy ending, rather a happy beginning. In this life, we can’t be happy all of the time, and there are always going to be trials and tribulations. However, when we run into these instances in marriage we should not just give up, rather we should work together and focus on how we can get through rough times together. When this is done, you will be coming out the other end with a stronger relationship. Not working hard together and working our best to overcome trials, is a serious threat to marriage.

It is not an easy thing to be married, and if anyone has ever told you that it is, they are mistaken. It’s a lot of hard work, and there are many things that you will disagree on. But it is our job to keep our marriages happy, by being the best partner that we can be. President Nelson also said that “Sustainable improvements in any endeavor depend on collaboration and agreement. Great leaders and partners develop the skill of sharing insights and efforts and the pattern of building consensus. Great partners are completely loyal. They suppress personal ego in exchange for being part of creating something larger than themselves.” (Disciples of Jesus Christ—Defenders of Marriage). In marriage it’s more than a “me” and a “you”, you have to consider the “us”. A marriage can only work if both parties involved are focused on making the “us” work. Sometimes that is noticing that “I” was wrong or letting something the other person does that bothers us go, because you know that in the long run it’s not important.

Not only is it important to work together for just your relationship, but so that you can work together as parents. The Family: A Proclamation to the World states “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.” If a couple can’t work together as just a couple, they won’t be able to work together in a family. It is important that we focus on what is important and work together to establish a good family. Parents are supposed to work together to support families. In this day and age, we hear about how one parent needs to be the breadwinner and the other needs to be the full-time parent. I believe that this can be damaging, not only to the parents in parenting, but to the parents in their marriage. Parents need to work together in all aspects and come to a conclusion as to what works best for them to work best together. This is not easy to do, but if we work hard on our relationships, we can provide the best families and the best marriages in our lives.