Week 5

Marriage is full of unexpected adventures. So many challenges of life are thrown at married couples. These challenges can be the hustle and bustle of life with kids, work, school, family time, church, and many other things. We can let these push their way into our marriages and ultimately drag us apart. We can eventually lose that spark that young kindled love can have. Gottman has provided ways to overcome the loss or dimming of the flame. He offers remedies of reliving through notes, letters, and talking to name a few, about the good times that were shared, why we fell in love. He also wants us to be able to point out what we love about each other. I noticed a theme in what he wanted us to do in his activities. It’s all positive!! He had no negative thoughts. I think has a husband and wife relationship we all go through problems, it’s how we face these problems that shape the happiness of our marriage. If we continually are looking for the negative and pointing out flaws then we won’t be happy. It’s when we fill our marriages with positive comments, gestures, and family time. Spending that quality time with a spouse enjoying the things that helped you to fall in love is a huge thing it keeps relationships strong. One thing that I have been learning from being married is it’s the little things that make my wife happy. Although I still am working on a lot of those small things, I am not a pro by any means. It’s that small effort that it takes from both in a relationship to make it work.

A list of ideas to help us all be positive. 

Always look for the good.

When we see something good recognize it and compliment it.

Have a how can I help attitude.

See the things that made you fall in love.

Avoid negative comments

These are just a few suggestions

Some things that we do to keep the fire going

Visit where we first hung out.

Go on drives like when we were dating

Do the things that made us fall in love!

Week 4

This week is going to be an interesting one. This will be the first week that I have really spent a lot of time away from my wife since we have been married. I will be traveling back and forth from Idaho to Wyoming. I will leave early and get home late then spend 3-4 days away. As I read Gottmans’ book and thought about how much I'm going to be gone this week. I couldn't help but think this will be perfect to see how we handle stress of an extremely busy schedule and lack of time to help one another out. I think it will be a good chance to see how we react to one another and see which of the 4 headed horsemen are being used.

         At first when I saw the assignment to monitor ourselves for 5 days I thought well great I won’t even be around to do so. However for the first 4 days I will be traveling back and forth. This will give me an opportunity to see if I use anything. I also thought about what Gottman would predict if my wife and I sat in the little Love booth. As he talked about some of the attributes that he saw in relationships I couldn't help but notice some of the same in my own. A lot of good characteristics were similar to what my relationship is and also some that I need to improve on. I liked reading about these things and seeing where we do well, and areas to improve. I look forward to the improving of them and making my marriage stronger and happier.

Week Three

       This week for me I have spent a lot of time thinking about covenant marriage. I have thought about what that means to me, as well as what I can do to be a better husband and honor a covenant marriage. I will share a few of my thoughts.

       First off, covenant marriage to me is definitely a 3 way promise between myself, my wife, and our heavenly father. We each make our own promises to each other and strive to fulfill them. When we fulfill each of the promises that we make we become closer to one another and happier. It only works if we all three give 100% and we all know that our father in heaven is always doing his part so it comes on the husband and wife to both give 100%. As I have pondered this I have thought to myself well how do we know when each other are giving 100%? For some 100% means more and for others 100% may not be what others expect, but it’s what they can do.

      When I read the talk about covenant marriage and he talked about the 3 wolves. I thought I wonder if i fall into any of those at times. Sure enough at some points I have. These 3 wolves are.

1. Natural Adversity, this is stuff that we cannot avoid, it is how we deal with it that makes it important. If we handle it well then all goes well if we try and fight it then it can destroy us.

2. Our own imperfections this one is difficult because no one is perfect. We must constantly try and lift one another to make each others imperfections feel like they are not something to worry about.

3. Excessive Individualism. This is the one that I have had a harder time with being married. I have always been fairly independent. I did what I wanted when I wanted, I bought what I wanted, I worked to get what I needed, everything revolved around what I needed. I was not used to being asked to do this or do that especially after I got home from work. If something needed to get done before I would just do it myself. Since being married I have learned that when I get home there are Honey dos. Sometimes I think why can’t you do it yourself I have worked, classes, homework, and being newlyweds. When I get home I just want to get my stuff done and go to bed. Well I have a problem! I need to do things with a smile and realize how much happier things are when I do things to help support my wife. She supports me in my crazy schedule, I need to happily do honey dos and not think that one person should do it. It is a team effort just like in the marriage covenant it’s a team effort to gain the highest degree.

 

Week Two

As I did the readings this week I was filled with a lot of strong emotions. Some of the emotions I had included anger, annoyance, and even some sadness. When I was reading the article that discussed how same sex marriage activists were promoting their way of life in America I became very frustrated and almost angry. I could not believe the extents the activists were taking to convince others to believe in their way of life.  It almost seemed like the activist were trying to make others feel guilty because their beliefs did not coincide with their own. What made it worse is that their entire objective was to guilt trip people into standing up for gay rights. I believe that this was hypocritical. If couples who practice traditional marriage up roared that their beliefs were being attacked, others would see this as impractical or even as a joke.

That was a little bit of my rant, but it is difficult to have sympathy for people who are trying to destroy the family unit. I was also saddened by the statistics that were shared about the views of students at colleges. Views have been changed over the years about legalizing gay marriage. When almost 90% of students are leaning towards the possibility of same sex marriage it makes me sad to think where the world is heading. It makes me scared for my future children and the trials they will have to face.  I am so grateful for the Proclamation to The Family because it outlines exactly what a family should consist of in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. I understand that people have a right to be happy. If others choose to live an alternate lifestyle that is fine with me, however, do not try and push your believes on others. When others beliefs are forced upon people problems tend to become more serious.

I am grateful for the blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in my life and the emphasis of the family organization. The church does so much to maintain a strong family bond. I am thankful to have the gospel in my life and know that it makes a big difference in my family’s life. I just hope the rest of the world can somehow become aware of how important the family unit is and turn away from the current path that the world is heading in now.

Week One

As I was going through the reading I couldn't help but think of my brother when he went through a divorce about 2 years ago. I thought about it a lot especially when it discussed the effects that it had on children. I think that this topic affected me the most this week because of my niece and nephew that were affected by the tragic divorce. It was extremely hard on them emotionally which brought emotional pain throughout the whole family. An example that really hit home to me, that the kids were being strongly affected, was when I took my nephew to Wal-Mart. While we were in the checkout aisle he saw a magazine that had some celebrities getting divorced. I watched him as he read it and he turned away shaking his head and started crying.  It was a terrible thing to see and to see how much he had really been affected by it.  It helped me to realize that he would be affected his whole life.

This event happened awhile before I got married, since I have only been married two weeks at this point. Just seeing the pain that my brother’s family had gone through made me very hesitant to get married. I didn’t want anything like that to happen in my own family, not out of selfishness for myself but for my future family. I never want them to go through something like that. This being the case I was extremely cautious for a while. It was something that my wife and I talked about before we really even discussed getting married.

Divorce is such a tragic thing that affects people so much. Children especially are affected by this. While being perfectly happy all the time in a marriage is almost impossible everyone goes through trials once they are married. I haven't been married very long and haven't had to experience some of those trials. I know that as we focus upon the teachings of Christ and that if a couple works together and has an end goal it can be accomplished.

I look forward to many years of happiness to come, as well as trials that will not only test our love, but help us draw closer to one another.

“Choose your love. Love your choice.”
― Thomas S. Monson