In-law Relations

I was very blessed in the department of in laws, especially mother in laws. Part of this I think has to do with the fact that sense my mother passed away a few years before I got married there was no real tug of war going on. I was looking for family traditions and connectedness and my in laws welcomed me with open arms into their family. My husband is the second oldest of 8 and I am the youngest of 8, so I was able to truly be part of a family that was growing. My mother in law always made it a point not to pry into my husband and my own 'business' because she had such a rocky relationship with her mother in law, whom she felt like she could never please, nor be "enough" for. This allowed me to approach my mother in law when I needed help without her overstepping any bounds. 

I feel sorry for my mother in laws relationship with her in laws and wish that maybe she could have had some of this advice for her and her husband to work through it. James M. Harper and Susanne Frost Olson wrote in Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended Families; "If a married couple finds a parent or other extended family member to be disruptive or harmful to their marriage, they can approach the problem together. They will need to decide what limits to place on the type of contact and time they spend with that family member. If they decide they want to improve the relationship, they will need to decide together how to approach the other family member and what types of change they want to request. Then they should act together, with both married partners realizing their primary obligation is to be supportive of each other, regardless of how the extended family member responds." I think that if my in-laws had come together on a united front that would have helped her in laws realize that it wasn't just her with the issues that their son was concerned too and maybe they could have resolved their issues.

Power Relationships and Children

I really enjoyed the document by Richard Miller "Who is the Boss?" as a mother, and yes, sometimes a pushover I probably let my kids get away with a bit. Not anything harming or dangerous, but when they whine enough about doing the dishes or doing something simple I ask, I sometimes find it easier just to give in and do the task myself than put up the good fight. However Richard Miller reminds us that telling our kids no, and teaching them is our duty. In his article he says "In healthy, well-functioning families, there is a clear hierarchy between parents and children.
Parents are the “executive committee” and the “board of directors” of a family. As with any other
leadership position, parents should not be harsh, domineering, or dictatorial, but they are the leaders of
the family, and the children need to follow that leadership.
Discipline is probably one of the most important elements in which a mother and father
can lead and guide and direct their children…. Setting limits to what a child can do means to
that child that you love him and respect him. If you permit the child to do all the things he
would like to do without any limits, that means to him that you do not care much about him
(Spencer W. Kimball, TSWK pp. 340, 341)."

I need to remember that I am showing them love and respect and limits are a good way to do that, also that its worth the struggle to get them to do their end of the bargain and in the end they will be grateful for that.

Physical Intimacy

I grew up in a strict household, I mean a household where there was plenty of love and support by my parents really tried to shield us from anything going on in the world. Meaning, no television, and a lot of other censoring taking place in the home. I know my parents were trying to protect us from the filth that can be projected in the media, the promiscuity that is abundant in our world and try to guide us to safety. However, in a way this seemed to backfire. In our home words such as sex, butt, and even fart were akin to swear words, which honestly as a mother to a 10 year old boy I understand that potty humor can get a little old. However feeling like words those words off limits also made those things off limits for conversation. My parents chose to not allow me to attend the sex-ed class in 7th grade and I really just felt the whole subject was taboo and evil.

Reading Sean E. Brothersons “Fullfilling the Sexual Stewardship in Marriage” struck so many chords with me because I could definitely relate to the dialogue that Latter-day Saints hear:

“(1) The incessant chatter and noise of the world, Satan, and related sources that constantly hype and sensationalize sexual intimacy with distorted images of sensuality and misplaced or twisted values and expressions of sexuality.

(2) The powerful and compelling warnings of prophetic leaders and caring Church members who seek to steer us away from pornography, sexual exploitation, and immorality in sexual matters.

Too often we listen only to the first two strands of the dialogue, and if we listen long enough, we may come to believe that the only kind of discussion about sexuality that is warranted is the dialogue about what Satan tempts us to do and what the Church teaches us not to do.”

After getting married I found myself struggling with those negative feelings that are written about in Brotherson’s article. It was enlightening to me to read an in depth document about how this type of stereo-type needs to be remedied to combat “Problems in this area of a marriage relationship can severely impact couple communication and caring, and leads often to insecurity, anxiety, frustration, anger, emotional alienation, and even divorce.” While I didn’t have the benefit of this document to help me overcome these issues I did have a knowledge that sex was an important part of marriage, I also had a close relationships with my sisters that I could talk to (my mother had passed away by the time I had married) and a patient husband who wanted us to both feel comfortable and fulfilled.

I do feel like the church is trying to educate and prepare it’s members not only in the subject of sexual intimacy but in many other areas of topics and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for a church that knows the importance of knowledge, values education and wants to empower its members to live their best life

Seeking to Understand

In Goddard’s book he quotes President Ezra Taft Benson: “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life. (Goddard, pg.144)

Marriage is hard its not supposed to be easy. Marriage helps us strengthen our weaknesses and use our strengths to help other. Marriage allows us to learn to be patient and compassionate, to work with one another and to develop a relationship that will surpass any relationship we have had in this life.

Gottman teaches us that having high expectations and standards for our marriage will enable us to have high quality marriages. This is because people with higher expectations, expect not to have a lot of negativity in their relationship and therefore are willing to confront negativity gently using a marriage warning system which Gottman entitles the “Marital Poop Detector”. This allows couples to notice warning signs and lets them figure out what’s going on in their marriage before the small, solvable problems end up becoming much bigger problems. Gottman suggests that on a weekly you ask yourself a list of questions to see where your relationship stands. Here is the list:

1. I have been acting irritable
2. I have been feeling emotionally distant
3. There has been a lot of tensions between us
4. I find myself wanting to be somewhere else
5. I have been feeling lonely
6. My partner has seemed emotionally unavailable
7. I have been angry
8. We have been out of touch with each other
9. My partner has little idea of what I am thinking

• We have been under a great deal of stress and it has taken its toll on us
• I wish we were closer right now
• I have wanted to be alone a lot
• My partner has been acting irritable
• My partner has been acting emotionally distant
• My partner’s attention seems to be somewhere else
• I have been emotionally unavailable to my partner
• My partner has been angry
• I have little idea of what my partner is thinking
• My partner has wanted to be alone a lot
• We really need to talk
• We haven’t communicated very well
• We have been fighting more than usual
• Lately, small issues escalate
• We have been hurting each other’s feelings
• There hasn’t been much fun or joy in our lives.

Gottman suggests that if you check more than four things on this list you should talk, calmly and gently with your spouse in the next three days. If you take the time to do a weekly checklist you will always be aware of where your relationship and allow you the time to reverse negative issues in your marriage.

I was grateful for the guidance that these two books gave to effectively and fairly easily improve my marriage and also to recognize what a strong, happy foundation I am fortunate to have already. Is our marriage perfect? Absolutely not but I can see the good things as well as the things that we can rectify. I hope that I will be able to keep these lessons with me and continue to better my relationship with my husband.

Managing Conflict

I would agree with Gottman, that 69% of the problems in a marriage are perpetual. This is something I really wish my husband and I knew early on in our marriage. We are so different in our personalities, abilities and demeanor's that even though we loved each other dearly, those first few years were a little rough. My husband likes things a certain way, and while I do too, I'm way more easy going about things and don't get upset about things too often, especially things that I thought were inconsequential, what I would get upset about was that my husband would be upset about these inconsequential issues. For instance my husband would be so bugged that I would squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube because he liked it to be squeezed from the bottom up. While I would try and remember to squeeze it from the bottom habits are hard to break, and occasionally I would forget of course. When I did he thought I did it on purpose to make him mad....ughhh the pointless arguments we had about toothpaste tubes! How did we solve it? We each have our own tubes of toothpaste now and no more arguments.

The ideal that we will get married and instantly shed any habits that may annoy our spouses in ludicrous. That sad thing is that so many couples get  caught up on these annoyances and the arguments that go along with them that they eventually deem their marriage doomed because they feel like they're constantly unhappy. However if they can learn about these perpetual problems and find relatively easy solutions or at least acceptance and understanding and move on to enjoy their marriage and maybe even their spouses idiosyncrasies.

Pride

In the book  Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage by H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, "Love is not a happy accident; it's a choice." (pg 83)

When we first fall in love the feelings are quite intense, it seems that being away from the one you love is even painful, as we grow and time passes these feelings of intensity fade, not necessary the intensity of the love but the feelings that you can't spend a second away from the one you love. However, life moves on and feelings can fluctuate.

Elder Lynn G. Robbins said "Too many believe that love is a condition, a feeling that involves 100 percent of the heart, something that happens to you. They disassociate love from the mind and, therefore, from agency. In commanding us to love, the Lord refers to something much deeper than romance—a love that is the most profound form of loyalty. He is teaching us that love is something more than feelings of the heart; it is also a covenant we keep with soul and mind."

This covenant we keep is a promise that we will strive to continue to love our partners, it should unbreakable and continually built upon to make it stronger.

Stephen R. Covey has said that "Love is a verb, it is an action... All our relationships follow the contours of life; they have ups and downs. This is why our families provide a critical measure of our character—and the opportunity, again and again to nurture it.”6 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site." We must choose to love and keep loving. In these choices we must choose to sacrifice, compromise, uplift, support, repent, forgive, and continually strive to come together

Staying Emotionally Connected

My husband and I communicate very differently, its always been a bit of a struggle for us. I tend to be easy going and she the glass as half full and my husband is, well, the opposite. I had always justified my frustration or even my "reprimanding" his behavior because I was the "calm" one. However after reading various parts of Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work, by Dr. John Gottman, I have found how wrong I have been and I have learned some very useful tactics in supporting my husband and also my daughter who tends to communicate the same way he does. In Dr. Gottman's book his third principle "Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away" teaches us to build emotional bank accounts, have stress-reducing talks every day, and talking it out when you two aren't on the same page.

What I benefited most from was the section on stress reducing talks, primarily these main points:

1. Take turns to complain.
2.  Show genuine interest.
3. Don't give unsolicited advice.
4. Communicate your understanding.
5. Take your partners side.
6. Express a "we against others" attitude.
7. Show affection
8. Validate emotions.

I found that the section on not giving unsolicited advice "When someone you love expresses pain, it's natural to want to fix the problem or make the person feel better. But often times your spouse isn't asking you to come up with a solution at all-just to be a good listener or offer a ready shoulder to cry on." as well as the section on taking your partners side and a "we attitude" to be extremely useful. After reading these sections I found that I was definitely lacking in these areas and able to see how I can be a better listener and supporter of my husband in the future.