Real life is not like the movies!

I watch a lot of Hallmark and romantic movies. Very rarely are there any surprises, in fact a good love story starts with falling in love, almost breaking up, but deciding that you can’t live without each other and must be together, the end. Very few movies go beyond the “we must be together”, in fact most movies resolve the conflict and end with the happily ever after in the last five minutes of the movie. Just getting to the alter is not the hard part, staying happily married with someone so completely different from you is the hard part!

I love the following quote “A bride sighed blissfully on her wedding day, ‘Mom, I’m at the end of all my troubles!’ ‘Yes,’ replied her mother, ‘but at which end?’” (Conference report 1996, 34; or Ensign, Nov 1996, 26.) Now there is a wise mother who knows what marriage is all about. There is no such thing as happily ever after.

My husband and I got married six months after we met. Even in that short of time, the road to the alter was rocky. Looking back I felt as this bride felt that we were at the end of our troubles. We were committed to each other and the love that we had for each other would get us through. Now there is some truth to that, you have to love each other, you have to think about the things that made you fall in love and want to share your life with this person, and you have to be committed. You can’t always run from your problems, sometimes you have to grab each other’s hands and run towards them so that you can work them out together. But you also have to pay attention to each other.

I have teenage daughters and I had no idea how much of my time they would demand. My time is a precious commodity around this house. I thought that teenagers would want to spend time with their friends and the last person they would want to do things with is their mom. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They need to connect with me. I don’t know why I had this idea that we grow out of needing attention from those we love. Just like our daughters need time with me, my spouse needs my time and attention too and sometimes my limited time, causes arguments. I can only be stretched so far.

John Gottman explains this need in his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work like this, “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, and a satisfying sex life."

This feeling of wanting attention, affection, humor, or support isn’t just limited to my husbands and kids. I can easily think of times I wanted those things from my husband and either got them or didn’t get them. A lot of times, these “bids” aren’t really difficult things to do, they might be as easy as asking someone how their day went, or putting down a book to look at the fall colors as you are driving down the road.

Just being aware of bids is a huge step towards a happy marriage. Think about those bids the next time your spouse come home in a rotten mood and says something like, “I had the worst day, you have no idea the kind of pressure I’m under.” Instead of responding with something defensive, realize that he may just want your support and want to talk to you about his day.

Why are these bids so important? Gottman says that “the couples who remain married had turned toward their partner’s bids an average of 86 percent of the time in the Love Lab, while those who ended up divorced had averaged only 33 percent.” I hope no one goes into a marriage expecting that you’ll have a good run but in ten or fifteen years they’ll probably end up divorced and move on to the next relationship. Showing your partner that you care about what they care about is pretty important, simply realizing that is the first step towards a happier relationship.

Contempt

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, marriage is hard. There is no such thing as happily ever after. Yes you should marry your best friend, but you have to work on not becoming enemies. 

In my last post, I talked about the four horsemen, one of which was contempt. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what contempt was and if I had been asked a week ago I would have said I didn’t use it. First what is it? According to John Gottman in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, “Contempt is sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye rolling, mockery, and hostile humor.” After reading through this list, I’m embarrassed to admit that I definitely use contempt when I’m in an argument.   I’m fairly certain that I perfected the eye-roll at about the age of three and I am extremely sarcastic. In fact as I’m writing this post I can think of specific times during my last argument that I rolled my eyes and was very sarcastic. Looking at this list, makes me feel a bit like a toddler having a temper tantrum because I didn’t get my way, or felt like my voice wasn't being heard.

I’m fairly certain that I’m not alone in employing these tactics in an argument. So what do we do to fix feeling like this and treating those we love with contempt? Gottman offers this advice, “People who are happily married like each other. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be happily married. Fondness and admiration can be fragile unless you remain aware of how crucial they are to the friendship that is at the core of any good marriage. By simply reminding yourself of your spouse’s positive qualities – even as you grapple with each other’s flaws – you can prevent a happy marriage from deteriorating. If you maintain a sense of respect for your spouse, you are less likely to act disgusted with him or her when you disagree.”

I have this one friend who consistently drives me crazy. I love her, but she is the type of person that posts the sappiest things about her husband on social media. I’m talking about things like how amazing he is and how great their relationship is because he left a heart for her drawn in the peanut butter, with picture attached of said heart. Or she will post pictures of the love notes they leave for each other around the house, or how excited he was when she surprised him at work with four kids in tow to have a picnic. It drove me crazy because I know that isn’t the whole truth. I know that there are times when her husband isn’t “just the most perfect person in the world.” Reading about the antidote for contempt made me feel a bit sheepish. Yes those posts drive me crazy because I want to wallow in the misery that marriage sometimes is together, I want people to be real with me, and I know that a heart in the peanut butter does not a perfect person make. But, that being said, she’s right. She can choose to focus on his bad breath in the morning, or the fact that he woke her up from a deep sleep getting ready for work, or that he can somehow sleep through a screaming baby completely oblivious to the fact that a human he helped create needs something. She doesn’t though. She chooses to focus on the positive things they do for each other. She chooses to build her relationship instead of nitpick and criticize it to literal death. 

I can’t guarantee that I’ll start posting sappy things about my husband on social media; in fact I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t. But I can improve when it comes to what I think about him. I heard a quote from President Uchtdorf a while back and he said “you would never get mad at a toddler for falling when he is learning to walk.” Aren’t we all like that in a way? Marriage is a training ground and it’s something that we are still learning together. We are toddlers and we will mess up. I think sometimes we are so quick to excuse our own faults because we know we are still learning, but maybe we could be a bit quicker to excuse faults in others. Let’s work on looking for the good in each other and work a little harder on not acting like toddlers. I know I can be better!

Marry your best friend

I met my husband online. This wasn’t how I dreamt about meeting the man I was going to marry. Actually I was completely against online dating. I had just gone through a messy divorce and was done with marriage, forever. I had a good friend that was on multiple dating sites, after months of trying she finally convinced me to sign up for a three month trial. I was matched with four people and went on four dates. Three were total flops, we weren’t definitely not right for each other. The fourth though, he was different.

There was one thing this dating site did well – they made you talk to each other first before you could date. They made you talk to each other a lot. This wasn’t a quick hookup site, you had to be committed to really wanting to meet someone to go through all the steps. We started talking through the site and eventually emailing and calling each other in April, our first date wasn’t until June. Because of both of our schedules our second date wasn’t until August. What happened between April and August when we really started dating? We talked a lot! We talked about our families, our respective careers, our hopes, our dreams, and our desires. We talked almost every single night for hours at a time. No subject was off limits and we didn’t judge each other for past decisions or mistakes.

We respected each other, cheered for each other, and became really good friends. That friendship has continued in our marriage, we still support each other and cheer for each other. He is still the person I complain to, the person I want to call with exciting news, and the person I need to talk to at the end of a long day. Marry someone you enjoy spending time with, marry someone you want to talk to, marry someone you trust to tell your deepest, darkest secrets to.

Just starting out as good friends isn't enough.  You have to stay good friends.  How do you do that when you live with an imperfect person?  You will both do things that will frustrate and annoy each other.  You will get into arguments, you will probably fight.  John Gottman talks about four things or horsemen to avoid during these heated discussions so that you can remain friends.  

"The first horseman of the apocalypse is criticism. Criticizing your partner is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint! The latter two are about specific issues, whereas the former is an ad hominem attack: it is an attack on your partner at the core. In effect, you are dismantling his or her whole being when you criticize.

The second horseman is contempt. When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean – treating others with disrespect, mocking them with sarcasm, ridicule, name-calling, mimicking, and/or body language such as eye-rolling. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

The third horseman is defensiveness. We’ve all been defensive. This horseman is nearly omnipresent when relationships are on the rocks. When we feel accused unjustly, we fish for excuses so that our partner will back off. Unfortunately, this strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses just tell our partner that we don’t take them seriously, trying to get them to buy something that they don’t believe, that we are blowing them off.

The fourth horseman is stonewalling. Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction. In other words, stonewalling is when one person shuts down and closes himself/herself off from the other. It is a lack of responsiveness to your partner and the interaction between the two of you.  Rather than confronting the issues (which tend to accumulate!) with our partner, we make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive behaviors. It takes time for the negativity created by the first three horsemen to become overwhelming enough that stonewalling becomes an understandable “out,” but when it does, it frequently becomes a habit."

When you look over these things, you would never treat your coworkers or your boss this way if you were having an argument, at least I wouldn't.  So why do we use these tactics on our spouse?

I have teenage daughters; I tell them all the time, don’t date someone who only wants to date you because of how you look. Date someone who wants to date you for who you are. I think I need to add, date a good friend, because good friends make good husbands and then make sure you keep treating each other like friends!

What does it mean to get married in the temple and why would people do that?

 

Think of the following two scenarios – One you have a traditional wedding, the band plays the wedding march, the groom sees you for the first time and his face lights up with that look of pure adoration, your father walks you down the isle after your adorable flower girls carpet the path with rose petals, and you can invite anyone you want to witness your commitment to each other.   This is what every girl has dreamed of since the age of two, right?

The second scenario – you get married in the temple. You can only invite adults who have already been through the temple and have a current temple recommend, and there are no exceptions to this rule. If your father, mother, brother, sister have not been through the temple or don’t have a recommend they cannot be there to witness your marriage. You can invite about 50 people to the ceremony or sealing, you and your groom walk into the sealing room together, no photographers, no music, no flower petals sprinkling your walk. Why would anyone choose to do this? There is one reason that we choose a temple marriage over a civil one, it comes down to one phrase – “for as long as you both shall live.”

In a civil ceremony you are married until death do you part. There is no marriage after this life, in a temple sealing we believe that your marriage continues into the eternities. You will be married, today, tomorrow and forever. Why is this so important?

When you are married in the temple you are sealed to each other and any children you have become sealed to you as well. If your parents were sealed in the temple you are also sealed to them and to your siblings. We believe that these relationships continue after this life.

I have a good friend who became pregnant unexpectedly with her third child. She had always wanted another baby, but her husband did not. He felt that since their second child had some short-term health issues after he was born that the risk was too great, and that another child could have health issues as well. He didn’t want to put his wife or himself through something like that again. Well the pregnancy progressed and things started to go wrong. It seems her husband was right to worry. The baby wasn’t progressing and wasn’t growing. It was determined that their daughter was not getting any nutrients from her mother and needed to be delivered to have any chance of survival. She only lived a few days. I can’t imagine a pain so great as losing a child.

Some people might think we are crazy to give up a traditional wedding, but we don’t think it’s a sacrifice at all. We want those relationships we have on earth to continue. We believe that not only does my friends little girl live on, but that her parents will be able to raise her, she will grow, she will marry, she will be able to have children. All the things that she wasn’t able to do in this life, she will be able to experience in the next life; nothing will be taken from her. Of course this brings a sense of peace. As much as my family members drive me crazy from time to time or most of the time, I have teenage daughters after all, I love them. I love them with my whole heart and soul. I can’t imagine living in any world without them with me. I can’t imagine a God that would want us to build these relationships, have this love for each other and then take that away. I don’t believe it! 

What I want my children to know about marriage

I first want to state that I grew up in a religious home with two religious parents. The idea that marriage was between a man and a woman was not something I really thought about, that was simply what marriage was. I didn’t have friends with two mothers, or two fathers, most of my friends parents were still married to each other, and the one friend with divorced parents was definitely the odd girl out. I loved her completely, she was in fact my best friend, but I didn’t understand her lifestyle and if I’m being perfectly honest, I felt equally bad for her and jealous.  Jealous because she got to go on all these fun outings with her mom’s boyfriend and also her dad. Sometimes I even got to tag along and was a first hand witness to the time, money, and attention that was lavished on her in those little spurts of time spent together. But also bad for her too, my dad represented safety to me. She didn’t have that person to beat up the bad guys and make the scary monsters go away. I didn’t have that all the time either. My dad traveled a lot for his job and I never felt as safe when he was out of town. I could easily imagine how my friend felt all of the time, never having her dad there.

I led a very sheltered life in most regards. I was never once offered drugs or alcohol in high school, something I can’t even imagine in this day and age. I didn’t know anyone who wanted to change his or her gender or who was gay, again completely unheard of now. My own children are very aware of people with same sex attraction, girls who want to be boys, and boys who identify as girls. When I was younger, these beliefs were not accepted readily and there was fear of letting people know. I’m glad that times have changed in that regard, we should be able to speak our beliefs.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that my sister came out, first to my husband, and then to me that she was in a relationship with another woman. I love my sister dearly and want her to be as happy as she can possibly be. I don’t judge her or try to change her, but I do see that things are harder for her. Marriage isn’t easy in any sense of the word, but as she shared things about her relationship and the struggles she had, I could see that hers was the harder road. I felt at times that if she could, she would change places with me, and that she wanted the relationship I shared with my husband. She told me that she wished she could just find a guy like my husband, but worried that he wouldn’t be interested in her because of her past lifestyle choices. 

I’m grateful that my sister lives in a world where she can express her beliefs without fear for her safety, people may judge her and feel that her beliefs are wrong but times have changed. Unfortunately I feel that times have changed for those of us who feel that marriage is ordained of God and should be between a man and a woman. I’m scared to write this post, I’m scared that people will read it and think I don’t accept people, and that I want to change people.

I love my children and my children can’t do anything to make me not love them. I wouldn’t stop loving any of them if they decided to be in a marriage with someone of their same sex, just as I still love my sister and will defend her to the end. I’ve seen both sides though, I know what strengths my husband brings to our marriage and what strengths I bring. Those strengths are different because our natures are different. He doesn’t let me get walked all over and I help him to see things as not so black and white.   

So this is what I’d want my children to know about marriage. I’ve lived my life with times when my dad wasn’t home due to traveling for work and I lost my mom to cancer at the age of nineteen, no other person that came into our lives could replace those people for me. I needed my dad for all the things that he was and can’t imagine another woman being able to step in his shoes and fill them in the same way. I can’t even get started on all that my mom was and did for me. For me, moms and dads are so different but both so important. I’m glad my children have the influences of a mom and a dad. I truly believe that this is what God intended for His children, to be raised by both a mother and a father.  Children have to have both a mother and a father to even be conceived, that point cannot be argued.

“Our Heavenly Father endowed His sons and daughters with unique traits especially fitted for their individual responsibilities as they fulfill His plan. To follow His plan requires that you do those things He expects of you as a son or daughter, husband or wife. Those roles are different, but entirely compatible. In the Lord’s plan, it takes two—a man and a woman—to form a whole. Indeed, a husband and wife are not two identical halves, but a wondrous, divinely determined combination of complementary capacities and characteristics.

Marriage allows these different characteristics to come together in oneness—in unity—to bless a husband and wife, their children and grandchildren. For the greatest happiness and productivity in life, both husband and wife are needed. Their efforts interlock and are complementary. Each has individual traits that best fit the role the Lord has defined for happiness as a man or woman. When used as the Lord intends, those capacities allow a married couple to think, act, and rejoice as one—to face challenges together and overcome them as one, to grow in love and understanding, and through temple ordinances to be bound together as one whole, eternally. That is the plan.”  Richard G. Scott Eternal Marriage Student Manual, (2003), 63–72 https://www.lds.org/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/differences-inherent-between-men-and-women?lang=eng

I am grateful that our children have both a male and a female influence in their lives.  There are times when they really need their mom and there are times when they really need their dad.  Our marriage blesses not only us, but our children as well.