Is communication actually the key?

When people are asked the question, "What is the key to a successful marriage?" I think nine times out of ten the answer that people give is: communication. A couple needs to exercise good communication in a marriage in order for it to succeed.
In previous blog posts I have mentioned Gottman and his book, the seven principles to a successful marriage.
He has done many close studies on marriage and why they succeed or fail. And he has a different answer to the question "What is the key to a successful marriage?"
In his book he talks about two types of problems in a marriage: solvable and perpetual. Every marriage has both kinds of problems. And he suggests one thing for a married couple to do when they reach a problem (be it solvable or perpetual). Go ahead and take a guess at what it is- I'll give you a hint, it's not effective communication. It's not even creating a shared meaning together. And it is not avoiding flooding during the conversation about the problem. Gottman says that when a problem arises, a couple needs to feel understood and accepted of their personality and perspective.
When we find ourselves in a conflict in our marriage, we often have a different perspective on something. And how it turns into a problem is when we don't take time to accept or understand our partners' perspective.
This is simply mutual respect. When there is respect in a marriage, when we respect our partner as an individual who is entitled to perspectives and opinions, then we will do so much better at resolving conflict in marriage.

Family Council

Every family is different. My husband comes from a family with a single mother and four brothers. I come from a family with both parents still happily married and three brothers and two sisters. We both grew up differently. We had different family rules, traditions, and expectations. And now we have made a promise to each other to share a life together, to be completely faithful to each other, and raise a family together. Coming from two different family backgrounds, how do we try to have the successful family we both want?
I think many couples face this same question either before having children, or in the early stages of parenthood. Well, I am glad to say that there is one answer for every family: the family council. Holding a family council will help any family in becoming successful.
The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints holds similar councils. And they have a few suggestions that families can adopt into their own family councils.

• Set a regular time and place to hold family council
• Have an agenda with items and concerns that will be discussed during the council
• No final decision is made until it is agreed upon (I personally think this one only applies to the parents)
• Opening the council with a prayer- if your family is religious
• Providing a snack or refreshment will always be enjoyed :)  

These are a few great suggestions to incorporate into family councils to help them become successful.

Beware of Pride

In my FAML 300 class this is a list that we were given of ways we can be prideful in our marriages. Take a look through them, as some of them may surprise you.

•    Ignore spouse, or give spouse the "cold shoulder” •    Impatient with impatience •    Caught up in who’s right and who’s wrong •    Blaming, defensiveness •    Attack, counterattack •    Scorekeeping, with intentions of noting who is winning or losing •    Refusal to apologize first •    Holding the other hostage by refusing to forgive •    Proving superiority by bringing up spouse’s faults •    Holding grudges •    The “silent treatment”

•    Sharing spouse’s weaknesses with others •    Intentionally trying to create jealousies in spouse •    Get others to create an alliance with you against your spouse •    Putting words in spouse’s mouth to manipulate •    Displaying an attitude of entitlement in the marriage •    Stubbornness or unwillingness to change •    Selfishness, thinking only of your needs •    Unwillingness to learn from spouse •    Fault finding •    Withholding love and affection

In my marriage the little pride games that are played between my husband and I include the silent treatment, defensiveness, and score keeping. For playing these games, we pay the price of a little damage to our relationship, hurt feelings, and often times miscommunication.

 Some little things that I can do to increase humility and work to overcome pride in my marriage include, not giving the silent treatment. I think that is the one I am most guilty of giving my husband. I think that I am doing us good by waiting to calm down and collect my thoughts but it is better for me to express my feelings and emotions so we can work through whatever issue we have. I can also stop keeping score for the both of us because that will help me forget things that upset me and stop holding grudges.

Family Rituals

In previous blog posts I have referenced John M. Gottman's book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. His seventh principle is to Create Shared Meaning. One thing he suggests doing to help create shared meaning in our marriages is to establish rituals, not only between husband and wife, but also as a family. He provides an exercise to complete to help come up with some rituals:

1. How do we or should we eat together at dinner? What is the meaning of dinnertime? What was dinnertime like in each of our families growing up?
2. How should we part at the beginning of each day? What was this like in our families growing up? How should our reunions be?
3. How should bedtime be? What was is like in our families growing up? How do we want this time to be?
4. What is the meaning of weekends? What were they like in our families growing up? What should they be like now?
5. What are our rituals about vacations? What were they like in our families growing up? What should they mean now?
6. Pick a meaningful holiday. What is the true meaning of this holiday to us? How should it be celebrated this year? How was is celebrated in each of our families growing up?
7. How do we each get refreshed and renewed? What is the meaning of these rituals?
8. What rituals do we have when someone is sick? What was this like in our families growing up? How should it be in our family?

Gottman suggests that, "creating informal rituals when you can connect emotionally is critical in a marriage." Considering his background and expertise on marriage relationships, I think I will follow his advice and create some rituals with Jake and my family.

A few rituals that we already have include eating dinner together, praying together as a family and then as a couple at night, attending church together, and planning trips to visit family throughout the year. To improve or add onto these rituals I think we will now also try to eat breakfast together, praying in the morning together, preparing for church together, and planning mini family vacations.

I think one thing that is most important about this concept is that we create rituals between husband and wife, as well as an entire family. This will create a stronger relationship between spouses and create a stronger-knit family.

“We cannot have our eyes on our partner and ourselves at the same time.”

“If all mankind would live in strict obedience to the gospel, and in that love which is begotten by the Spirit of the Lord, all marriages would be eternal; divorce would be unknown. Divorce is not part of the gospel plan and has been introduced because of the hardness of heart and unbelief of the people…There never could be a divorce in the Church if the husband and wife were keeping the commandments of God.” –President Joseph Fielding Smith

You do not have to be of the LDS church for this quote to mean something to you. I’ll even venture to say that no matter what your religion or faith is, this quote can apply to your marriage. President Joseph Fielding Smith was one of the prophets of the LDS church when he was alive; He was God’s prophet and mouthpiece. In an earlier blog post I mentioned that marriage is of God, it is not something that man created. That being said, this quote speaks nothing but truth. It is powerful yet simple. We are told that if we simply keep the commandments and love our spouse then our marriage will last not only in this life but throughout the eternities. That is possibly the most beautiful thing that I have heard. There is nothing more that I want than for Jake and I to be husband and wife forever.

While not everyone is religious, everyone can still strive for one of the two prerequisites for an eternal marriage- love. In his book Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, H. Wallace Goddard says, “We cannot have our eyes on our partner and ourselves at the same time.” This is one simple statement to remember when we are trying to better love our spouse. We cannot be constantly thinking about ourselves and expect to gain a greater love for our spouse. If we want our marriage to last then we need to forget about ourselves and think about how we can better serve and nurture our spouse.

Preventing the Unimaginable

The last thing a couple thinks about on their wedding day is divorce. Or rather, the last thing I thought about on the day that I got married was the fact that there was a chance that my husband and I could be one of the unlucky couples that ends up separating. On the happiest day of my life, why would I let something so devastating enter my mind?

While my husband and I were engaged I told him that divorce was not an option for us. Whatever problems we might face, whatever challenges may come our way, we will always find a way to work it out. My husband, coming from a family with divorced parents, completely agreed with me.

I do not doubt that there have been married couples who have agreed on the same thing, but unfortunately end up getting a divorce in the end. I don’t think that this agreement between my husband and I makes us “immune” to divorce. And that is the reason for this blog post.

In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John M. Gottman, Ph.D., claims to be able to predict if a married couple will end up in a divorce with very high accuracy. He has come up with signs between a conversing couple to decipher their chance of divorcing. One of these signs he calls The Four Horsemen, they are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. These are each actions that are done by either or both partners in a marriage, during a discussion. Gottman says that when couples have more than one of these during a conversation, then there is a high possibility for them to get a divorce.

First, criticism. He says that “there’s a world of difference between a complaint and a criticism.” (p.27). When we have a complaint, it is suggesting only to an action done. When we have a criticism, we are actually degrading our spouse’s character. Belittling our spouse leaves damaging effects that I believe are nearly impossible to erase.

Second, contempt. Gottman lists several things that are types of contempt: sarcasm, hostile humor, mockery, eye-rolling, etc. When I think of these things I think of a bratty teenager having a conversation with their parent. The last thing I want to act like while conversing with my husband is a snotty teenager.

Third, defensiveness. When one spouse is getting criticized by the other, they may become defensive during the argument. However, research shows that this rarely gets an apology from the criticizing spouse because it is a form of blaming your spouse.

Fourth, stonewalling. What may seem more common among men is when a wife is “going at” her husband, yelling and whatnot, the husband just tones her out and basically like a stone wall.

I think Gottman has definitely got something going here. I think he really knows what he is talking about when it comes to marriage and divorce. I know that I am going to make a conscious effort to keep the four horsemen out of the discussions I have with my husband, in hopes of preventing the thing that I did not think about on the day I got married.

Putting Thoughts Into Words

This weeks' readings went very in depth into the topic of traditional marriage verses untraditional marriage. Before reading the articles, I had the opinion that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and it is the only correct way to marry. However, I did not even know where or how to begin my "argument" towards traditional marriage. I think I did not know how to form a solid argument from my opinion because marriage between a man and a woman is just something I know to be right; it is something that I grew up believing in true. I just thought that that was the way it was.  I guess I would venture to say that I was naive about where society was headed with nontraditional marriage tolerance. I also did not have any clear knowledge about the damaging affects that same sex marriage would have on society.

After reading the article by Wardle I now have a clear understanding that legalizing marriage between any two adults, regardless of gender, will seriously hurt and hinder the rising generation of children. I always new, from the Proclamation to the World, that children have a divine right to be born into a family where there are both a mother and a father who have made marital commitments to each other. But it was not until now that I realize what children will be missing out on, who are not able to enjoy the blessing of a mother and a father. Children who are denied this blessing will not be able to learn attributes, qualities, or individual roles that a mother has or a father has.

After reading Anderson's article, I now feel like some of those students who responded back to him by thanking him for helping them construct a clear argument being pro traditional marriage. I know  that marriage between man and a woman does not expand the meaning of marriage, but redefines it; and we do not have the right or power to do that because marriage is of God, not of man.