Marriage mindset

                                                         Marriage Mindset

The reading this week for my class was eye opening and humbling. We read the first 3 Chapters from Dr John Gottman’s called “The 7 principles for making marriage work” we also read the first chapter of “Drawing heaven into your Marriage “by H Wallace Goddard. In Gottman’s book he described the things he observed from watching couples arguing in his “love lab “. Many of the scenes I read about seemed almost ridiculous, I would think " he or she is acting really irrationally and childish, how very immature of them". I then thought back to all the times I have done the same things, I saw myself and my marriage in many of those scenarios. The thing I am most guilty of is assuming many things my husband says is a criticism or an attack. When I am not in heat of the moment I can look back at my responses and see how destructive it is to my marriage. So many things we do can be destructive to our marriages.  Every married person has their flaws, and everyone makes mistakes when it comes to their marriage.  Dr John Gottman never said a happy marriage would never have conflict and he also never said that a happy couple would never deploy what he calls the” Four horseman of the apocalypse” contempt, criticism, defensiveness and flooding, now and then. What really matters is how the couple interacts with each other when they are not fighting, and if the couple has a good friendship with one another. Dr Gottman said many marriage therapies are not successful because they ONLY focus on good fighting and not anything else. Learning how to argue well is good but if a couple does not make a good friend ship their top priority it won't help much.  As Doctor Gottman said " Partners don't have to achieve the perfect relationship to succeed at love. The key is to learn how to better attune to each other and make friendship a top priority". (1)

 Successful repair attempts are important too. I loved a story Dr Gottman told in his book about a couple who was arguing and then all the sudden the wife put her hands on her hips and stuck out her tongue. After reading this I expected Gottman to say that her response was very immature, and this couple was headed toward divorce because the wife could not control her tongue (literally). But he went on to finish the story. The husband burst out laughing and stuck his tongue in return and the tension left. They were able to relax and restart.  A repair attempt can be silly or serious, but it is a way to say, " I stepped out of line, I'm sorry, let’s take a break and start over ". The important thing about repair attempts is they only work when a couple has a good friendship and are attune to each other. 

Marriage is hard. There are so many things we can do that hurt our marriage. Marriage is a good test of our human nature because no one can get on our nerves like our spouse can, no one can hurt us like our spouse can or make us angry like our spouse can. Just last night I was in bed next to my husband while he was drinking. The sound of his swallowing was grating on my nerves and I could even feel my blood pressure rising. It is hard to be kind when we feel irritated. What is the solution?  We are all flawed, we all deal with the tendencies and weaknesses of the natural man. How do we love our spouse with perfect charity when their swallowing irritates us? The answer is we can't do it on our own. We need to let Christ into our lives and our marriage, we need to ask Him to help us have a change of heart. H Wallace Goddard said " At some point we simply throw ourselves on His merits, mercy and grace. At some point we recognize that we may be able to keep ourselves from being the vilest of sinners, but if we are to be perfected we must have his miraculous help.......Many of us sit by the pool of the world’s wisdom hoping to have our marriages healed. But it is Jesus- only Him and His truths -that transform our marriages from crippled relationships to walking, working, dancing partnerships”. (2)
I think we can learn from the advice and wisdom of others and apply their knowledge to our marriages. But to truly change our hearts and make our marriages heavenly we need Christ.

1.      Gottman, John M PhD “The Seven Principles for making marriage work” 2015, New York City

2.      Goddard, Wallace H, PhD “Drawing heaven into your marriage: Eternal doctrines that change relationships”, 2009, Cedar Hills