How Pride harms a marriage
How pride harms a Marriage
Pride
is often manifested in a marriage when one spouse assumes they know the
intentions , feelings and thought processes of their spouse. I am very
guilty of this myself. One spouse will tell their partner exactly why
they did or said what they did, then this will usually be news to their
partner. An example of this is a wife will say to her husband
" You hung up on me because you didn't like what I was saying to you"
Her husband will respond " no I hung up because my boss was coming into the room and I needed to go" .
The wife who is already full of anger and righteous indignation doesn't want to be proven wrong, after all if she is wrong then all the anger she felt toward her husband was unnecessary, and it felt good to play the victim and have a reason to be mad. Also she will look like a fool is she admits she interpreted his action wrong and that would certainly hurt her pride. So she tells her husband
" why are you saying that , I know you hung up because you were angry with me, you always do this. You are such a self righteous arrogant jerk!".
Of course her husband will become defensive and respond by throwing out his own attacks because his pride was also hurt . This is a recipe for disaster which will only end when one or both partners humble themselves enough to listen to the other with an open heart. This is one very simplistic example of how this kind of pride hurts a marriage. Whenever we assume that the intentions of our spouse are negative , then begin to hold onto those assumptions so we can indulge in self pity and our " victim hood we are hurting our marriage. Even if our partner did set out to hurt us on purpose, we must humble ourselves enough to forgive, and maybe even ask ourselves why they felt the need to hurt us , are we hurting them with our words and actions ?
In H. Wallace Goddards Book " Drawing Heaven into our marriage " he writes
"We tell the story to ourselves in a way that suggest we were earnestly and innocently going about life when our partners hurt us. We are innocent. They are guilty . Our narrow focus keeps us from noticing our own gaps in knowledge and , our personal failings as well as the good qualities and good intentions of our partner .
So we enter battle prepared to whack off the offending behaviors and traits in our partners. But our partners respond to the attacks with counter-offensives. The story our partner tell is very different from ours-filled with their own innocence and our errors. We respond with indignation and fury. The battle is on"
We also need to remember that our spouse has their own perception of an event or conversation. Could we humble ourselves enough to ask our spouse what their perception is. Our marriage could be strengthened if we took time to understand why our spouse perceives events the way they do, this requires spending time with our spouses in causal moments sharing our experiences with each other. This also requires having an open mind and heart toward our spouse , we must get rid of bias and pre- conceived notions Most importantly we can pray to have an increased love for our spouse.
Goddard Wallace H(2009) " Drawing Heaven into our marriage" , Cedar Hills , Utah , USA
" You hung up on me because you didn't like what I was saying to you"
Her husband will respond " no I hung up because my boss was coming into the room and I needed to go" .
The wife who is already full of anger and righteous indignation doesn't want to be proven wrong, after all if she is wrong then all the anger she felt toward her husband was unnecessary, and it felt good to play the victim and have a reason to be mad. Also she will look like a fool is she admits she interpreted his action wrong and that would certainly hurt her pride. So she tells her husband
" why are you saying that , I know you hung up because you were angry with me, you always do this. You are such a self righteous arrogant jerk!".
Of course her husband will become defensive and respond by throwing out his own attacks because his pride was also hurt . This is a recipe for disaster which will only end when one or both partners humble themselves enough to listen to the other with an open heart. This is one very simplistic example of how this kind of pride hurts a marriage. Whenever we assume that the intentions of our spouse are negative , then begin to hold onto those assumptions so we can indulge in self pity and our " victim hood we are hurting our marriage. Even if our partner did set out to hurt us on purpose, we must humble ourselves enough to forgive, and maybe even ask ourselves why they felt the need to hurt us , are we hurting them with our words and actions ?
In H. Wallace Goddards Book " Drawing Heaven into our marriage " he writes
"We tell the story to ourselves in a way that suggest we were earnestly and innocently going about life when our partners hurt us. We are innocent. They are guilty . Our narrow focus keeps us from noticing our own gaps in knowledge and , our personal failings as well as the good qualities and good intentions of our partner .
So we enter battle prepared to whack off the offending behaviors and traits in our partners. But our partners respond to the attacks with counter-offensives. The story our partner tell is very different from ours-filled with their own innocence and our errors. We respond with indignation and fury. The battle is on"
We also need to remember that our spouse has their own perception of an event or conversation. Could we humble ourselves enough to ask our spouse what their perception is. Our marriage could be strengthened if we took time to understand why our spouse perceives events the way they do, this requires spending time with our spouses in causal moments sharing our experiences with each other. This also requires having an open mind and heart toward our spouse , we must get rid of bias and pre- conceived notions Most importantly we can pray to have an increased love for our spouse.
Goddard Wallace H(2009) " Drawing Heaven into our marriage" , Cedar Hills , Utah , USA
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