Strengthening Marriage, Part 5

 Here is the last class on Strengthening Marriage. This was a good class and I'm glad we took it. The takeaway message for me was that a happy marriage is worth the effort but it does require effort.

If you missed the previous posts, here are the links:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

Here is what we learned in the last class:

One thing Jeff said a few times during the course is that marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. Most marriages have periods of disillusionment and endurance is key because it is cyclical. He told us that he used to hate running because he thought you had to run very fast all the time so he quickly wore out. But then he started running with a friend who was pretty heavy and couldn't run fast so they ran slowly, at an aerobic pace, and that was much more enjoyable. The goal is to find the right pace and to keep going.

First he did some review:

We did this three-minute attunement exercise where we each took a turn complaining about something (not our spouse) and then practicing the empathetic responses. I enjoyed that exercise.

The idea is that we all need to be heard and feel recognized and most especially by our spouse.

Dr. Gottmann's experience is that one of our main jobs as a spouse is to stop and listen to our spouse when they are unhappy and help them feel heard.

We reviewed whoosh:

The night's topic was to develop meaning in the challenges of marriage and family life:

Jeff suggested doing the following exercise of making a list of all the things you don't like about your spouse as well as a list of all the things you do like. Most people will find that there are enough things on the positive side to more than overcome the things on the negative side. In fact, there will probably be at least 80% positive to 20% negative. But too often, we focus on the negative and our spouse's weaknesses instead of their strengths.

We have to practice patience.

He said that one positive about both he and Tammy losing their first spouses is that they have a much longer perspective--life is so precious and sometimes short. So they don't sweat the small stuff. He suggested this idea that you give your spouse ten (smaller) faults--the things that really bug you--but nothing too big.  For example, he tends to chew with his mouth open part of the time. He has trouble breathing through his nose when he eats so he has to open his mouth. It's something he has tried to change but now he just recognizes it as a fault he has. Another fault might be your spouse constantly being late, chronically tardy. You can also think of these faults as being unsolvable problems. Of course, something much bigger like abuse or not being trustworthy are going to be things you don't accept but small faults need to be overlooked.

He next introduced the idea of having a crucible perspective. Sometimes in life we have to experience great pain but the payoff is worth it. For example, having a baby can be a very painful experience but you have a baby at the end of that--the woman's pain has meaning and it's all worthwhile. At some point in marriage, you will experience hard times but if you give it meaning, it will help your marriage be stronger.

The point is not just change but change for the better.

He showed us this picture of the old Smith Family Living Center building on campus which was torn down in 3 days (this is where Scott and I went to our singles ward together back in 1988). The building had a bad smell that they could never track down and it was an old building that needed to be rebuilt. They decided to build a new one but the old one had to be torn down to make space.

The new building, the Joseph F. Smith Building, took 2 years to build and is really beautiful:

Marriages and families will go through hard times. He explained that a crucible is a container that holds iron ore and then is put under great pressure to turn the ore into steel. This is how marriage and life can be. We find meaning through the challenges.

The key is our attitude and approach. Don't ask, Why Me? Ask, What now?

I can certainly vouch for this idea, that adversity in our lives can really help us become better people.

He asked our class how they had found meaning through their difficult challenges. Here are some of the answers he got:

Then Jeff shared with us his own biggest adversity:

He told us a very personal story about what happened to him after his first wife died. He really struggled when she died and couldn't understand why this happened. He just couldn't move past it. But about 6 months after she died, he had a dream which he believes was a vision or message from God. It was in the early hours of the morning. He dreamed he was on top of a mountain with his first wife. He was so happy being with her and everything was wonderful. Then he took a step backward and started falling off the mountain. He kept falling and falling until he reached the bottom of the mountain. He wanted so badly to get back to her but he couldn't get back on the mountain. He couldn't even take the first step. Finally he turned around and he saw this beautiful valley with a trail winding through it. He finally understood that his life needed to take a new path and he needed to go through that valley instead of trying to get back on the mountain. That dream was a turning point for him.

He got remarried a short time later:

It was challenging to get through the early years of blending their families but they did it.

Next, Tammy talked to us about forgiving your spouse. She is a marriage and family therapist and she works a lot with couples who need to forgive each other and overcome some pretty serious problems in the relationship. If I was having marital troubles, I would get on her waiting list because I think she would be really good.

First, we talked about this sculpture which is in Las Vegas and is apparently quite large. This a sculpture of two adults who are in a defensive posture, turned away from each other, but their inner children are trying to connect. It suggests we have to become like children to forgive each other.

Forgiveness and how to forgive is something I have struggled to understand for a lot of years, so I appreciated this definition of forgiveness. She said frequently couples don't know how to forgive.

She emphasized that forgiving is NOT forgetting. We actually need to remember what happened so that we are not hurt again and we can avoid those situations. Also, people need to be held accountable for their behavior. She told us about a couple where the husband had been unfaithful. After months of work, the wife was finally able to forgive him--this was something that was really good for her as well as him. This woman described it as finally being able to breathe again.

Jeff asked, where are you on the road to forgiving your spouse? Here are the survey results. Scott took the survey and said he has totally forgiven me and harbors NO RESENTMENT. (phew!)

Here are some ideas about forgiving your spouse and "finding glory in your marital story."

To wrap up the class Jeff gave us some ideas on how to continue improving our marriages. He told us how his daughter and her husband spent an entire year working on the activities and exercises suggested in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and he thinks their marriage is in a really good place.

Other ideas:

Twice a year, BYU sponsors marriage retreats at Aspen Grove:

This class is especially geared to the first five years of marriage:

This is a retreat for working on your intimate life:

The point is to keep working on your marriage. Your relationship with your spouse is the most important thing after your relationship with God.

Thanks, Jeff and Tammy!