Making a Love (Map) Connection

The reading I have done this week has been about connection, seeing the good in our spouses and self-sacrifice. Gottman uses the term “Love Map” when talking about the connection between spouses. How much do you know about your spouse whether you have been married one, five, ten, twenty or even 40 years? There is always something new to learn. In the book I shared last week, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, Gottman has many exercises in Chapters 4 and 5 that help you figure out how well you know your spouse and help you improve your fondness and admiration. I would highly recommend any read those chapters even if you are happily married.

My husband and I went to the next town over to visit the Twin Falls Temple and run errands. We were able to work through one of the exercises on the way there and back. It was wonderful to reminisce about our early years and what has happened in the 25 years since we started dating. He sure remembered more than I did. We had a fun day together and strengthened the connections on our "Love Map".

The more fondness and admiration you have for your spouse the more your love grows. President Henry B. Eyring gave a talk in the October 2009 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints titled “Our Perfect Example”. I enjoyed the way he taught us about Christ teaching us how to love. We can apply this to our marriages. Here is the relevant portion of that talk:

Love is the motivating principle our perfect example. Our way of life, hour by hour, must be filled with the love of God and love for others. There is no surprise in that, since the Lord proclaimed those as the first and great commandments. It is love of God that will lead us to keep His commandments. And love of others is at the heart of our capacity to obey Him. 
by which the Lord leads us along the way towards becoming like Him, 

Just as Jesus used a child in His mortal ministry as an example for the people of the pure love they must and could have to be like Him, He has offered us the family as an example of an ideal setting in which we can learn how to love as He loves. 

That is because the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is. And the sorrow comes primarily from selfishness, which is the absence of love. The ideal God holds for us is to form families in the way most likely to lead to happiness and away from sorrow. A man and a woman are to make sacred covenants that they will put the welfare and happiness of the other at the center of their lives. Children are to be born into a family where the parents hold the needs of children equal to their own in importance. And children are to love parents and each other.

That is the ideal of a loving family. In many of our homes, there are the words “Our Family Can Be Together Forever.” There is a gravestone near my home of a mother and grandmother. She and her husband were sealed in the temple of God to each other and to their posterity for time and all eternity. The inscription on the gravestone reads, “Please, no empty chairs.” She asked for that inscription because she knew that whether the family will be together depends on the choices each family member makes. The word “please” is there because neither God nor she can compel another to choose happiness. And there is Satan, who wants misery, not happiness, in families in this life and in the next.

My hope today is to suggest some choices which may seem difficult but that would assure you that you have qualified for there to be no empty chairs in your family in the world to come.

First, I give counsel to husbands and wives. Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion’s joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion. 

I saw this in my parents’ marriage. In my mother’s final illness, the more uncomfortable she became, the more giving her comfort became the dominant intent of my father’s life. He asked that the hospital set up a bed in her room. He was determined to be there to be sure that she wanted for nothing. He walked the miles to work each morning and back to her side at night through those difficult times for her. I believe it was a gift from God to him that his power to love grew when it mattered so much to her. I think he was doing what Jesus would have done out of love.

When we follow the teachings of Christ and the Church leaders of obedience and self-sacrifice we are better able to sustain our marriages and also become more like our Heavenly Father.  

Signs of Potential Divorce

 

Finding what is right in a happy marriage is like studying the successful companies in the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. He studied companies to understand what made a company succeed rather than fail. John M. Gottman has done the same thing with marriages and teaches about it in his book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”. He talks about how he can predict with great certainty if a marriage is going to succeed or fail.

There are some warning signs to watch for which is what he uses to predict divorce. Do you have some of these warning signs in your marriage?

1. The First Sign: Harsh Start-up--Do you just jump into a fight guns blazing? Criticism and sarcasm are red flags that you are starting your argument as a Harsh Start-up. The outcome of a conversation can be predicted based on the first three minutes.
2. The Second Sign: The Four Horsemen
   • Horseman #1: Criticism-There is a big difference between a criticism and a complaints. We all have complaints but we need to keep them from evolving into a criticism. Criticisms are along the lines of personal attacks whereas complaints are stating a problem and how you feel about it.
   • Horseman #2: Contempt-This is more damaging than criticism. It is superiority, disgust, or even belligerence toward your spouse. It is a higher level of personal attacks.
   • Horseman #3: Defensiveness-This Horseman can cause you to lash out at your spouse and become snide and mocking. It builds upon the other two Horsemen. It is hard to come to a peaceable solution if you have these three Horsemen present in your conversations/arguments.
   • Horseman #4: Stonewalling-Have you ever shut someone out and just quit listening to them? That is what stonewalling is like. When you’re hearing what someone is saying to you but not listening nor responding anymore. It is seen more often in older marriages.
3. The Third Sign: Flooding--When being Flooded a person turns to Stonewalling as a protection mechanism against the other signs. Flooding is “feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed”. You want to do anything to escape the Harsh Start-up and/or the Four Horsemen.
4. The Fourth Sign: Body Language--Gottman says that he doesn’t even have to listen to an argument to understand its impact. The husband in his example stonewalls his spouse. His physiological readings would tell the story of the physical effects he is trying to avoid. It is detrimental to the body.
5. The Fifth Sign: Failed Repair Attempts--This is when one person tries to cut the tension and bring the conversation to a more positive level. 
6. The Sixth Sign: Bad Memories--Marriages get to a point where every memory becomes a bad memory because the couple focuses on the negative. 

These signs don't doom a marriage to failure. The important part is what is called a "Repair Attempt". A Repair Attempt is when one of the couple tries to steer the argument or discussion to a more positive note either with humor or with positive statements. If the couple recovers easily and if the repair attempts work well then the couple has a better chance of a good outcome. 

Nurturing a covenant marriage

There are two types of marriages. There are contractual marriages and covenant marriages. We may have a temple wedding but our actions will make the difference between a contractual and a covenant marriage. Bruce C. Hafen in an Ensign article in November of 1996 titled “Covenant Marriage” said,

When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent. Marriage is by nature a covenant, not just a private contract one may cancel at will.

There are many ways to elevate the quality of your marriage. We will have been married 25 years this fall. Sometimes married couples tend to get comfortable and let the little things slide. I have been thinking about implementing marriage “rules” for more than a month now. They are not big endeavors but we know that small efforts will add up to big results. I say that they are not big endeavors because some people do these types of things every day but we had not for a long time, since it was one of the things that we had let slide. I talked to my husband this past weekend and we set up some rules for the two of us. The two rules that we bring into play most often are a Good Morning and Goodnight kiss and hug and a kiss goodbye and hello each time one of us leaves without the other. We do a few other things that help to keep us connected. We try to attend the temple at least once a month, if not twice, together. We usually try to eat out when we go to make the day last a little longer. It gives us more time to talk. What are some spoken or unspoken rules you have with your spouse that helps you elevate your marriage to a covenant marriage?

We are one week or so into the rules now and I can tell you the rules have made a significant difference. We kiss more. We talk more. We call each other out when we miss a rule then we get to kiss even more. I feel a lot closer to my husband and it helps me think about him more often through the day.

My grandparents will have been married 70 years in July. They have a covenant marriage. Their children haven't followed suit as well as they should have. No one is perfect and it's never too late to hitch up your pant legs and get on the path to a better marriage. Here's what 70 years looks like:

(Okay, I lied. These pictures were taken 4 years ago but you see what I mean.)

Supreme Court Obergefell et al. v. Hodges--my opinion

I was truthfully getting a little worried as a read the Supreme Court's decision in OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES. Unfortunately, the majority's arguments were making me agree with them. Liberty is important. I began to wonder if I really could support them. Once I started reading the dissenting half of the decision, I felt much better. Their arguments made much more sense. I felt like the children needed to be protected but they need to be protected in the Lord's way. They need to be taught His ways and not the ways of the world. In our readings last week we read how children living in single parent homes or with both biological parents are much better off than in a "step" situation. Unless adopted, one parent or the other will not be blood related to the child in a same-sex marriage. This may leave the child at a greater risk of abuse in some form.

It is scary to think of what the loss of democracy could mean. They really should not be ruling on something like that. What else could they pass that would be even worse? With the state of the presidential candidates, our country could be headed for even greater wickedness. I hear people often saying, "How much worse could it get?" I am afraid with rulings like this and the next president we are about to find out.

Marriage has been between a man and a woman from the beginning of this earth. I do not believe that the foundation of marriage should be changed. It is another spiral deeper into chaos. Judge Samuel A. Alito said:

If this traditional understanding of the purpose of marriage does not ring true to all ears today, that is probably because the tie between marriage and procreation has frayed. Today, for instance, more than 40% of all children in this country are born to unmarried women. This development undoubtedly is both a cause and a result of changes in our society’s understanding of marriage.

Russell M. Nelson spoke at a BYU commencement. Here's a small bit about marriage:

The greatest guardians of any and all virtues are marriage and family. This is particularly the case with the virtues of chastity and fidelity in marriage, both of which are required to create enduring and fully rewarding marriage partnerships and family relationships. 

Male and female are created for what they can do and become, together. It takes a man and a woman to bring a child into the world. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. Men and women are distinct and complementary. Children deserve a chance to grow up with both a mom and a dad. 

As you go forth from BYU, you will likely encounter increasing debate about the definition of marriage. Many of your neighbors, colleagues, and friends will have never heard logical and inspired truths about the importance of marriage as God Himself defined it. You will have many opportunities to strengthen understanding of the Lord’s side of that argument by the eloquence of your examples, both as individuals and as families.

How many other things will be destroyed by the worldly thinking surrounding us if we don't stand up for what is important to God?