MARRIAGE

I have learned a few important concepts from marriage books:

#1 the love bank: every time we have interaction with someone, we are either adding or taking away love money.  If we allow our spouse’s bank to get low, it can lead to serious issues.  We also must be willing to accept deposits and recognize our spouse’s efforts.

#2 the 80/20 rule – we choose the best person to meet the MOST qualifications on our list, as it is impossible to find a perfect person that matches everything.  The spouse will usually cover 80% of your needs.  Many people get into trouble when they focus on the 20% that they aren’t receiving.  They may look to outside sources for that 20%.  When faced with having to decide between the two, they may believe that the new person will be so much better and then find out later that they pale in comparison to their spouse who fulfills so many more of their needs.

#3 Different Stages of Love:
How Couples Develop:

Enmeshment:
-infatuation, rarely do you notice that you have differences – you focus almost exclusively on your similarities
-you begin to trust each other unconditionally
The ultimate purpose of this stage is attachment – to become a couple

Differentiation
-differences begin to emerge

Practicing
-you each practice being a unique individual, developing your self-esteem and self-worth within your relationship
-you need more time alone and actually pull away from spending a lot of time together
-you need to find your own voice, which requires you to identify and express your feelings, needs, thoughts, and desires
-you share honestly what is going on inside of you
-now you are pulling away to focus inward
“By working on an individual plan for emotional, physical, sexual, social, and spiritual health, you can let go of the expectation that your husband must take care of all of your needs.” P.222

Reengagement
-a time of coming and going
-you don’t fear losing yourself as you did in the earlier stages
-you enjoy intimate connection as well as times apart
-when tension arises regarding the ways you spend your time, you are more skilled at resolving conflict
“Whether you are alone or with your husband, you can find pleasure and purpose in your life so that you don’t perpetuate an unhealthy enmeshment.”

Mutual Interdependence
-experience constancy in your relationship
-with each of us confident and satisfied in our own identity, our relationship is built on growth, not need
“You have found a bond of love that is deep and satisfying, and you can accept the realness of your relationship while letting go of your need for it to be perfect.” P.223
“. . . it’s okay to feel; it’s okay to have conflict; it’s okay to have needs; it’s safe to commit; it’s safe to be vulnerable.” P.223

“Each stage presents a couple with the issue of how to manage closeness and distance.  In enmeshment, a couple seeks closeness at all times and avoids distancing.  In differentiation, the couple continues to be close, but each partner starts desiring some distance.  In practicing, the couple practices intentional distancing, and husband and wife don’t feel as close.  In reengagement, a couple is sporadically close and distant, learning to negotiate and balance the two ends of the spectrum. Finally, in mutual interdependence, the couple experiences closeness and distance, but the shift between the two is more fluid, expected, and constant.  In this last stage, individuals can be alone but not feel lonely.” P.223
(Shattered Vows: Hope and Healing for Women Who Have Been Sexually Betrayed: By Debra Laaser)

Spencer W. Kimball:
“Marriage presupposes total allegiance and total fidelity.  Each spouse takes the partner with the understanding that he or she gives totally to the spouse all the heart, strength, loyalty, honor, and affection, with all dignity.  Any divergence is sin; any sharing of the heart is transgression.  As we should have ‘an eye single to the glory of God,’ so should we have an eye, an ear, a heart single to the marriage and the spouse and family.”
We have different expectations of each other and hope that a spouse can help fill any emptiness in our lives.  I have learned that only God can fill that emptiness and that we can’t expect a spouse to know exactly how we feel or what pain that we are called to endure.  Instead of getting frustrated with a spouse, it is important to turn it over to God.

Early on in marriage I learned that my husband and I had different ideas concerning boundaries in our marriage.  It is important to sit down and go over things together so that you are on the same page.  If one of you is uncomfortable with something, it is important to honor and respect that.

DATE NIGHT

When we were first married we dated, but I found the challenge of calling something a “date” when we seemed to be together all of the time.  I took the time that we had together for granted because we didn’t have many obstacles to go and do whatever we wanted to.

After having children it became a lot harder to find the time and babysitters to take a break for the two of us.  I didn’t like spending money on babysitters and have found that trading nights with another couple in our Ward is a great way to go.

My opinion is to use your resources.  If you live near family and they don’t mind watching your kids once in awhile, then use that resource.  I had a teacher say that he already raised his children so he didn’t want to look after grandchildren.  I see this as a very limited perspective with a selfish view.  I see helping family as a way to spend time with grandchildren and to support your children in their righteous desires.  Just because your children are grown up, it doesn’t mean that all of your responsibilities towards them have ended.  There is family work that still needs to be done.  The less selfish approach is to say “how can I continue blessing my family?” 

Three Realms of Law: by Lili Anderson

If we are trying to be good people, and are earnestly seeking to follow Christ’s celestial pattern, we may make sincere efforts to respond to injuries from others with patience, kindness, and long-suffering. These can be appropriate responses to terrestrial troubles, but not always the best response to telestial behaviors. The reason for this is that while terrestrial, imperfect behaviors may be irritating, they are not destructive. If you have a roommate that watches too many sports on television, or who doesn’t clean up often enough, or perhaps is too finicky about cleaning, it can be a bit hard to live with, but patience, kindness, and long-suffering are certainly a good approach and good practice for marriage.
 
However, as a marriage counselor, I see too many situations in which a partner is involved in more serious, telestial behaviors – like adultery, abuse, addictions to drugs, alcohol, or pornography. Of course, such behaviors bring pain, violence, and destruction into relationships and should be confronted with strong terrestrial boundaries.
 
One woman told me that her husband – when he came home hungry and found her outside watching the kids play – would go inside the house and lock all the doors, so she and the kids had to wait for an hour or more on the back porch until he decided to open the door. While milder than some marriage problems I just mentioned, this was still a very destructive pattern. It damaged the wife’s feelings of personal worth and it was destroying her feelings of love for her husband. It also was lousy modeling for the children. Her response had been patience, long-suffering, and serious efforts to forgive, but it wasn’t working and she was becoming bitter. I shared with her the three realm model and suggested that she was trying to skip from the telestial realm to the celestial. She was responding to her husband’s telestial behavior with what she thought were celestial efforts. However, showing patience with destructive, telestial behaviors or trying to forgive unrepented, ongoing injury – typically results in an acceptance of victimization that doesn’t benefit either victim or victimizer. The victim remains vulnerable to abuse and, almost inevitably, loses respect and love for the victimizer, while the victimizer continues unabated on their personal road to destruction.
 
Instead, I suggested this woman draw a terrestrial boundary with her husband. She agreed to make sure she always wore clothes with pockets. In the pockets she was to put driver’s license, cash, credit card, or checkbook, and keys. She also packed the car with extra clothes and supplies for the young children. She then told her husband that she was no longer willing to accept behavior that she knew – and he knew – was not acceptable to God. If he locked the door on her again, she said, she would take the kids and go to place where they would be safe and not feel like beggars at their own door -- perhaps the library, a movie, a park, or a restaurant. Then, when she was ready, she would call to see if he were willing to take this problem to the bishop or to a counselor to learn better ways to deal with his anger. After she “drew that terrestrial boundary line,” he never locked the door on his family again, and he came into counseling where, working together, they made great improvements in their marriage.
 
The Lord has said, “For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (Doctrine & Covenants 1:31). This is not the statement of a harsh deity, but an affirmation of a love so profound that it will give sin no quarter – knowing that sin destroys His children. If we are to become “even as He is” (see 3 Nephi 27:27), then we, too, must be tolerant of individuals, but intolerant of sin.
 
Notice, too, that this approach of “holding the terrestrial line” brings benefits to everyone. Drawing a terrestrial line benefits the victimizer as this gives him or her the opportunity to repent, rather than continuing on a path of self-destruction. And drawing a terrestrial line can help turn victims into agents. This is vastly superior, of course, to what so often happens when a victim reaches his or her limit and decides, “I’ve taken it long enough; now I’m dishing it out,” at which point they both end up telestial. The Lord does not want His people to live as victims (see Doctrine &Covenants 98:23-48).
 
I sometimes worry that, as members, we are still responding as though the world were still in a more terrestrial state, as it was in the 1950s or early 60s. I think some members became used to only having to be “this much” better than the rest of middle-class America. Prom dresses, movie or television choices, swimming suits needed to be “this much better. When the world began sinking rapidly into an increasingly telestial state, I’m afraid that some members – having become used to being “this much” better, just maintained that distance. Now, in this new millennium, perhaps too often, our choices of are still just “this much” better than those of a telestial world. Consider that if such a trend continues, all it means is that we’ll get to hell about six months later.