Help each other learn

The importance of loving and serving one another during the learning process was described by President Henry B. Eyring in his BYU–Idaho Address, "The Temple and the College on the Hill."

"The climbs to the places God would have us go are never for us alone. If we forget that, we will not have His full power to lift us…Losing sight of that need to climb with others could slow our progress toward dramatically improved teaching and learning. For instance, it would be easy to look for ways to help learners learn alone, using the wonders of technology. The same technology could give learners the experience of helping others they love to learn with them."

Cleave Unto None Else

 

Before the Marriage

 

 Having a son, I now understand all of my mother in laws reservations about our engagement and marriage. My husband is the oldest son, among five daughters. He has makes his mother smile, He makes her laugh, he makes her heart soar with pride at every accomplishment, every hug, every kiss, and every tender word. She loves him dearly.

Genesis 2:24 says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife” When we announced our engagement she was less than pleased, She was actually cold and distant. She said not a word the entire night. I couldn’t understand why, why was she against our marriage? We were young and wanted to be married in the right place, at the right time. She felt her son needed more time. He should either join the army and wait until he was an officer or until he had completed his degree.He never had any notion of joining the military. She made planning the wedding difficult, every time we would set a date she would have a new reason why she couldn’t attend that time of year. There was the chill in the air in March , the summer season of growing in June, her family trip in August, and then winter was upon us in October. It started to make me question my fiance. After nine months of engagement and still no date I realized that I would have a huge mother in law problem in my marriage. I gave him his ring back and told him that when he wants to marry me, and is ready to set a date let me know. It was very hard. But I figured if she was already running our marriage this much and we weren’t even married then afterwards it would be awful.

A few months passed and he gave me the ring back. He had a date, he wanted to check if I was available and was going to tell his parents if they were there it would be wonderful but if not we were still going to get married. They attended! They came into town the night before and left right after the sealing. It was a very short encounter but I thought that it was important to make our marriage come first.

 

After the Marriage

 

James Harper and Suzanne Olsen said, “living close to mother in laws bring strength and relationship development.” It took a while but I found this statement to be accurately true.

Nine months after we were married my husband said he felt that we should move close to his parents, three states away. I was willing to move but apprehensive to stay with my in-laws. It was the best decision we could have made. We were expecting our first child and she was welcomed and adored instantly. My relationship with my mother in law has taken many years to develop but we are very close. She tells me she thinks I am the only daughter she can live with in her older age. I let her be her, and I don’t mind her little quirks I actually enjoy them, they remind me of my husband.

 

 

Being One

 

Our ultimate goal as a family is to return back to Heaven and live with our Heavenly Father as a family. Sometimes it seems that we forget that the relationships that are developed here are the ones that we will be taking with us after this life. It astounds me to see families that have this privilege to be sealed for eternity be so disconnected. We are looking forward to the eternal blessings but are we doing all we can now to develop eternal relationships?

 

Family Council

 

One of the best ways of developing better family relationships is to work on having family counsel. When we started family council it was because as a mom, I was overwhelmed. We had so many activities in so many places I couldn’t keep up. We also needed to talk about some of the problems within our family. Our family council has been a blessing to our family. We take time every Sunday night to read scriptures as a family and then have family council. Everyone is allowed a voice, they can let their concerned be known as well as their opinions on any matter. We try and make it a safe place for all in the family.

Elder Ballard said we should be more concerned with not with our own point of view but we should find ways to listen to the point of view of others. I think is good advice for family counsels as well. When we seek to listen for what others are truly saying we will be able to better understand how we can meet our families needs. In one counsel a daughter brought up an issue she was having with one of her siblings teasing. After listening to her and pondering what could be done. We made some decisions as a family which helped us grow closer as a family and meet the needs of my daughter.

 

Unity and Love

Studying President Eyring’s talk, “That We May Be One” I found myself really paying attention to the scriptures that he used. In Doctrine and Covenants 38:27, Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.  I shared this with my family for family home evening. We talked about ways we could become one. My younger children were quiet, and we talked about using kinder words and actions. The last few days there has been an improvement. I am hopeful that as we continue to rely on each other at family home evening, family counsel, and even family scripture study they will have their hearts knit together in unity and love.   

 

A lesson

My Old White Dress

   A week before I was to be married my uncle visited me. He handed me a bag and told me this was my Aunt’s and that he would like me to have it, if I wanted to use it. It was a white dress that was usually worn in a temple dedicated as a house of God. I thanked my uncle for the gift.

Twenty years later I still hold the dress with remembrance of the importance of being true and faithful in marriage.

 My Aunt was only 35 when she left. She left her husband, her home, and her three boys. She was fun to visit with fun to talk with and was a great listener, and then she left. She had met my uncle at BYU as an aspiring musician, my uncle was a singer she was a pianist. They were married in the Hawaii temple and had three boys. Around the time I was 16 she started spending all her time on the internet. When we came to visit we rarely saw her. She had many friends across the country even the globe all online. What surprised us the most was that they were all men. One day one of them visited and then she went with him. Her boys were heart broken and her husband was devastated. It was the first time I realized even good marriages were susceptible to infidelity. A few years later I was given her temple dress. I decided that I should start early to safe guard my feelings, emotions, and marriage from the small and simple intrusions that can come into our relationships.

Warning

 

"There are those married people who permit their eyes to wander and their hearts to become vagrant, who thinks it is not improper to flirt a little, to share their hearts and have desire for someone other than the wife or the husband. The Lord says in no uncertain terms: “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else” (D&C 42:22).(Matheson)

 And, when the Lord says all thy heart, it allows for no sharing nor dividing nor depriving. And, to the woman it is paraphrased: “Thou shalt love thy husband with all thy heart and shalt cleave unto him and none else.” ”( Matheson, 2009)
 With these cautions in mind I have made rules for myself that help me to “abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)”.

 

A few of the rules I have set for myself are:

1.Internet chat is not a viable place for making good friends.

2.If I am doing anything online my children should be able to look over my shoulder and read what I am doing.

3.Any conversations carried out online should be things I would say in front of my family.

4.I don’t friend anyone on social media that I haven’t met in person.

5.I don’t friend males that I am not related to on social media.

6.I only use the computer out in the open at family gathering areas such as family room and kitchen.

 

Resources:

Matheson, K.W. "Fidelity in marriage: It's more than you think." Ensign, Sept. 2009, 13-16.

Navigating Through Relationships

Driving

 Real LA traffic, this happens twice a day.

I learned to drive in Southern California, where the distance from my house to the beach was less than 45 miles. But the amount of time it took to get home was 2 and ½ hours. It was not because I lacked knowledge of the roads or even capability in driving over the speed limit. The problem was the amount of traffic on the road the gridlock was terrible. We went 10 miles in 30 minutes. The slow dragging traffic was one of the reason we only planned very short beach trips. If you left the beach by 2:00 it only took you one hour to get home. And if there was an accident on this stretch of road it added another hour to the drive.

What dreams may come

John Gottman talks about marital gridlock in his book, “The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work”. Marital gridlock comes like traffic congestion; we have problems in our marriage that make it impossible to move forward with being a loving and successful couple. The gridlock comes as issues arise that cannot be overcome simply by talking about them. Gridlock is actually the dreams that you have for your life that your spouse is not aware of. These dreams shape our actions which in turn regulate our responses and the weight of their importance to us will not let us side step them in our marriage but are as solid to our person sometimes as the need to eat. Thus we will not let them go but are forcing our spouse to accept them, even though they may be directly opposite to our spouse’s dreams.

 

After reading chapter 11 of Gottman’s book I realized that one of my hidden dreams that I have carried from childhood is the need to be at church early, not just early but 10 minutes before the meeting starts, sitting in our seats, waiting patiently and listening to the prelude music. This need comes from my childhood; my single mother always conducted the music she had to be at church really early. We came and settled ourselves 10 to 15 minutes before the meeting so she knew where we were and she could meet all our needs before she had to leave us. My husband is the opposite his family has sat in the same pew since their building was built, by them. They came in anytime and it was always available, so there was never any reason to hurry or rush out the door. So on Sunday as I am hustling to get my family out the door, my husband is at his leisure dressing and getting his things together. We usually arrive 1 to 2 minutes before the opening song, which in my mind is late. It’s really not wrong, but it’s a contention we’ve had in our marriage for almost 20 years. I realize that this is no way to start our Sabbath day worship, and that we can change and let go a little more.

De-fang

Dr. Gottman says, “Your problem is not to solve the problem- it will probably never go away completely. Instead the goal is to defang the issue, to try to remove the hurt so that the problem stops being a source of great pain.”(p.253) Working together to take time to talk one on one, each respecting the time to talk of the other will help us overcome some of the difficulties these gridlocks can cause in marriage. Unlike Southern California traffic we can sail clearly through our relationship instead of being stopped by things that in the long run will not matter.

 I thought this couple was so cute:

 

 

 

Here is a short clip on Relationship Gridlock:

Perpetual Problems

 Mortal Kombat

               

My favorite video game, as a teenager, was always Mortal Kombat. You choose a fighter and then fight until someone loses. No skill is needed you just pick the meanest character and push all the buttons. Sound a little like marriage? Are you choosing to be the meanest character in the room? Do you push all your spouses’ buttons? If this reminds you of your marriage I urge you to stop, examine what the real problems are. They are not the messy counter, the laundry on the floor and spilt milk there are much bigger factors that are perpetuating the conflict. Dr. John Gottman said there are two kinds of marital conflict, 1) conflict that can be resolved and 2) perpetual conflict that will be a part of your lives forever. (p. 137)

Perpetual Conflict

According to John Gottman 69% of the problems we face in marriage are perpetual. We sometimes keep cycling through the same problems but in different ways. It’s not until we realize what these problems are and decide that they are our own individual problems not our spouse and overcome them ourselves do they actually go away.

 

Despite what many therapists will tell you, you don’t have to resolve your major marital conflict for your marriage to thrive.

You can learn to deal with the issue at hand, using humor, realizing that you don’t have to solve it all at once you can take your time, and choose not to let it ruin your relationship. For some reason there is three point line around our laundry basket that my husband can’t seems to make. The sock lies within feet of the said basket but yet fail to achieve their final resting place. I have termed this his one human frailty and decided to just love him for it. It’s not worth arguing or fighting over I kind pick them up and throw them in.  

Gridlock

 

                Gridlock in marriage is what happens when you are not able to move through a problem but it circulates around and around until there is nothing but angry and malice in the relationship. When you hit a gridlock, step back explore what the hidden issues might be. (Gottman p. 141) Sometimes these problems occur because we have not seen our spouses unrequited dreams, or dreams that they have that are unspoken, said Dr. Gottman (p.141) For example my spouse always had the dream of owning a business which was absolutely against everything I wanted. We kept hitting a gridlock with arguing and disagreeing until we decided we had to change. I took a leap of faith and we tried, my husband started his own company and went to work for himself. He was elated. He came home happy every day. Overtime I got use to the lifestyle. We have owned our business for over 10 years now and I am thankful every day for that inspiration to just let go and follow his dreams.  Our conflict had decreased and we seem to be able to get through any problem because we consistently look to each other’s needs and try to make the other more of a priority than ourselves.  

 

 

A short clip from Dr. Gottman on how to overcome conflict in marriage:

 

Pride

 

Looking away....

“Break it up you two, you’ve been married for 19 years get over it”. These were the words recently expressed by my 18 year old daughter who got caught refereeing her parent’s disagreement. Why did we disagree? What was so important that we lost sight of peace and harmony in our home? The answer, I don’t remember. But why did it take so long to get over? Pride. We let our pride get in the way of our relationship. We should have stopped long before it got to the point where we were hotly disagreeing.
President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts”. Through our pride we let the adversary come into our homes and our relationships. We let anger guide our thoughts, words, and deeds. It’s when we are caught up in our pride that the most damage is done to the ones we love the most.

Turning towards each other...

Pride can manifest itself in our marriage through arguments, disagreements, and fights. It manifests through pitting our will above our spouse. Through sabotaging their efforts for happiness. My husband loves to play basketball. As a newlywed I wondered why would he want to leave me even one night a week, to play basketball ? I felt that he should be with me. I argued with him about why he should go and did it really need to happen every Thursday night? It wasn’t until the stake playoffs that I understood what this sport meant to him. He enjoyed being with friends, his excitement and fun for the game brought him so much joy. I felt I was being selfish and prideful keeping him away from something he enjoyed so much. I decided to make Thursday night my night for finding out what it was that I like to do. It became my favorite night of the week. My husband always came home sweaty and happy and I was discover new hobbies that I enjoyed as well.

President Benson said:

“the antidote for pride is humility- meekness, submissiveness. It is the broken heart and contrite spirit. As we seek to humble ourselves our relationships with God and with others will be strengthened.

  

Short video on Forgiveness by President James E. Faust