Strength found in marriage

My perspective on marriage is greatly influenced because of the idea that God created marriage to help refine and help us. It gives me comfort to know that the hardships of living with a person of totally different upbringing and personality to mine are for my own learning and growth; and that through the hard times I am able to learn about my own strengths and weaknesses.

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This comes to mind the experience about working out. My husband has always been vigilant with exercising. He believes that good health is attained by good eating habits and exercise. I, on the other hand, didn’t grow up with that mind frame. I was never fond of physical activity and was never encouraged to participate in any sports. That led to my idea that I can never do “hard things”. Well after I gave birth to my first son, I really wanted to lose my baby weight. I came to my husband and he helped me find ways to exercise that I would actually like. He bought us a treadmill which at first I thought was really boring. But then I trusted his “plan” for me and I got on that treadmill every day for months. After losing the weight and feeling physically better than I’ve ever had in my life, I realized that I can do hard things. That transferred to other challenges in my life. All because my husband believed in my capacity to change and I trusted him and the Lord through the process.

Going back to the lesson regarding the difference between a covenant and a contract, I believe that in order to live a life anchored with faith and trust in Jesus Christ, one needs to have a mindset of having a covenant marriage versus the other. For me this means that when the tough times happen, I think about giving my 100% in faith and action versus expecting my spouse to meet me halfway. I’ve seen this in my own marriage, especially when my husband and I are faced with challenges. We are a good team because we bring our best to the table. That doesn’t mean that we don’t fall into moments of despair or hopelessness, because we still do. However, since my husband knows that I’m giving my all, he is there to help me when I can’t be positive anymore and vice versa.

I think that distractions are big challenges for turning toward one another. One way to overcome this is the conscious effort to do those “little things” that leads to turning towards each other. I like what Mr. Gottman said in the book that “couples often ignore each other’s emotional needs out of mindlessness, not malice.”1 This brings a good point about how we can easily get frustrated or upset towards our spouse and feel hurt because we are not given the attention we feel we deserve, but in reality it’s just that they are distracted. Talking to our spouse about the issue can be a good start.

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My favorite way of turning towards my spouse is the “end of the day” reporting that we do with one another. It is actually done during dinner time so the kids also get involved. We go around the table and talk about the day’s highlights (and sometimes the low points too). This helps our family stay connected and well informed of each other’s days. This little action has increased my friendship, not only to my husband, but to my children as well. This is also something that I value a lot because growing up; my family rarely sat the dinner table together. Everyone seemed to have a different time frame for eating and my parents never enforced a time for all of us to come together. I saw how strained my relationship with my family was at the time, especially when I was a teenager and going through challenges. I felt like I could not talk with my parents because we never established a way for open communication.

Resource:
1. Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (n.d.). The seven principles for making marriage work.