As Christ Also Loved the Church

In the past few weeks, I’ve often referred to the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman. But there’s another book that has been a great help to me in developing a deeper understanding of marriage and its purpose. It’s called Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships , and it’s written by H. Wallace Goddard. The second book is directed toward members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and draws heavily from the Book of Mormon, but its principles will bless anyone who follows them. Goddard’s central premise is that marriage is the workshop God uses to make us the people He wants us to be. Before we’re married, marriage seems like a fairy tale. We’re swept up in the bliss of being with the person we love. But gradually, the bliss dissipates, and we might be surprised to discover that marriage is, well, hard. Our Prince Charming isn’t so charming. Sometimes, he’s downright annoying. We might thin...

You recognize the feeling. Someone—probably someone you love—has done something stupid and irritating.   You know, that thing. The one you’ve been trying to get them to stop doing forever. And they said they’d stop, but they’ve forgotten. Again. Now, the anger is rising inside you like lava inside a volcano, ready to erupt in a molten jet of furious words. Once a volcano gets to that point, nothing can stop it. The lava and gas and ash will come spewing out, and the people around it will have no hope but to take shelter and wait it out. But here’s an important fact to consider. People aren’t volcanoes. Although it may not feel like it at times, we have the power to stop the flow of anger inside us before it pours out and incinerates the ones we love. In chapter nine of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. Gottman emphasizes the importance of a soft start-up. What he’s talking about is the way we begin to talk about a sensitive subject. How we begin sets ...

What do you think of when you hear the word “pride”? A person standing tall and feeling good about herself? Or the sneer of someone looking down on those he thinks are below him? We may use the word pride in both ways, depending on the context, but Ezra Taft Benson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 to 1994, pointed out that “In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride  — it is always considered a sin. Therefore, no matter how the world uses the term, we must understand how God uses the term so we can understand the language of holy writ and profit thereby” (“ Beware of Pride ,” Ensign, May 1989). The kind of pride condemned by the scriptures is destructive everywhere but especially in marriage. Pride is competitive when we need to cooperate. Pride demands that we keep up appearances when we need to let someone else see how much we hurt so we can ask for help. Pride sees apologies as a sign of weakness. In marriage, we need to...

When my dad gets bored, he has a habit of starting to nudge, poke at, or otherwise irritate the person sitting closest to him, usually his wife, daughter, or grandchild. I call these nudges and pokes his “pay attention to me” signals. Dr. Gottman, author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Harmony Books, New York, 1999, 2015), would recognize them, too. In fact, his third principle, “Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away,” relies on recognizing and responding to “bids for attention.” These little actions, sometimes as small as a facial expression, let us know when our spouse needs or wants something from us. If we train ourselves to recognize and respond to these bids, we’ll be rewarded with a deeper closeness. Dr. Gottman emphasizes that turning toward each other doesn’t require grand gestures or huge investments of time. For me, it can be as simple as going to sit on the couch beside my husband when he invites me to watch a TV show with him instead of staying in ...