A Union of two good forgivers

I want to start by telling you a story told by Wallace Goddard in his book: Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage; “I think of the allegory of a man who had two friends in the manufactured-home business. When he wanted a new house, he asked each friend to send him half a house. He gave no plans. He provided no specifications on size or style. He left them to design as they would. So each friend sent a lovely half-house. When the two halves arrived at the site, they were jarringly different. Rooms did not line up. Utilities did not match up. Roofs and walls between the two halves did not connect.”

This story gets me thinking about how different a husband and a wife are in a marriage. They both come to the marriage with their different opinions, beliefs, ways of doing things, likes and dislikes. Neither of them is wrong in the way they do things, they are just different from one another. These differences though can cause some contention in a marriage. It is these difference that I’d like to focus on.

http://staymarriedblog.com/7-ways-to-become-a-better-forgiver/

                In a marriage one of the couple can become the dominating partner who makes all the decisions for the family. A good deal of the time this happens to be the husband. When this occurs it can make the marriage become off balance and their “house” starts to not fit together very well. “The happiest and most stable marriages in the long run were those in which the husband did not resist sharing power and decision making with the wife.” John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Page 116

                In our marriage my husband has become very good at not making decisions before asking me about them. Years ago he’d let me know he was going to watch a football game at his parent’s house, now he asks he if a particular time is an alright time for him to go watch a football game at his parent’s house, before committing to it. I really appreciate the respect this shows to me. It shows that he values me and my time. It’s still a hard concept for his dad to except that he can’t always give an answer right away, but rather wants to talk with me about it before giving his answer. It also shows how strong we are as a partnership and a unit and not 2 boats passing in the night living two separate lives under one roof.

                Over time more husbands have become emotionally intelligent. I have been able to see this in my own lifetime. Just in two generations back father and husbands were more hands off with the children and expected their wives to tend to the children and home, the men did their things and they didn’t talk about emotional things much.  One generation back, there started to be a change and some fathers started to be more hands one, they started to see their wives needs more but it was still limited. This current generation there are more husbands and fathers who are hands on with their children, and who are more emotionally intelligent with their wives. Personally I have long talks with my husband and I spend many hours discussing things with him that only one or two generations back a lady would only talk with her lady friends about because her husband would not be emotionally around to talk to her about. There’s been a big change and it’s quite fascinating.

                How can both partners in a marriage participate in the give and take that a healthy marriage requires without feeling like they are always giving without ever receiving? The answer is discussing and compromising.

We cannot let our personal view be the only view we see. We must take off our blinders and look at the view from our partner’s point of view also and understand what they see. Sometimes we get stuck thinking that our view or opinion or way of doing things is the best, or only way of doing things. This starts us down the slippery slope towards pride.

If we let pride into our marriage, we are in essence putting on the brakes and stopping any forward momentum and we need to fix that before we can move forward.

In Proverbs 16:18 it warns us: “Pride goeth before destruction.”

                It is so important that we not let pride into our marriages, but the hard thing, is that pride has a sneaky way of getting into our marriages from every single angle. So no matter how hard we try, pride will get in. So we need to find a way to get pride out and work on our self to keep it out as best we can.

Goddard says the reason pride in our marriages is so hard is because “The natural man is inclined to love himself and fix others.” page 69. When we are being prideful we stop seeing our flaws and we start focusing on the flaws in our spouse and we start to elevate ourselves and lower them and before we know it we are looking down on them and can’t find any good qualities about them.

When we get to this point our marriage is not hopeless. Goddard tells us: “In fact, any time we feel irritated with our spouses, that irritation is not an invitation to call our spouses to repentance but an invitation to call ourselves to repent. We are irritated because of our lack of faith and humility.”

When pride has entered our marriage and we are feeling better than our spouse it is time for us to repent and make a change, not to fix our spouse. We need to stop, look for the good in our spouse, repent for the way we have been acting and ask for their forgiveness. This will need to be done time and time again in our marriages.

Goddard says it best when he quotes what he read from a church in Arkansas: “A happy marriage is a union of two forgivers.” page 84