Marriage and the Family

Family and Individual Counsel             I love the idea of a weekly counsel meeting with all of the family members. When I was in the Young Women program, we were taught to engaged in family counsel. I specifically remember my leaders advising us to sit our parents down when we had questions or wanted to ask for permission for something important. We were supposed to offer the reasons why we believe we should be able to do this thing and then be willing to listen to our parent's view. I loved this idea because my parents were normally very strict and this offered me a way to get my parents to see my point of view. I decided to counsel with my mother about my curfew. I sat down with her at the kitchen table, told her what we learned about in Young Women's, and then explained the topic I wanted to talk about. I want to say that this worked wonderfully, but it did not. My mother (whom I love dearly) laughed in my face.        ...

With my husband's permission, I am going to share a personal story from our marriage together.  We were only married for about seven months when we learned we were pregnant with our first child. It was exciting news, but it was news we weren't prepared for. It took a toll on our marriage because we were young and still trying to figure out how to be married and to adjust to what sacrifices and changes it required. When I was eight months pregnant, I found out about my husband's pornography addiction from a quick web browser history search. I was devastated. I did not know how to handle this situation. I took it personally and instead of trying to understand my husband, I punished him for it and I alienated myself from him. I feel very fortunate that our marriage recovered from this hard time in our lives. I believe I didn't fully understand what my husband had experienced until I was pregnant with our second child and we were living in Eugene, Oregon. I was sitting b...

Dreams When I was dating, I never considered that dreams might be important in a relationship. I never thought that my partner would have dreams and aspirations that I would be expected to support. I got married to a wonderful man that I had only dated for a few months prior to getting engaged, and he indeed had dreams and an idea of what he wanted to make a reality for our family. I wish I had been exposed to Gottman's Gridlock Conflict when I learned this about my husband so I could have understood early on of the importance of supporting his dreams and contributing so that he could achieve those goals. For the first two years, I was very put off that I had to follow Tyler to Idaho so he could continue his schooling. I was from a small Southern Utah town and did not want to move to snowy Idaho Falls. I felt that it was truly asking a lot of me, and I was very bitter for the entire two years that we lived there. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have been more positive and...

Together Forever I would have never guessed that most marriage problems are perpetual. I was expecting to hear that all marriage issues were solvable. I thought that once a problem had been solved then we would have the skills to avoid that problem all together in the future. After studying why most marriage issues are perpetual, I now understand why they are reoccurring and the goal is to have the skills to solve them and worth through them every single time. This is something that takes time and practice, and it is something I deeply want with my husband. I feel that we are mostly able to peacefully solve our marital issues, but I won't want to get too comfortable with that. I want to do my best to be prepared for anything and to always be willing to solve any problem that might come our way.  I've been thinking a lot about how I attempt to repair problems or arguments with others. It's different with my husband than with my friends because I'm very comfortable w...

Pride Pride nearly destroyed my marriage. I have been married for 7 years. Most of these years have been wonderful- full of love, adventure, and changes. However, I feel lucky to have survived the first two years. I blame a lot of this on my own pride. I was terrible at taking any sort of accountability in any argument or say sorry for mistakes I had made. It was very hard for me to ever admit I was in the wrong. This caused small problems to escalate into big ones, creating deep resentment and discord between my husband. There were a few time when I thought this would never be able to be repaired. Fortunately, my husband is a loving, forgiving, and understanding person and he believed that our marriage was strong enough to withstand some of these issues. Thankfully he was right! It took a lot of work, but I was able to make the necessary changes to be sure that my pride doesn't get in the way of the important relationships in my life. Pride has a history of causing problems, ...

The article that compares the three wolves to being three major marital issues really struck me. Read the article here:  https://byui.instructure.com/courses/50274/files/9149276/preview . The first wolf is natural adversity. The article compares it to a story in the scriptures about a couple that has been praying for a child for years. When the mother is finally able to have a child, they learn that the child is born with a hear defect and dies soon after. I can also see natural adversity as financial struggles or unexpected events that can change the dynamics of a marriage. The second wolf is one’s own imperfections. I feel like this can be a number of things. Ultimately, I believe that if we do not realize our own imperfections, then we will not be able to change for the better of ourselves and our marriage. The last wolf is excessive individualism. I feel that this is the most dangerous wolf- both in marriage and in society. When one has excessive individualism, they separate t...