Influencing Our Spouse and Being Influenced By Them

Humility and Repentance/Pride

Who first read these three words and thought what does it have to do with marriage? Those were my first instincts also but I found this first quote and thought who better than God and depending on him help us be humble even in our marriages.

Is pride the opposite of humility and is one the antidote to the other? In Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage Dr. H Wallace Goddard quotes President Ezra Taft Benson from his talk on Pride. [Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves... Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. "How everything affects me" is the center of all that matters-self-conceit, self- pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking. The antidote for pride is humility-meekness, submissiveness. It is the broken heart and contrite spirit. God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble...Let us choose to be humble. We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are.] (p76)

H. Wallace Goddard says in regards to repentence that " The natural man is inclined to love himself and fix others. God has asked us to do the opposite. We are to fix ourselves by repenting and to love others." (Goddard, 2009, pg 69). By repenting we can extend our hands to Heavenly Father and ask for his mercy on us and how to show it to our spouses when their idiosyncracy's get on our nerves. Dr. Goddard declares "Turning to God in faith and repentance is the cure for pride and self-centeredness." (Goodard, 2009, pg 72).  

Elder Ezra Taft Benson says in his talk Beware of Pride "The central feature of pride is enmity - enmity toward god and toward our fellowmen. Enmity means "hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition." It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us." (para 10).  He goes on to say Another face of pride is contention. Arguments, fights, unrighteous dominion, generation gaps, divorces, spouse abuse, riots, and disturbances all fall into this category. (para 30). President Benson gives us a list of things we can do to become and find humility. [We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are. We can choose to humble ourselves by receiving counsel and chastisement. We can choose to humble ourselves by forgiving those who have offended us. We can choose to humble ourselves by rendering selfless service. We can choose to humble ourselves by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others. We can choose to humble ourselves by getting to the temple more frequently. We can choose to humble ourselves by confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God. We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.] (para 45-50).
When I personally render selfless service I feel more open to being humble, as well as when I go to the temple and learn more about how to get back to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Influencing Our Spouse

 In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage work Dr. John M. Gottman says "When a husband accepts his wife's influence, he also strengthens their friendship. This occurs just because the absence of frequent power struggles makes the marriage more pleasureable, but because such a husband is open to learning from his wife. And there's no doubt that women have plenty to teach men about friendship." (Gottman, 2015, pg 121).

Being Influenced By Our Spouse

 More from his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Dr, Gottman states "Accepting influcence is an attitude but it's also a skill that you can hone if you pay attention to how you relate to your spouse." (Gottman, 2015, pg 126). He also says "A willingness to share power and to respect the other person's view is a prerequiste for compromisng. ...Becoming more adept at accepting influence will especially help you better cope with marital conflict." (Gottman, 2015, pg 136). I believe in my photo above usually the approaches can all work but when in doubt cooperative appeals work the best in our marriage. Being on the same page, giving and taking have a more profound effect than a logical or emotional appeal.

There was a time recently that my husband and I went to the Houston Temple with our ward and we had argued like we do frequently, and I had almost told him let’s not go to the temple because I am not feeling like it. Well I talked myself out of backing out of going to the lord's house and worshipping him. I went and as soon as I went in those temple doors and gave them my temple recommend my feelings of hard heartedness were being swept away. On a rare occasion I made it through to the celestial room before he did, and I had a chance to pray and seek some answers of how to talk to my husband about the argument we were having. The peace of the temple and the fact I fought Satan's attempt to keep me miserable and upset help me find the avenue I needed to get the point across I wanted to my husband and be open to his point of view and get over my stubbornness by relinquishing some power. I hope to continue following what these great authors and experts have to say about marriage. 

References 

Goddard, H. W. (2009). Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. Cedar Hills: Joymap.
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2015). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York: Harmony Books.