Saving Marriage -- Part IV

This is Part IV. Part 1 is here, Part II here, and Part III here. In Part III, I talked about how we can’t change a spouse, but I promised to talk about how we can share needs in a way that might lead to change. Here’s that discussion:

In a workshop on family communication I learned this: Everyone has a right to express his needs; he does not have a right to have his needs met.

In that workshop, we learned about assertive communication (as opposed to passive/aggressive or just aggressive communication).

How we communicate in a marriage makes a great deal of difference about how we feel about ourselves and our partner, and it may also be driven by how we feel about ourselves and our partner.
Let me start in the middle:

Assertive communication is a way for me to share my thoughts, feelings and needs in a way that is complete and honest, but does not threaten my partner. It allows me to be clear about what I want, but it does not make undue demands. And it does not hide my real intentions.

Passive/aggressive communication, on the other hand, masks controlling behavior in compliant communication. I seek to get what I want without actually saying what I want. Think stereotypical martyr-mother: Oh, that’s fine; don’t worry about me!

Aggressive communication, on the third hand (how many hands do I have??) is just that – it makes demands without regard for the other person’s feelings or point of view. Think drill sergeant or domineering spouse.

How we communicate says a lot about how we feel about our self and our partner. A wife who fears her husband is less likely to choose assertive communication. She may discount her own opinion because she has little confidence in it, or she fears his response to it. So she may passively accept whatever he has to offer.

By the same token, a person who leads but lacks confidence may be overly aggressive in his communication to compensate for his feelings of inadequacy.

Emotional health fosters – and is fostered by – assertive communication in which each partner can speak honestly about his or her feelings without the false expectation that he or she will get everything he or she wants.

Let’s look at an example:

He: (Thinking he’s being polite) I’m glad we’re going out to dinner tonight. Where would you like to go?

She: (Thinking: He always does this! Why does he make me choose? Why can’t he take responsibility for the date?) Oh, I don’t care. Wherever you want to go is fine with me.

He: Ok. I really feel like a burger. How about the Tavern Grill?

She: Really? Oh. Ok, I guess.

That’s classic passive/aggressive communication. It may be true that Dear Husband blew it by not planning the date better, but Lovely Wife ended up disappointed because her needs were not met. And why were they not met? Because Dear Hubby had no idea what they were.

How could it be better? Let’s look:

He: (Thinking he’s being polite) I’m glad we’re going to dinner tonight. Where would you like to go?

She: Honey, thanks for asking my opinion, but it seems every time we go out, you ask me where I want to go.

He: Oh. I just wanted to see if you had anywhere special you wanted to go.

She: That’s sweet of you, but sometimes it feels like maybe you haven’t made any plans.

He: I guess I can see how you might think that. Would you rather I choose a place?

She: I do like it when you make plans for us. It makes me feel like we’re on a real date. But I also like having input. I just don’t like feeling like I have to make the decision every time.

He: Sounds like you feel like I’m inviting you to dinner, then making you make the plans. I guess that’s not much fun for you.

She: Well, yeah, I think you’re right. But I do appreciate your taking me to dinner, really!

He: How about if I suggest a place, and if you’d rather not go there, you can tell me, and then we can choose something else. That way I’ll have given it some thought, and you won’t have to feel like you’re planning it. But you’ll also get a vote in where we go.

Ok, I know it all sounds pretty corny, doesn’t it? Would it surprise you to know my lovely wife and I had almost that exact conversation a few years ago (right after we took that communication class)? The impact of that simple exchange has been remarkable.

Here’s why:

1. My lovely wife had some unmet needs. First, she had a need for me actually to plan our date. And second, she had a need to be able to tell me how she felt.

2. Although I thought I was being polite by seeking her point of view, I was not meeting her need to have me plan the date. And I wasn’t making it very easy for her to share her point of view, either. (She was afraid she’d hurt my feelings.)

3. Because we had been practicing assertive communication, in which we each shared our needs with one another, she was more comfortable telling me what she really thought. Because she cared about me, she did it in a way that was kind, but also clear. Because I cared about her, I listened to what she said instead of becoming defensive. Her need to share became more important to me than my need to defend my position.

4. Once she shared her need, I mirrored back what she said to be sure I understood. When she saw I was getting the message (instead of being defensive), she was more willing to keep sharing.

I’ve used a very simple example, but the principle works in all sorts of issues in a marriage. I really believe (as you know from my other “Saving Marriage” posts) that we can’t control another person’s behavior. But we can influence one another. Assertive communication is a key tool for developing an honest and open dialogue with our spouse. And that honest and open communication is key to sharing – and ultimately meeting – one another’s needs.

President Kimball taught the following about marriage:

The formula is simple; the ingredients are few, though there are many amplifications of each.

First, there must be the proper approach toward marriage, which contemplates the selection of a spouse who reaches as nearly as possible the pinnacle of perfection in all the matters which are of importance to the individuals. And then those two parties must come to the altar in the temple realizing that they must work hard toward this successful joint living.

Second, there must be a great unselfishness, forgetting self and directing all of the family life and all pertaining thereunto to the good of the family, subjugating self.

Third, there must be continued courting and expressions of affection, kindness, and consideration to keep love alive and growing.

Fourth, there must be a complete living of the commandments of the Lord as defined in the gospel of Jesus Christ (“Oneness in Marriage,” Ensign, March 1997).

It’s his second point – subjugating self for the good of the family – that gets to the heart of successful assertive communication. We do not subjugate ourselves by ignoring our needs. We do it by mutually working to meet each other’s needs. I am the first to acknowledge that in an emotionally unhealthy relationship, subjugation of self is a dangerous thing. That’s why all four parts of President Kimball’s formula are so important.

But even in less-than-perfect marriages, assertive communication -- communication in which we say what we mean, mean what we say, but don’t say it meanly – can help partners to express their needs, leading to healthy discussion. Assertive communication can reduce aggressive or passive/aggressive communication that would continue to foster the unhealthy relationship.

Saving Marriage -- Part III

In the last installment, I said I’d talk about how to get someone else to change.

Have you ever had a say something like this to you, “My husband drives me nuts! How do I get him to…?”

Here’s the answer: You can’t.

I could stop the post there, since I’ve written complete truth, but there’s still more I want to say. But you could stop reading here and get the basic message.

When I was in a position that had me counseling couples from time to time, the most common experience was that a spouse (usually a wife) came to see me and asked, “How do I get my husband to…?” Fill in the blank with anything from spend more time with the children, get a better job, earn more money, honor his priesthood (apparently the list of husband-infractions is long; fortunately most people did not have a list of more than two or three things).

My first response to these questions (which I never said out loud, as far as I remember) was, “How should I know?” Sometimes I listened to the spouse complain a while and then offered some technique for communicating. Once or twice I might have even offered to speak to the spouse (where I usually got a completely different side of the story and a similar question: “How do I get her to….?” A few times I sent the couple off to LDS Family Services for counseling.

During my time as bishop -- and since then -- I’ve learned a few things about people, and one of them is this: I can’t make you do anything. (Even if you’re my teenager.)

It’s not that I should not try to make you do something. I simply cannot do it.

I learned part of this lesson early in our marriage when children started to come. My sweet mother-in-law reminded us that a parent can never make a child eat, sleep or go to the bathroom. What she neglected to say is that a parent cannot make a child do anything. Had I learned that lesson sooner, I might have saved my oldest son some years of emotional pain. As it is, his younger siblings owe him a great debt.

There are (at least) two huge marriage lessons to take from this truth:

1. You can’t fall in love and marry someone assuming you will change him or her over time. He or she may change, but you can’t build your future on it.

2. Trying to change someone else will only may you unhappy.

I was really fortunate when I married my lovely wife. I loved her just the way she was. I saw nothing about her I wanted to change. Some would say I was naïve, or maybe immature (and they would be right: I was just 21, after all), but that was my reality when we married. But I have known spouses who desperately wanted to change their partners. Those seeking the change were always unhappy.

I believe the source of their unhappiness was less in the behavior of their spouse (the behavior they wanted to change) and more in their determination to do something they simply could not do.

We could talk about the doctrine of agency here. Often when we do, we speak in terms of allowing someone to make choices. Real agency in adults is not about allowing someone to choose; it’s about recognizing that each of us will choose. Our teenagers who lead wholesome lives choose to do so. Our teenagers who stray choose that, too. They will make choices. Foolish parents assume they have more influence over the choices their teens make than they do. (I’m not saying parents don’t have influence, but at some point our kids make their own choices independent of what we have taught them. The sooner we recognize that, the better parents we can be, because we can operate in the light of truth – but that’s a different post.)

From my 21st-century American viewpoint, it seems unthinkable to me that there may be husbands or wives who think they can keep a spouse from doing something by “not allowing” it. But I acknowledge that there must be some who do. After all, as recently as last April’s conference, Elder Wilson told of an interchange with his new bride within a month of their marriage. He thought she should drive more slowly and told her so. He tells the story:

She replied, “What gives you the right to tell me how to drive?”

Frankly, her question caught me off guard. So, doing my best to step up to my new responsibilities as a married man, I said, “I don’t know—because I’m your husband and I hold the priesthood.”

When the laughter in the conference center died down, he then spoke at length about how we influence our family, but also about the fact that we cannot force them into good behavior.

Since we cannot force someone into our way of thinking, trying to do so will frustrate us. We may develop an expectation that our partner behaves a certain way. We may mistakenly try to compel that behavior. And when the desired behavior fails to materialize, we will be frustrated, and maybe angry. That resentment may lead us to try to control the situation even more, which will ultimately lead to any number of unhappy endings.

We cannot force someone to choose our way. Trying to do so will ultimately make us unhappy.

In a future installment, I’ll write about how we can communicate our needs in a way that may facilitate change.

Saving Marriage -- Part II

A second in an occasional series (Part I here).

It may come as a shock to some of you, but when we marry, we marry humans. Flawed, imperfect humans. I know that’s hard to believe. People who are courting tend to see fewer flaws (and work very, very hard to hide their own). And in those early honeymoon years of marriage, we tend to work hard to hide them, too.

But sooner or later it will dawn on us: my spouse is as human as I am. Yikes! (Of course this thought, if we are lucky, might be tempered by the realization that our spouse has already figured that out about us.)

Since we’re human, we will make mistakes. All sorts of mistakes. We’ll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, think the wrong thing. We’ll hurt one another’s feelings (whether we mean to or not), and we may take offense, even when none is intended. We’ll be judgmental. We may even try to change one another.

How do good marriages survive those kinds of mistakes? I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I have one: Charity.

Before you hit the delete key, thinking you’ve stumbled on another Sunday School answer, let me explain. If ever there were a place for charity (that is, the pure love of Christ) it is in our homes with our spouses. And (if my experience is any measure) it may the hardest place to have charity.

Why should we have charity? Well, we’ve spent weeks, months, maybe years trying to convince our spouse during the courting years that we were in love. That love should not peter out after the wedding, but should continue to grow. And that love should grow beyond the romantic and sexual love that are so prevalent during courting. (And if we nurture it, it does grow!) We’ve made covenants with that spouse of ours and part of honoring that covenant is to foster the development of love in the relationship.

What good does charity do in a marriage? Plenty! I have a friend who signs off her emails with the words “Assume the best.” Not a bad motto, and especially not a bad motto within our families. In a family with charity, I could assume that whatever my lovely wife says to me is said with love and concern for me. If I choose to hear everything that way, I am much less likely to take offense or feel the need to defend my position. And if I am always assuming the best about my spouse, then I am much less likely to offend in the first place, because I’m more likely to put her needs above mine in the relationship. (The fact that I understand this intellectually should not lead you to a conclusion that I actually do it all the time; I fail often, because I’m human.)

President Kimball taught that the best marriages are not 50:50 affairs in which each partner loses half the time. Instead they are 100:100 unions in which each spouse looks out for the good of the other, and each spouse finds joy in helping the other to succeed. That’s a risky proposition if the relationship is unhealthy, because one spouse who gives 100% to another spouse who gives nothing is a recipe for therapy at best, and maybe even ending the marriage or worse. But in a healthy relationship, giving ourselves to one another is a valuable component of a successful marriage.

But even in the most charitable marriage, there may be some moments that are not perfect. In those instances, charity leads to forgiveness. (Forgiveness is my letting go of the offense, not my excusing the other party from the consequences of that offense, by the way.) I’m grateful for the charity that my lovely wife shows toward me when she overlooks my flaws and forgives me for mistakes. Interestingly, that does not mean she suffers silently while I do things that annoy her. It means that she has learned over the years to speak to me in a kind, yet assertive, way that communicates her needs in our relationship, so that I have an opportunity to step up and do my part. She speaks from her point of view (which is all she can do). She does not dictate how I respond, and she does not demand that I do certain things. But she tells me what she thinks, what she sees, and what she needs. And she does it kindly.

It’s up to me, then, to determine how to respond. When I respond with charity, I seek to understand her point of view, to understand her needs and to sort out where I’m not meeting those needs. And to change what I’m doing. Our marriage is one where we seek to support one another and to meet one another’s needs. I win when she wins. And she wins when I win. (Some days the kids win, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.)

In the next installment (whenever that is) I’ll talk about how we get people to change.

Saving Marriage -- Part I

A story:

Once upon a time there were two people who fell in love and got married.

As it happened, they met at work. He was an engineering from the “home office” to check on equipment for a heavy construction job the company was doing. She was the secretary in the boss’ office. He asked her to “take a letter” to the boss, detailing all the mistakes he was making with the maintenance of the equipment. And then he asked her to a movie.

When he picked her up, her father answered the door. The father also happened to the be the boss – the recipient of the letter from the young engineer who’d come to check the job site.

That’s a story that got told in our family from time to time. “He” was my father and “she” was my mother. (Her father and my dad obviously worked out their differences.)

Remembering how a romance began is important to keeping it alive. And we’ve done the same thing in our marriage. For years I’ve told the story of how my lovely wife and I met the first Friday of our freshman year at BYU, introduced by my roommate. (As it happens, I realized not long ago that it was, in fact, a Saturday, not a Friday.) And I love to tell stories of that first year at BYU together. It is, for me, more than just an exercise in waxing nostalgic. It is also linked to that Nephite (and Hebrew) practice of remembering where we came from and how we got to where we are today.

When I was in a position to counsel couples, I would often ask them how they met or when they first fell in love. I was a bishop, not a marriage counselor (and I knew I was not the latter; I didn’t hesitate to recommend professional help for some couples), but I believed then as I do now that remembering the romance we once felt helps us to keep it alive years later.

It is one way I believe that couples can keep a spark in their marriage, and maybe even rekindle one where it has faded.

What are ways that you remember the best times of your marriage?

32 Years of Heaven

My lovely wife and I celebrated 32 years of wedded bliss yesterday. Well, most of the 32 years was bliss, anyway. Well, some of the time, anyway – interspersed with diaper changes, sick kids, money troubles, grad school, stress from career building, family moves, births of seven children, death of parents, teenage squabbles, home improvement disasters, personal foibles, frustrations and forgiveness.

The fact is I have no idea what a perfect marriage is. Is it one in which there’s never a raised voice? Never a disagreement? Or is it one in which there are disagreements that, once resolved, drive deeper harmony and understanding? Is it one without money trouble, health problems, teenage surliness, non-sleeping toddlers? Or is it one in which all those things exist and somehow Mom and Dad sleepwalk their way through it together?

On a talk tape that circulated through my mission, Hartman Rector tells of meeting a cabbie in a large North American city. As a prelude to asking the golden questions, he asked the cabbie if he were married, and the cabbie said yes. Elder Rector asked if the cabbie loved his wife, and the cabbie said yes. Elder Rector asked why, and the cabbie said, “Because of what we’ve been through together.”

That message is firmly planted in my brain, especially after what my lovely wife and I have been through together. Our shared experiences, good and bad, have made our union what it is. I remember sitting together on a clear night in Valencia, Venezuela, thinking how cool it was to be in this exotic place with the woman I love. And I remember sitting in the ER with my four year old daughter as she had her broken arm set, thinking how fortunate I was to have my lovely wife share that experience, too.

I can say without reservation that I do love my wife more today than ever – certainly more than the day I married her, because when I married her we had not yet been on this long roller coaster of life.

I recall looking with my bride into those “eternal mirrors” in the sealing room of the Logan Temple, unable at the time to conceive what one week of married life would be like. Had we foreseen what was to come, who knows what we might have done differently. Maybe we would have waited longer to have children. Maybe we would have made different educational choices. Maybe, maybe, maybe. In the end, it doesn’t matter much what we might have done. We did what we did and we are where we are.

Ok, so maybe not every moment of the last 32 years has seemed like heaven. Unless heaven is going to work every day at a job that isn’t necessarily my favorite, but which is by all standards a great job, and one which I’m extremely fortunate to have. Unless heaven is living with the reality that half my kids disagree with me on the things that are most important to me in my life, and yet they are still willing to sit around my dining table when they are home. Unless heaven includes surgeries and pregnancies and illness and recoveries. Unless heaven includes seasonal bouts with depression, or at least discontent, and seasons of happiness and even joy. Unless heaven includes wondering how to pay all the bills some months and the recognition of God’s hand in our resources over time.

I wouldn’t trade those 32 years with anyone. Because I’ve shared them with my best friend.

Love, marriage, children, and a gift

Anyone who has parented more than a few years will know what I’m feeling today.

First, let me remind you that I’ve been a parent for over thirty years. My lovely wife and I have seven children who have all gone through various stages of awesomeness and not-so-awesomeness, just as I have. (My wife has never gone through a phase of non-awesomeness, at least not since I’ve known her.)

Today I received a lovely gift from my daughter – she’s number five of seven, and she’s somewhere in the middle of her BYU experience. (She needs so many credit hours to finish her program, it doesn’t make sense to speak in terms of sophomore and junior – I think according to those guidelines she’ll be a senior for two or three years…)

For one of her education classes, she produced a five-minute audio documentary about my lovely wife and me. In it she quotes from my personal history (she had someone read the passage), and she managed to get my lovely wife on tape, talking about us and our 31+ year marriage. The quality of the mini documentary is actually pretty good – the story is compelling and it’s well-told. She lets my lovely wife and me speak for our marriage, and she adds only a bit of her own commentary along the way.

This little audio file is a great gift for several reasons:

1. I’m pleased that she (and our other children) values the marriage that their mother and I share. Each one of the kids who’s beyond surly-teenagerhood has expressed a desire to have what we have – a happy marriage in which both partners value, honor and trust one another.

2. I’m pleased that she read my personal history and remembered what I had said about her mother. One of the key reasons I wrote my history was so that my children would know about the people and ideas that are most important to me. At the top of that list is their mother.

3. I’m kind of happy that she thinks enough of what we have to share it with others. Our marriage has not been Disney-perfect by any means. But we are more in love today than the day we married, that’s for sure. (I remember a religion instructor I had at BYU years ago who pointed out that love was not defined by flowers and gifts during the engagement period. It was defined by a husband’s willingness to clean up after his wife vomits in the toilet for the tenth or twentieth or thirtieth straight day of her pregnancy, and her willingness to bear children, knowing that it would mean days of vomiting into the toilet.) As my wife told my daughter, we have come to understand forgiveness and the blessings of the atonement in our marriage as in other areas of our lives.

By the way, here’s the passage from my history that my daughter quoted in her documentary:

The most remarkable thing about [my wife], and the reason I knew I was in love with her, was that I just felt so good around her. I not only felt good, like a good feeling, but I felt good, like being a better person, just because she was around me. I wanted to be good for her. I joked later as a bishop when talking to the youth that I married [her] because she was a seminary graduate. While that's probably not the linear thought pattern I had, it was sort of true. She was so good, and I wanted to be good to keep up with her.

May I always live up to that desire.

Presiding with equal partners

The proclamation on the family is clear: "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness...."

But it's also clear: "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

How does Dad preside when Mom is an equal partner?

We discussed this topic in our high priests' group yesterday, and although we did not resolve it, we had some good thoughts.

In his talk "Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church," Dallin Oaks helps us understand the relationship between partnership and presiding. He says that although the structure in the church is hierarchical (we follow our "file" leaders), in the family it is patriarchal. He quote the partnership line from the Proclamation as I have above, and he quote President Kimball who urges wives to have a full partnership with their husbands, not a limited or silent one. He reiterates that the concept of partnership between husbands and wives is not the cultural norm all around the world, but that it is ordained of God. And he quotes Doctrine & Convenants 121:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge (verses 41-42)

declaring, "When priesthood authority is exercised in that way in the patriarchal family, we achieve the 'full partnership' President Kimball taught."

As I listened to the discussion, I thought about what I've heard about how the Quorum of the Twelve functions -- that they and the First Presidency consider matters of policy for some time, that they have open discussions, and that they often carry over those discussions for weeks in order to allow all members to come to consensus. This certainly seems to be the process described in Edward Kimball's biography of his father's presidency of the church (Lengthen Your Stride) when President Kimball discussed his revelation regarding extension of the priesthood to all worthy male members of the church (see OD2).

And I thought of an example in our family from the past week. We have a particular delicate issue that my wife and I are trying to works through with one of our children. There is no easy answer, and we are not personally equipped to resolve it on our own. We have discussed the matter a number of times over the past months, and in the last few days it has become more acute. We agreed to pray separately and together. We have been discussing the promptings we have received (some in the moment we need them). Our path to consensus has been bumpy. At some moments we've been completely aligned and at others we've appeared to be diametrically opposed to one another. But we continue to counsel together to find a solution.

In this matter, I would never assume that as "presider" I had the sole right to revelation on the matter. Nor would I want to "delegate" the matter to my lovely wife -- not because she is not capable, for she is! -- but because I would not want to ask her to bear the burden alone.

We have not come out on the other side of the tunnel, yet, and we may not for some time. But I'm grateful for an equal partner who is sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and who is gracious in how she shares the burdens of parenthood.

It was all a lie!

I learned this morning that I’ve been living a lie.

And it’s the fault of those friends I blogged about earlier this week.

Turns out our friends brought my lovely wife a packet full of letters that she wrote to her friend, including letters from my wife’s first year at college. Some of those letters from our first year in college mention me. And how we met.

(Here’s comes the lie.)

I have for years (35 of them, in fact) been telling the story that we met on the first Friday of our freshman year. Say it out loud. First Friday of our freshman year. See how nicely it rolls off the tongue? First Friday of our freshman year.

Except it’s not true.

In a letter dated September 12, my lovely wife (then my lovely wife-to-be, though neither of us knew that then) told her friend that we met when my college roommate and I visited her apartment on the first Saturday of our freshman year.

You can see why I’m upset. Our whole history is based on our romantic beginning on the first Friday of our freshman year. And now, after 35 years, I learn it was a lie.

Well, a mistake.

Oh, and I’ve always gotten the date right: September 4, 1976. And, yep. That’s a Saturday.

So this coming Sunday, when we celebrate the 35th anniversary of our meeting, at least we’ll know we got the date right. And I’ll have to look for a new alliterative way to tell our story.

How about the first Saturday of September?

Make Your Bed...

I took the day off work today because it's my son's birthday and some of our adult children are in town to help celebrate. So this morning my wife and I had the opportunity to make our bed together. (Usually we follow the "last one out" rule -- the last one out of the bed makes it. On my work days, my wife is usually last one out, unless she can't sleep. On sleep-in days, I am usually the last one out.)

As we tugged at the sheet and bedspread to get them even, we laughed as we pulled them out of one another's hands until they were finally aligned. It would have been just as easy to be annoyed at the other's tugging, but we had a common goal, and we were well rested enough to laugh rather than scowl.

A valuable lesson in marriage: common goals and a propensity to laugh rather than scowl can make all the difference.

31 years of highlights...

My lovely wife and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary this week. We've been on the road for a number of reasons -- a nephew's missionary farewell talk, a daughter's having moved into her own place on her own for the first time, and a conference we're attending in Boston. So as part of our trip, we spent our anniversary at a lovely inn in NE Pennsylvania.

As we sat on the porch of the English arts and crafts inn, we enjoyed a delightful gourmet dinner while overlooking the beautiful English garden. And I mentioned that I'd been wondering what we could consider the "highlights" of each of our 31 years together.

So as we ate our meal, we went year by year and reminisced about the best things from each year. Of course we remembered our wedding itself, the birth of our seven children, high school graduations, college graduations (including our own!), family moves, and special family vacations. But we also remembered small everyday things that have made our life what it is. Some details we had a hard time placing in a specific year, especially the nine years we stayed in one place (it seems easier to anchor memories around the moves!), but we did the best we could.

We couldn't avoid also remembering a few bumps in the road, some of which we've made it through, and others we're still working on.

But it was wonderful to sit on that porch enjoying a couple of hours' reflection on the very best of times with my best friend and sweetheart.

I know that not everyone is as fortunate as I have been, and I can't begin to calculate why I have been blessed with the remarkable marriage I have. But I know I have been blessed, and I'm grateful for it.

And I look forward to the next 31 years, and the next, and the next...

Might I Be Wrong?

I've been reading C. Terry Warner's book Bonds That Make Us Free (again!). I first came to this book when a friend's son went through a wilderness program in Arizona and the parents all got a copy of Warner's book. I read it then (about ten years ago) and I've read it a few times since. With each reading I collect more tools, more understanding.

I won't summarize the book; I couldn't do it justice. But I want to share a thought that came to me while reading.

In a chapter I read recently, Warner suggests that one step toward healing a relationship is to ask ourselves if we might be wrong. I could think instantly about how this works. I thought about spats I've had with my wife. In our particular dynamic over the years we've developed a rather well-rehearsed bit of Kabuki theatre. She raises a point of view. I disagree in a way that is shaper than it needs to be, sending a message not only that I think she's wrong, but that she also interprets as meaning I think her point of view is dumb. She retreats. I win the "battle" but do so in a way that leaves me feeling icky.

At some point, my icky feeling prompts me to rethink my position and hers, and I inevitably ask myself if maybe I was wrong. (Cynical children might respond here, "Dad, of course you are wrong!") Asking the question opens me to reconsider what she has said and to reflect on how she might be right, and I can come to an understanding of her point of view, even if I don't fully subscribe to it. And then I can approach her again, apologize for my poor treatment of her and her ideas, and we can have a calm conversation in which our ideas share equal footing, equal encouragement and we can finally reach consensus.

The good news is that this Kabuki does not play itself out as often as it once did because with practice, my initial responses are less sharp – that central question comes to me much faster than it once did. And when the Kabuki theatre does happen, the time from offense to repair is faster because I'm learning what I need to do.

The question of whether I might be wrong is a valuable one for me – in my relationship with my wife, with my children, my co-workers and friends. It is a step toward humility and charity. And peace.

Peace, I'm learning, is way more valuable to me that being right.

Working Celestial Marriage

Mormons talk about "saving ordinances," meaning ordinances that we believe are required to return to our Father in Heaven's presence. The final of these is the sealing ordinance in which a man and woman can be sealed together in the temple for time and all eternity.

I agree that the ordinances are required. But the sealing alone is not what makes a marriage celestial. Elder Glenn Pace spoke recently at a BYU devotional. I haven't read his whole talk, but the following quotation from the Church News struck me: "It is the marriage ceremony in the temple where husband and wife receive the power to perfect their relationship and, thereby, obtain their exaltation" (emphasis mine).

It seems that the sealing ordinance is the just the start, just as baptism is the gate by which we enter a path back to God. The sealing ordinance is another gate, but it's the relationship, if I'm reading Elder Pace correctly, that matters. Said another way: a temple wedding does not by itself a celestial marriage make.

There's the sad joke about one spouse who wonders aloud whether he would want to spend eternity with his wife, and the wife's response wondering why she'd want to spend it with him.

As for me, I would be thrilled to spend forever with my wife. We're best friends and we have been since we met over three decades ago (when she supplanted my then-best friend who introduced us).

I believe that as spouses we have an opportunity to ennoble our significant others through service, devotion, loyalty, sacrifice, kindness and love. President Kimball taught the principle that a 50/50 marriage will struggle because each partner measures the 50% differently and so the two are likely not to meet in the middle. But a 100/100 marriage is one in which each spouse looks out for the other completely. In that circumstance, neither will want because one spouse will watch out for the other's needs.

Building such a marriage takes time and trust. And there are probably few that get to the 100/100 level. And there may be seasons where such an achievement is made difficult by the pressures of life. But my own experience is that it is a goal worth reaching for. The times when I remember to seek to understand my wife's point of view instead of defending my own, when I empathize instead of criticize, when I, after years of getting to know her, understand her concerns even before she expresses them are moments when I see a glimmer of what President Kimball spoke of. When my wife similarly reaches out to me, accurately articulates my point of view and demonstrates that she knows me and loves me, I feel safety and peace in our relationship.

Such a relationship is not without risk. If one partner offers 100% and the other takes it without offering anything in return, the relationship is not healthy, and may even be dangerous. But if couples can walk this path together, the results can be awesome.

I heard a bit of dialog in a movie on TV the other day that teaches one way this happens. This couple was getting ready to be married. The woman is upset about something and begins to share her feelings with her fiancé, and he begins to respond with, "I don't think…" She holds up her hand to stop him and say, "I don't want you to take the other side. I don't want you to tell me what you think. I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen to me and let me say what I have to say." He agrees, and she starts again, and he interrupts her again, and she says again, "Just listen." He listens. She spills out her emotions. He touches her shoulder and then holds her, and says nothing.

Giving 100% to our spouses does not mean imposing ourselves or our solutions on them. It mean really listening, really working to understand their needs, and doing what we can to meet them (or to support our spouses in their efforts to meet them).

Here's to the 100% solution, and to the marriage relationships that will benefit from it.

A Nod to Valentine's Day: True Love

In a nod to the season, a comment on True Love:

I don't have a huge data sample but I've been fortunate to observe what I think is "true love".

I don't have to look much farther than my own marriage, but I see it in others' marriages, too, so I don't think I'm alone in what I'm about to write.

My lovely wife and I have been married almost 30 years (this coming June). That statistic is pretty cool, but not terribly unusual among my circle of friends (many of whom are not LDS). And there are lots of reasons for people to stay together through thick and thin, but the biggest reason we do, I think, is that we love each other.

When my wife and I were dating (we met at age 17 and started dating, saw one another every day from the time we met through our freshman year at BYU, wrote (but not every week) through my mission, and married when I came home. I had known her for about three weeks when I started to feel like she was "the one" for me. (In fairness, my lovely wife, more conservative than I was, took longer to be convinced. And even so, we didn't ever discuss long term commitments before my mission – not that we said we wouldn't, it just didn't come up.)

How did I know? Well, aside from just having a great time whenever she was around, I think it was that she made me want to be better than I would have been without her. I guess that might sound kind of sappy in a 1940's Hollywood Love Story kind of way, but it's true. (I used to joke with youth when I was in a position to do so that I married my wife because she was a seminary graduate. Though that wasn't strictly my thought process, the principle was right. I knew she was good and kind and she had graduated seminary (and I hadn't; maybe that's why she took longer to decide whether to take a chance on me…). I could tell that she was going where I wanted to go, and fortunately she let me come along with her.)

When my son got married last year, we sat in the kitchen of his bride's parents the day before the wedding, and I was telling the bride's dad that one of the reasons we were so happy about this wedding is that our son is just a better person when he's around his bride. Her dad looked at me and said, "We were just talking yesterday and observed the same thing about B."

So with my sample of two, I've counseled my other kids to look for someone who makes them better than they are. And someone for whom they do the same thing.

- Paul

PS: Feb 14 is also Chinese New Year. Xin nian kuai le!)