Week 8 PRIDE has no place in a marriage.

n a marriage, even a strong stable marriage, your faults and weakness become glaringly apparent.  Very quickly.  Sometimes the way your upbringing has something to do with it.  Sometimes its just learning to live with and love you spouse now that you are under the same roof.  What I learned from this week’s readings is that marriage is either a fight to the literal death of the marriage, or learning to yield and change.  I could be very wrong in my assumption, but I don’t think that I am too far off. 

First of all, no one loves to be corrected.  No one relishes in being told that they are doing something wrong.  And no one loves a know it all.  This applies to marriage and yielding to one’s spouse.  There are times where doing certain things a certain way is important to the wife.  In Dr. Gottman’s book “The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work”, principle four is called “Letting your spouse influence you”.  Dr. Gottman uses the proverbial example of the toilet seat up or down.  He writes, “So a man can score major points with his wife just by putting the seat down.  The wise husband smiles at how smart he is as he drops the lid.”  What struck me is that the husband in this example is still winning, even though he is giving in to what his wife wants.  Could she put the seat down?  Sure.  But knowing that her husband made the effort to yield to something that was important to her will score him major bonus points. At the same time the wife feels valued and validated that her husband loves her, and knows her needs and wants are important to him. 

In my own marriage, I have been very blessed to have a husband who is very aware of things.  More importantly, he is very open to suggestions and needs that I have, especially when I am struggling to get everything together.  Last night was a long one, and we were so tired that I didn’t get the dishes completely finished before going to bed.  I woke up to find that my husband had cleaned the rest of the kitchen this morning, because he knows I like waking up to a clean kitchen.  I didn’t ask him to, but he did that for me because he knew it would make me happy.  This is the win-win situation.  I win by having a clean kitchen and a huge smile on my face.  He wins by cleaning the kitchen and having a super happy and affectionate wife all day long (wink wink :P)  

Letting your partner influence you is in no way giving up your power to your wife or your husband.  I look at it like this:  You can listen and reflect what the person is saying.  You can validate and be there for them.  Then your partner has the opportunity to listen, reflect and validate you.  From that place of listening and understanding, and detaching pride from any of it, together the couple can work together to find that win-win situation like the toilet seat.