Turning Toward One Another

This is something that should be easy and that everyone should already know about and be doing but for someone reason I stopped doing it along the way. I started thinking that if my husband wasnt going to show his love for me then why should I but let me tell you something every since I started reading the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work not only has my marriage transformed but so have I. I realized that I was part of the problem and just because my husband wouldnt tell me what I was doing to hurt him so that I could change it I could learn how to change myself trough this book and in turn change our marriage. I started turning towards him and instead of thinking what the heck I thought I wonder why he chose to do that and so I would ask him and though sometimes I still thought my idea was better I at least saw the logic in his thinking and because I would turn toward him instead of just out rage he started to feel safe with me and he began to talk to be and help us build our relationship back up.

The Seven Principle for Making Marriage Work

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Activities

This activity has been very beneficial for me my husband is not good at showing emotion or talking about his feelings and I could tell that I was doing something that was hurting him I just couldn’t get him to tell me what it was so that I could change it. However, now since I have been reading this book I realized that it was my approach in how I talk to him and that I wasn’t making him feel safe so he wouldn’t tell me what I needed to change. Once I found out that I was doing it I was able to change my approach and now he is able to tell me things that are troubling him.

I really liked learning more about my husband as we played those games in the book. There were some questions that I didn’t know the answer to but made me realize that I know more about him than I thought and that knows more about me than I thought as well. This activity really helped us come closer together as a couple and helped us to realize what we needed to do different in our lives to show our love for each other.

I also tried to ignore the things that he does that annoys me and at first it was really hard and sometimes I wasn’t not able to keep my voice inside but as the week went on it got easier and I no longer noticed them as much and I actually started to think that they were endearing. That was something that I never thought was possible because I always thought that if you didn’t like something about someone that you tell them and they change it because that is what I always do, however, it seems that they world doesn’t work the same way as I do and it was nice to learn a new way to handle things that annoy me. I also started replacing ever bad thought that I had about my spouse with a good one and if I was not able to think of a good one at the time I would just hum a song in my head so that I didn’t dwell on that fact.

The Four Horsemen

I learned from reading The Seven Principles to Making Marriage Work (this is seriously my new favorite book) and through tracking myself that I am a terrible person. My husband doesn’t know how to show his emotions let alone tell me what I am doing that is hurting him and I have been trying to figure it out with no luck. However, when I read this book and started tracking myself I saw not only that I use always and never a lot but also that I criticize my husband not complain, I am defensive, and sometimes I even have contempt for him. The reason that our problems were not getting solved was because of the way I was talking to him. When I read these it was honestly a prayer that was answered from God because now I know what I am doing to hurt my husband and I can change it and hopefully if I do it right he will feel comfortable opening up to me about what I am doing that is hurting him. I never wanted to hurt him I just didn’t know what I was doing to hurt him and he couldn’t tell me which is why I am a terrible person. This was one of those lessons that are hard to learn where you so frustrated that your husband isn’t talking to you that you cant see that you’re the reason he isn’t talking to you.

The Four horsemen are

Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling they are detrimental to your marriage and if not changed will sadly end in divorce.

Genealogy Effects

My Genogram starts with my paternal grandparents Charles and Evelyn they were married and sealed in the temple and lived in love until they died. They had six children Charlotte, Karl, Dany, Phil, Kathy, and my father Mitchell. They were all married in the temple and all but two of them have been divorced and remarried. My father married my mom and then they were sealed in the temple after which they had five children including me. My dad and mom got divorced in 1996 and them my father remarried in 2002 to MaLinda who also had five kids, my mother has sadly never remarried.

            My maternal grandparents are Hiroko and David they were married when my grandfather was stationed in Japan they had three girls and have since then divorced and my grandfather has died. My mother has a twin that was married in the temple and they are still happily married and her little sister was married and has not remarried since then.

            I learned that usually if you have the right role models and have seen what it means not only to endure but also to love, forgive, have patience, and long suffering that it is what you strive for and something that isn’t out of reach because you have felt it, you have lived it. However, I also learned that just because you have parents who have stayed together forever doesn’t mean that every one of your children will stay together, they are still their own people and therefor will do whatever they want and continue to make their own choices and mistakes. My father had the perfect example of love and long suffering and he was still divorced from my mother through choices and consequences of his own volition. My mother on the other hand had the worst representation of love in her family and yet she was still the one that remained faithful and loving. My mother is a true example of a forgiving person and I can only hope to be at least half of the person that she is.

            One person can have an effect on many generations. In my Genogram it shows that my parents are divorced what it doesn’t show is what happened to come to the final decision to get a divorce. This, however, is shown generations later where my older brothers and sister who saw the extent of the horrible things my father did to my mother are not married and to be quite honest have turned to drugs and alcohol many different times. They are almost 30 years old and most of them have not had a steady relationship and those that have are not going to commit because they want to make sure they have an escape route just in case. My little sister who was only 5 when they got divorced craved love so much that she got married right out of high school to someone who is emotional abusive because she thinks that’s what love is.