Battle of the Sexes

My fiance and I always have long talks about the difference between men and women.  He is very conservative and he tells me I can get pretty feminist at times.  We enjoy defending our sex and discussing the benefits and challenges of both men and women.  At times our talks even get a little heated. But in the end, we agree that our life would be missing a piece if we didn’t have the other gender.  He hates cooking and I don’t know the first thing about a car so we are happy to have each other and know that differences are what make men and women perfect for each other.

I think in today’s world, we get a little too concerned about who is winning and how much respect we get.  We forget that there are positive attributes in both genders.  Especially when it comes to raising children.  I was talking to my soon to be in-laws about the challenge of raising children.  They went on forever about how glad they were to have their spouse while they were taking care of their babies.  Sometimes all little boys need is a dad’s love to calm them down.  Other children won’t stop screaming until they get into their mother’s arms.  Moms and Dads teach specific skills to their children but these skills are best learned when they teach in unity.  

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Unity in marriage and unity in gender means understanding that there are differences.  It is agreeing to disagree.  At the end of the discussion, it is knowing that success doesn’t always come from winning.  Success comes from being at a point where you can work effectively with your spouse in raising your children.  That is a big statement coming from me. I cannot stand to lose!  But in this case, not being first is the only way to push past the trials.  

*http://matthewljacobson.com/2015/10/06/are-you-speaking-the-language-of-unity-in-marriage-every-day/

Loyalty

Loyalty is a key characteristic in any relationship.  I feel like this characteristic can come naturally to some but might be weaker in others.  There are things we are loyal to and in my opinion, this loyalty increases with age and maturity.  So the older we get the better we are at sticking to what we care for? Is it that easy?  I wish I could say yes but then we would all be sitting around waiting for the day to come when we were 75 and able to have a wonderful, fulfilling relationship.  Though maturity affects our loyalty in some ways, the main forces behind our loyalty are our own personal thoughts and actions.

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I have seen a quote on the internet many times.  I do not know the author but I think the quote is amazing.  It says, “Watch your thoughts for they will become your words. Watch your words for they become your actions.  Watch your actions for they become your habits.  Watch your habits for they become your character.  And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.” Our thoughts on loyalty are what determine our actions on loyalty and so forth.  We must be truly dedicated to our relationships especially in marriage.

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Kenneth W. Mattison wrote a talk about fidelity and gave a great example of a couple who struggled with this issue.  He gives a perfect example of how these kind of problems start so simply that it is hard to notice at first.  Simple friendships can turn into infidelity simply by spending more time and energy on the friendship than on your marriage.  It takes a constant effort in the marriage to avoid infidelity.  It has to start slowly with your thoughts and you will be able to conquer your temptations and desires and have a happy, long marriage.

Sources:

*https://www.pinterest.com/sbauer415/words-of-wisdom/

**http://quotesgram.com/quotes-about-love-and-loyalty/

Rats, I Hate Rats!

Rats, I Hate Rats

Have you ever heard the sing-song round entitled Rats?  It is a highly entertaining song for children and a highly annoying occurrence for adults.  If you haven’t heard it, it goes something like this;

          

  Crazy?

            I was crazy once!

            They put me in a room, a round room with rats!

            Rats?! I hate rats!

            They make me crazy!!!

(Repeated until you have lost your voice or an adult loses their temper.)

Try it.  It is fun.  AND it pertains to our topic today!

Goddard quotes C.S. Lewis in his seventh chapter of Drawing Heaven Into a Marriage when he discusses charity*.  Lewis says, “If there are rats in the cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats, it only prevents them from hiding.”  He goes on to talk about how this is relevant to charity in our own lives.  If we struggle with charity at times when we are surprised or upset, it means that we lack some form of charity.  The short temper and angry answer doesn’t come from a sudden occurrence.  It comes from the lack of charity in ourselves.

Elder Max Caldwell gave us some advice about charity.  He said that charity, or the pure love of Christ, had three dimensions. 

Love for Christ, Love from Christ, and Love like Christ.

For: We must have a special place in our heart for our love of Christ. This love is such a deep feeling that we cannot understanding it all at once.  The same principle goes with all the ways that we have and show our love to Christ.  It is not easily understood.  We need to realize what he has done for us and do more than appreciate his sacrifice.  We have to love him and appreciate his sacrifice so much that we do everything in order to become like him. We love him because he first loved us.

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From: This love is special.  This love is the perfect love that we must try to understand.  This is what sent Christ to sacrifice for us.  There was never a stronger love or more important task that had to be completed.  If we understand His love for us, we will have a stronger desire to love others.  Therefore love from Christ and love for Christ are building blocks.  They work together for us so that we can become a better person.

Like: We use this after we have built our foundation of love.  This is also a building block because it gives us an increase in the first two forms of love. But in my opinion, it is a secondary building block.  It cannot make a stable foundation.  We cannot love like Christ if we don’t understand how he loves us. 

All this talk about love is making me happy.  I think about all those I love in my life.  My fiancé, my parents, my siblings.  There is nothing that I would do to hurt them.  I always try and lift them up and help them succeed.  Imagine how much more our Savior loves us.  I know that if we all try to increase our Christ like love by even just a fraction, the world will be a better place.  We can get rid of the rats in our minds and hearts only through Jesus Christ and his Atonement.

And I really don’t like rats. :)

Resources:

*Goddard, H. W. (2007). Drawing heaven into your marriage: Powerful principles with eternal results. Fairfax, VA: Meridian Pub.

**http://www.meetmormonmissionaries.org/2613/future-mormon-missionary-contemplates-love-charity

Choices

CHOICES

This week I have thought a lot about choice.  We have choices in nearly everything we do.  We can choose to wake up at 6:30 and clean the house before heading to the Library to get ahead in our homework, or we can lounge in our leggings and over sized T-shirt, drinking diet Dr. Pepper and hoping the Diet will be forgiving on our waistline…since we haven’t made it to the gym in over three weeks!  I have been taking 14 credits of online classes for the last two months and unfortunately my life is looking a bit more like choice number two right now! 

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Choices don’t only affect our personal life and our waistline!  Choices affect every part of our waking life.  Our choices range anywhere from a bagel or a pop-tart to a divorce or a long lasting marriage.  That brings me to my point here today.  You may be wondering on the second choice I mentioned.  Is it really a choice whether or not we get a divorce?  Isn’t divorce just what you do when a marriage doesn’t work?  I am here to firmly say that it IS a choice! John M. Gottman teaches that every marriage has both solvable and perpetual problems, both of which are manageable without divorce!! 

THERE IS NOT ONE MARRIAGE WITHOUT PROBLEMS!!!

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The defining aspect in a marriage is how the couple addresses their problems.  If they choose to yell and scream and force their way, the marriage is not likely to work out.  Elder Lyn G. Robbins says in his talk Agency and Anger that anger is a choice! But there is another choice. Proverbs 15:1 states, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.”  We can CHOOSE to avoid anger.  We can choose a deep breath and a quick count from one to ten.  I know that those 20 second can mean a world of difference!

Elder Richard G. Scott says, “True love elevates, protects, respects, and enriches another.  It motivates you to make sacrifices for the girl/guy you love.”  Maybe our sacrifice is forgetting our own personal desires and looking for the desires our spouse had.  Maybe it is giving in just to see your fiancé smile.  Maybe it is even saying that you like their sunglasses even though you would never choose that color. 

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Support and absence of anger are key choices in our married lives.  It was our choice to get married, so it is our choice to stay that way.  Don’t get frustrated if you struggle at first.  No one is perfect. But if you view anger as a choice, you will be less likely to choose such a harsh way of expressing yourself.  Whenever my siblings or I would yell, my mom would say. “I cannot hear you when you talk like that.”  Let’s say the same thing to ourselves and remember that we cannot hear ourselves thinking clearly if we are yelling! 

IT IS A CHOICE!

Resources:

*http://www.intentionallypursuing.com/category/marriage-monday/page/6/

**https://www.popexpert.com/content/relationships/marriage-is-a-choice-and-a-lot-of-hard-work/marriage-is-a-choice-and-a-lot-of-hard-work

***https://www.etsy.com/listing/192972244/choose-your-love-love-your-choice

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1998/04/agency-and-anger?lang=eng

Gottman, John Mordechai., and Nan Silver.  The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York: Crown, 1999. Print\