Marriage is easy!!

"Anything in life worth having is worth working for" -Andrew Carnegie 

Marriage takes work to make it a good one. But so does everything else in life.

I think that the point that Dr. Gottman was trying to get across in his book is that not every couple is perfect. Every couple will have fights. It is how you deal with those fights, arguments, disagreements when they come along.

There really is only two ways to deal with those when they come along. One is to be selfish or selfless. It is your choice!! 

Principle 1: Love Maps

I struggled with this one at first because I am not one of those touchy feely type of people. In fact my son often tells me that I am emotionally constipated. So I thought this was going along the lines of our “Love Language.” Then we started answering the questions. My husband and I found out that we knew quite a bit about each other. The questions that we couldn’t answer were because we didn’t know the answer ourselves.

Principle 2: Nurture your fondness

This was any easy on that we were already doing and had been since the very beginning. “Date Night” My husband often counsels with couples and newly weds. He gives them this advice.

 Principle 3: Turn towards each other

This seemed like another easy one. It talked about romance and being friends which both my husband and I have always had any easy time with. I also loved the questions that we were suppose to answer.

Principle 4: Let your partner influence you.

This goes right along with being selfish or selfless. It is necessary to overcome pride to be successful in this area. That is often one of the hardest things to overcome. That was one of the obstacles in my marriage and also raising children. I have learned that giving up pride is necessary especially when dealing with teenagers.

Principle 5: Solve solvable problems

My husband and I laughed about this one all week. During the week when ever we would have one of our perpetual fights one of us would yell out “PERPETUAL!” which usually made us laugh hysterically and forget whatever it was that we were arguing about.

Principle 6: Overcome Gridlock

This is the one where Pride and Selfishness will be your downfall. If you do not give up on either of them then there is no budging in an argument which only creates bad feelings.

Principle 7: Create Shared Meaning

I loved the four pillars.

1. Creating Rituals
2. Roles
3. Goals
4. Values

These are four things that I am putting in motion for this year. These are what my husband and I are working towards.