Dealing with the In-Laws

My mom and my grandma (her mother-in-law) have a very strained relationship. That is putting it nicely. It all started when my parents were newly married. They were living Utah at the time, where my dad’s parents live. My grandma insisted that they come home every weekend, even though they were living two hours away. My mom could not take the pressure and over-involvement of her new mother-in-law, plus she was feeling homesick, so my parents moved to Texas. I don’t think my grandma ever forgave my mother for this.

In this week of my marriage and family class we read material that looks at how the parents of a newly married couple should behave towards their children. All of the reading material talked about how even though the new couple is still a part of the family, they are branching off and starting their own family. They do not have to answer to the rules or expectations of either family anymore. They are to leave their mothers and fathers and cleave unto one another as husband and wife. They are supposed to look to their new spouse before they look to their parents. They are supposed to honor their spouse before they honor their parents. Putting your spouse first is the way you can make marriage work. I know my dad did this with my mom. He has always stood up for my mom against his mother, and he has set the standard for me of what kind of marriage I need to have.

Parents can help the new couple by leaving them to their own devices. Make it clear that you are there for them if they need your help, but give them space to make their own choices.

Seeing my mom’s relationship with my grandma always made me worry about my own relationship with my future mother-in-law. I hope that I love her, but I realize that it doesn’t matter so long as I have the support of my spouse. If we depend on each other and look to one another we will be able to successfully make our own family.

Becoming One

We often hear in the scriptures the idea of two becoming one. The two shall come together and twain be one flesh, so to speak. How in the world is this possible? Marriage involves two very different people trying to come together and make it work most of the time. We all have our different backgrounds and tastes. We all see the world a little bit differently. No two people are going to exactly agree on everything. So how can we keep this commandment to become one in purpose?

Elder Henry B. Eyring answers this question in his talk “That We may be one.” He says, “When people have the spirit with them, we may expect harmony.” So the simple answer is that we must follow the spirit. I believe this to be true. I believe that the spirit can lead us, guide us, and aid us in becoming one. When we have a difference of opinion with our spouse, we can seek answers from Heavenly Father through his spirit. The question is, how can we make sure that we have the spirit with us. I have a few ideas.

The first idea is to have weekly family home evening and daily family scripture study. These activities will bring you closer to every member of your family, and especially your spouse as the two of you work together to bring spiritual teachings into your home.

The second idea is to have daily family prayer. I suggest that you do this in the morning before everyone heads out for the day. Prayer teaches us humility and awareness of others and invites the spirit into our homes.

One final idea I have is to make sure that any entertainment you consume will allow you to keep the spirit in your home. This may mean foregoing that TV show you love or getting rid of that song with that one cuss word. Trust me; it will be worth it because when the spirit is in your home you will feel so much more joy and peace.

We should all make it a goal to keep the spirit in our lives as much as possible. When we do this, the spirit can guide us and soften our hearts so that two truly can become one.

Preventing Emotional Infidelity

We often think of being unfaithful as just physical unfaithfulness. We rarely think about how we could be emotionally cheating on our spouse. I am a single woman, and so I don’t have much experience with emotional cheating; however, I do have experience with preventing my married friends from growing too emotionally attached to me.

Two of my best friends are a married couple. The husband is one of my best friends in the world. The two of us have so much in common. He’s basically me in male form. But because we are so close, I have to make sure that I am careful in my actions so that his strongest attachment is with his wife.

For one thing, I try to keep myself from texting him too often. If I can, I usually try texting them both in a group text and only send him direct messages on occasion.

Another thing I do is I make sure we are never hanging out alone. If it is just the two of us hanging out we always have to be in a public place or that another person comes along.

A final thing I do is I make sure that my relationship with his wife is strong. I know that if I harbor a love and respect for her then I could never bear the thought of hurting her.

These aren’t perfect, foolproof ways but they are lines I have drawn to prevent strong emotional attachments that shouldn’t be there. As the single friend, I should be doing everything I can to support and sustain their marriage. Marriage needs a lot of support in order to survive, and as the single friends we should be the ones helping to build it up. Because we love our friends, we are happy for them, and we want them to succeed. And if none of this is convincing you to draw clear lines, then do it to avoid the confusion and drama. Emotionally connecting with someone who is married gets very complicated very quickly, and chances are you are the one who will end up getting hurt. So if nothing else, draw lines of protection to save yourself a little heartbreak.

Becoming Charitable

In his book Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, H. Wallace Goddard, Ph.D. quotes C.S. Lewis on charity:

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?

I like this idea that our natural reactions help us to identify and recognize who we truly are on the inside. It makes sense to me that if we are a truly charitable person, then our first reaction would be to reach out in love and understanding. If we are not truly charitable, then our first reaction would be to become angry or offended. The question is, how do we get to the point where we become instinctively charitable? The only answer I have to offer: patience, diligence, and practice.

We have to patient with ourselves. We cannot expect ourselves to be charitable right away. That goes against the natural man. When you mess up just remember to be patient, repent, and try again.

We must also be diligent. Becoming charitable is not something that occurs overnight. We need to make the commitment to see ourselves through and consistently work at becoming better.

Finally, we must practice being charitable. This means consciously trying to be charitable. It means that when we have an uncharitable thought, we mentally slap ourselves and correct the initial reactions. As we do this, we will begin to notice a change in ourselves.

I am not saying that this process will make us become perfectly charitable, but if we commit to becoming more we will slowly become a little better every day.

Anger is a Choice

In his talk “Agency and Anger” Elder Lynn G. Robbins talks about how anger is actually a choice. This seems odd. I know that when I feel angry it is a natural reaction to outside forces acting on me. Robbins argues that the idea that we are a slave to our anger is one of Satan’s greatest lies. After experiencing a situation that caused me to be angry, and choosing to not be angry but instead reach out in love, I know that what Elder Robbins teaches is truth.

There was a guy who I was absolutely in love with. We were good friends. I have a particularly flirty roommate, and she knew how I felt about him, but that didn’t stop her from hardcore flirting with him in front of me when he would hang out at our apartment or when we went out on group hangouts, and this really hurt me. I confronted my roommate twice about her actions and how they were affecting me. I wasn’t trying to attack her, I was simply trying to express to her that her actions were hurting me. Both times she blew me off. She told me that she didn’t care how I felt, this is who she is, and if I wanted to be her friend I would just have to learn to accept it. Admittedly, the second time I said some choice words to her and stormed out of our apartment, where I proceeded to burst into tears. Confrontation is very hard for me. This was the first experience I had really had dealing with someone who absolutely did not care about my feelings and was unapologetic about hurting me. She never did apologize sincerely to me, and it came down to me. I had to decide what I was going to do.

Over the next few weeks I made the decision that I was going to kill her with kindness. I was going to be the bigger person and not let her actions prevent me from reaching out in Christ-like love. Whenever she would do things to purposely hurt me, I turned the other cheek.I chose to not let her anger me. Instead, I reached out to her with kindness.  I encouraged her in her goals. I built up her self-esteem. I learned to love her in spite of the way she treated me.

This experience prepared me for my own future marriage. I learned that even in the closest relationships, your partner/friend can do things that hurt or annoy you. Through this experience, I learned that anger got me nowhere. When I reached out with kindness, love, and service thought, the relationship was much improved and I felt better about myself. Marriage is about giving and loving all that we can, and thanks to this roommate I learned to love completely selflessly someone who did things that hurt and annoyed me.

The Shift of Roles in Marriage

Dr. John M. Gottman points out that one of the great problems affecting modern marriages is the fact that gender roles in marriage are shifting. Traditionally, men had the role of being the provider of the home while the woman was the nurturer and homemaker. More and more women are entering the workforce and complaining to their husbands about how they are not taking an active role in the home. This shift in roles can be understandably confusing.

I know have seen this type of confusion in my own life. I grew up in a home where parent’s played out the traditional roles.  My dad brought home the bacon and my mom was the homemaker. Due to modern society, there was a lot of confusion in the home. I remember that my mother would complain to my father all the time about how she was not a maid and that he needed to take a more active role in cleaning and taking care of the home. This was very frustrating for my father, who already spent the whole day working. I compare this to another couple I know, and have spent much time in their home. This couple has drawn a clear line between their individual responsibilities. The mother is clearly responsible for the rearing of the children, while the husband is responsible for providing for the family. Because the wife knows and accepts her role, she has no expectations of her husband to do the role that she has chosen. She does not complain to him at all. Because of this, I have noticed that he willingly chooses to help her in the home. This is an interesting observation to me and tells me that when we do not have nagging expectations of our partners, they are more likely to help you.

Ultimately the world is changing and the definitions of marriage change every day. I think the best thing you can do for your marriage is drawing a clear line right now for what your role will be as a caretaker and provider. That way there will be less strife in the home because you and your partner both know your respective roles.  

Marriage as a Divine Calling

I had never really thought of marriage as a divine calling. I always thought of it as something that happened when two people fell in love. It is that, but it is also a divine institution created by God to refine you and help you become who you need to become.

I used to think of marriage as something that may or may not happen for me. If it happened it happened. There was nothing I could do to control it. While this is mostly true, knowing what a divine role marriage is meant to play in my life makes me want to play more of an active role in trying to get there. It makes me want marriage so much more than I did.

It makes sense to me that marriage is a divine institution that plays a pivotal role in our growth and development here on Earth. Everything we do here is meant to help us grow and become more like our Heavenly Father. If marriage was appointed by Him, it must be important and intended to help us become like Him and draw closer to Him. It is something that is eternally lasting and one of the things we must do in order to return to Him. This, to me, makes marriage more of an ideal goal, something to word towards, uphold, and protect.

Now what does this mean for those of us who may never marry? Who may be doing everything they can to achieve that ideal goal, but never attain it here in this life? Does that mean that Heavenly Father loves that person any less because they were not blessed with that celestial blessing that allows growth and becoming? Absolutely not! Heavenly Father loves each and every one of His children and He wants each of us to come back to Him. But marriage truly is one of those things we have no control over whether or not it happens to us because it involves the agency of another person. Heavenly Father may be all-powerful but He will not take away another person’s agency. But He will always love you. And even in the single life, we can still uphold and look to an eternal marriage. Because ultimately we will all have celestial marriage, whether in this life or the next.