As a married person, what are some wise precautions you will take to safeguard your marriage from infidelity?

I want to tell you of my story regarding infidelity in marriage. My story is not a shocking one, but it is an area that is truly close to my heart. It is something we fight against daily in our marriage.

My husband is a gymnastics coach, and that is his career. He loves it with all his heart, and hopes to give the children he coaches an amazing chance to become a college athlete just as he was. He is a very good coach, and is the director of the program. However what this job requires as a high level coach is that he works with many women, and often travels 3 weeks out of a month, generally, and is often gone for 4-5 days a week for about 6 months of every year. His co-coach is a woman, which means he travels with her and other women and there are rarely other male coaches. They will travel together, work together, eat together and are in the same hotel.

This was very difficult for me at first, and to be honest still is sometimes and we had/have some tense moments in working out the feelings I had/have regarding this issue. I often felt insecure. A lot of the reason is because most of these women are very athletic, often have the same goals and dreams as he does, with much more free time while I was at home with little time to work out and often spent my time running around with our kids being a housewife and student and sometimes didn’t even get a shower before noon. I also know that while it may not be on purpose, spending this much time with someone can easily lead to feelings that are dangerous.

It is something we have committed to continually monitoring, often weekly or more. Thankfully my husband is also committed to me and our family, he truly tries to put himself in my shoes and often says, “Yes, I see that if the situation were turned around I would be upset as well. Thank you for letting my know, I will make changes.” I am more than ever grateful for this attitude.

We have some rules that we go by to make it through situations like this some of them are…

1. Rule: He calls me every night when he is gone.

What he generally actually does is text me frequently throughout the day and calls me every morning and evening. He always asks me how my day was, what I am doing and often expresses how much he misses us (my 3 kids and I).

2. Rule: Never ever spends time in another hotel room. Not even for a second. They never meet at the room, always meet up in the lobby.

3. Rule: He always insists on me meeting every girl he spends even a small, continued amount of time with. This is his rule, he demands that I get to know all of his co-workers and people he needs to work with, judges, other coaches and etc.

4. Rule: He is never alone with any woman at work. When they travel, he works the best he can to make sure they travel with the families of the girls he coaches. They work to make all their plane ticket at the same time. The hotel is the same one the parents stay at and they eat with parents as often as they can as well.

5. Rule: Again, this is his self-imposed cute rule. He always brings the kids back a present. His motivation behind this is that it lets the kids know he misses them and it keeps them on his mind. Not that he ever doesn’t think about them, but it directs his thoughts toward finding the perfect gift. He will often spend the entire time searching for the perfect gift for them.

6. Rule: We go on dates every week to strengthen our marriage. And every year we take time out for ourselves to build our marriage relationship. We spend about 1 week every summer camping and away from everyone. This has been amazing because it truly challenges us and we have a full week to talk and get to know each other again.

I won’t go through all of the things we do. But those are some of the most important things. To me it is one of the hardest things in our marriage, not hard in that it has in the past become a problem, but that the potential is so great. Yet I have a wonderful, and very trusting marriage and it takes a lot of work.

Marriage is scary sometimes, and hard. It takes true desire from both people to truly make it work. It takes full trust and commitment. I find that because we work so hard, and take a good look at our marriage frequently, that this has actually become a blessing. We are closer than perhaps we would be otherwise as we are both so on guard of the potential dangers. The need to trust each other and the need to continually be aware of the other persons feelings has brought us together in ways I never imagined would happen.

Do you have similar situations that you deal with? What are some of the ways you work toward emotional fidelity?

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Lets talk about gridlock!

First, no, gridlock isn’t being in traffic so bad that you simply cannot move, at least not the kind I am talking about. Have you ever been in an argument that was so difficult with neither one of you wiling to budge an inch? When you cannot get your spouse to see your side, however you aren’t seeing their side either. Much like being in a traffic jam gridlock the inability to move is frustrating!

So here are a few signs!

Of course the best approach to gridlock is to avoid it! Yet sometimes that gridlock can get the best of you anyway.   We have talked about strategies in the past, but lets review!

As Gottman suggests:

1. Enhance your love maps
2. Nurture your fondness and Admiration
3. Turn toward each other
4. Let your Partner Influence you
5. Solve your solvable problems

By following these strategies, we can often avoid these gridlocks, yet when we do actually find ourselves right in the middle of an emotional traffic Jam what do we do?   Chances are you are missing each others needs. One of the greatest keys is to understand, notice I didn’t always say agree, with each others needs. Understanding is the first step. I don’t mean just hearing the other person tell you what is wrong, but truly understanding what they need, and their dreams as well. If feelings of hurt are present, or hurt happens overly easy, maybe you need to step back a few steps and work on nurturing your fondness, or turning toward each other.  Find out each others dreams, hear them and respect them. This will give your marriage a significant lift. Knowing that your spouse can and will support you when possible is money in the emotional bank.

Perpetual problems won’t go away, yet if you treat it right, you can side step the gridlocks, and treat it as a “Bad allergy or trick knee” (Gottman) You don’t have to solve the problem to get past the gridlock, nor do you need to give in or lose. “The goal is to be able to acknowledge and discuss the issue without hurting each other.

How lovely would it be to grow old with your best friend, well lets make that happen. Make your spouse your best friend! Your other half. It is possible.

Perpetual verses solvable marriage problems

In reading this week, my attention was caught by the two types of marital problems, and how all problems can be put into one of two groups. Those groups are perpetual problems or solvable problems.

Perpetual problems are problems that cannot be worked out between partners, problems that will always be there. Now in considering this, we need to realize that although these problems may always be there, that does not mean that it is going to ruin the marriage or cause insurmountable issues. I believe that one of the greatest things we can do when we run into a problem like this is to work on it together to come up with an agree to disagree moment.

I have seen this in my own marriage. I believed that my husband and I would be able to work out every problem we encounter. That all of my beliefs would be something my husband and I would come to agree on together. Yet I have found one problem that we cannot agree on, and that is politics. I see my views as being correct and have a hard time believing that my spouse, which whom we agree on most things, would disagree with me on such important issues. It was astounding to me that we couldn’t agree, and that neither of us is willing to change in this one area. This of course shows up most prominently during election year with our presidents. While we still agree on many major issues debated, there are a few points that just won’t work themselves out.

But this isn’t breaking our relationship. We have come to terms with our disagreements, politely smile while we disagree, and laugh in the end because we both know the other person is clearly wrong.  We are completely comfortable with knowing that disagreements, even ones that last for 15 years, do not need to break a marriage.

The second type of problem is a solvable problem. As you might guess, this is a problem that can be solved. But sometimes it takes work and compromise. I believe that the compromise part is the hardest part. Sometimes these disagreements, or problems seem like perpetual problems that they cannot be solved. Often though what it really takes is understanding on both parts and a willingness to be changed by our spouse.

During the first years of our marriage, my husband and I could not agree on the temperature in our home. Such a silly concept when I look back on it. Yet at the time I desperately wanted to be warm in my own home without wearing a coat, and my husband didn’t want to pay a large utility bill. The best part of this story is that the difference was over a mere 3-degree difference. This festered neither of us wanting to budge an inch and both certain that if the other person just cared they would obviously see it our way. It felt like a perpetual problem. Finally after several months of both of us sneaking the temperature up and down, it lead to a blow up fight. Our first and biggest fight, yes over 3 degrees. We let it cause so much tension, and while we can now look back and laugh at our own stupidity, at the time it was pulling us apart.

Don’t be a 3-degree fighter, learn early to compromise and listen to each other. And do the best you can to make your issues solvable but learn to deal with the perpetual as well.

           

Pride!

            Pride… the downfall of many. In reading a talk from President Benson, a Prophet in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he talked about pride. Pride, he says, is a sin that can readily be seen in others, but is rarely seen in ourselves. I find this to be devastatingly true. Originally I often thought of pride as he described that most people often believe it to be a sin of those on top. Yet he went on to expound that pride is also faultfinding, gossiping, back biting, murmuring, living beyond our means, failing to forgive, or withholding gratitude. Many of these I am personally guilty of.

            Pride is one of the things that can really break a marriage. When we look at the things above such as faultfinding, back biting, murmuring, living beyond our means, failing to forgive or withholding gratitude, we can see how each of these personally can destroy a relationship of trust or break a marriage. In ‘The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,’ John Gottman describes the same means as not letting your partner influence you.

            One of the things Gottman highly stresses is the unwillingness of letting you spouse influence you. By this he means that in our marriages and relationships we need to hear our spouses concerns and be willing to listen and to fix things when needed. We are so consumed by what we want sometimes, that we forget that in a marriage we are but a half of a marriage, and it should take the whole of the marriage to really make a marriage work. Gottman stresses that this is often the case with husbands. Yet I see it in relationships where the woman is just as guilty as the man if not more so.

            It is human nature to want to be right. I know I surely love to be right. In fact in the early days of our marriage it was almost a contest to see who was right the most often. Obviously this wasn’t good for the marriage. One day my husband said in sarcastic way, “You’re right, I’m wrong, you’re smart, I’m not,” by this point I was getting pretty mad till I looked at his face. He grinned and continued, “you’re pretty, I’m ugly, you’re funny, I’m dull..” I couldn’t help but laugh at the funny things he was saying. But it really hit home to me at that moment, why do I need to be right? Why can’t I just let it go. Now when one of us is so adamant about being correct, the other one generally starts on this mantra, and usually that ends the frustration along with any frustration regarding the situation.

            How much better could our lives and our marriages be if we could just let our pride go. Yes much easier said then done. But shall we work on it?

References:

Benson, Ezra Taft. "Beware Of Pride". Byui.brightspace.com. N.p., 1989. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

Gottman, John Mordechai and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work. Print.