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.