I came across a link to a blog post on my Facebook news feed. It has been a topic that has been on my mind, mainly due to someone close to me that is struggling with their own marriage for several different reasons. But, overall I believe this [being right for both spouses] is a core of why many marriages struggle. I highly recommend for you to read this ::
Marriage Is For Losers
My own thoughts about this subject is how many spouses are arguing their point only, they both want to be right - instead of caring about the other person's feelings. I find that sometimes spouses feel that nothing that comes out of their spouses mouth is right, that their point of view is not right, that their feelings are not right or construed to something that shouldn't be. But who are you to tell your spouse how they should or shouldn't feel? Who are you to tell them that their point of view is wrong? Everyone perceives things differently at times, and that doesn't make it wrong. Something a therapist told me once is something that has always stuck in my mind regarding this subject. He said, "if you have 5 people on a corner and there was a head-on collision in the intersection, how many stories would you hear of how it happened? --- Five, because they all felt and saw things differently. It doesn't mean it is wrong, their point of view is right for them." The thing that we have to come to understand is the feelings of the individual, and in talking about marriages, you have to come to understand your spouses feelings as their feelings, that they have a right to them, and that your responsibility is to not tell them they are wrong, but to learn to understand and truly make the choice to care about how they are feeling, be there for them, and work through it. Many spouses are thinking about their comeback to what their spouse just said that boiled their insides - instead of thinking about and trying to understand their feelings and point of view.
Between the therapists I've been to before my divorces to a therapist my now husband and I have been to recently to enhance our marriage, I have let the words and tools given flow throughout my mind, heart, and soul and have let it sink in like a sponge. I'm not sure how to even describe it, but they are tools that I hang onto, tools that I know and can see in other marriages work well. I see it in my own, how much we've grown and been strengthened by some decisions we made to make life overall better. I have always been good at reading people, perhaps a gift that I have been given, but it is something that I can pull from all the tools I have learned and apply them to not only my own life, but to others.
I believe that in choosing to change ones attitude towards your spouse, towards your marriage can go along way and can save a marriage. I believe that choosing to care about your spouse, choosing to love him or her can save your marriage. I believe that letting go of "facts" and looking at and working towards healing hurt and open wounds from the past (if it is still hindering your marriage now) can save your marriage.
What is hurting you the most? What is hurting the center of your marriage, what is crumbling the very foundation of your marriage? When you make the decision to stop belittling, to stop being right, to stop pointing the finger, to stop silencing your spouse, to stop having the next comeback, amongst so many other things; and to start to love, to care you will be able to piece back the foundation of your marriage, you will be able to grow in love and strength. But until then, if you keep on the road you've been walking, you will not get ahead - your dignity will be lost within the walls of something other than what God intended marriage to be. The first step is to make the better choice.
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