Sunflower Among Daisies

One thing I had always released in my first marriage was that my mother in law and husband were too close. They would have hour long conversations and I couldn’t manage even a fourth of that with my husband. It was something I always struggled with but really couldn’t define and I relied on my sister too heavily as a confidant to compensate. Neither of us identified that we had a communication issue and that we relied on others to bridge the gap we had with each other.

It was very hard for me to be around his family, everything about me was different than how they operated. Even to the bright colors I chose to wear compared to their mostly black attire that the other women in the family wore. Reading through the article “Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended Families" I could see a lot of similarities in my experience.

One of the biggest ones is I never was accepted as part of the family and instead of working with me to fix that my first husband was at first impassive thinking it must all be in my head because of the idea he had on how loving, accepting, and welcoming his family was. Later on he fully entrenched himself in the idea that I was not his family and that his nucleus family was all he considered to be his family. With hind sight clarity I could see warning signs from the first meeting of me with his family and yet I didn’t have the knowledge and tools to assist with that situation.

Thankfully it has been a complete 180 with my current in laws from what I had before. I am able to enjoy a very healthy relationship with them where I feel loved, accepted, and respected. I live 15 minutes away from them and at first this was something I was concerned about. With my past experience I was worried that the proximity would lead to over involvement. With my first marriage this was something that I never had to worry about as we always lived states away from any immediate family members. I enjoy the security and benefits of living so close to parents while still being able to have that independence and couple identity that is needed.

New Opportunities Bring New Understanding

Recently I have been given the opportunity to see the church counsels in a different light. Before this year I had never been in a church presidency and because of that I had never attended a Bishopric counsel. In October I was called to be the Relief Society President and now I have the opportunity to attend Bishopric counsel but to hold my own counsel with my presidency. It truly is amazing to attend and see the benefit of having all those different auxiliaries meeting together. It is a lot of work to keep the church running and to account for all the members and it is not just a good thing but a necessary thing that we have all these counsels.

I can appreciate the power of a presidency and the inspiration that is provided. To say I would be lost without the rest of my presidency is a gross understatement. I have been impressed and surprised repeatedly at not only the goodness and talent of the woman that I work with but their knowledge and insight to the ward members. There are times that I am completely in the dark about a family in the ward that needs help and one of my counselors will let me know. I can’t effectively serve the woman of the church without my counselors and in turn the Bishop can’t lead without the help of all the other auxiliaries.

The amazing blessing of how well organized the church is gives me a lot of comfort and support in my role. I know that I am not alone and having all the responsibility to succeed alone. I have felt it in the council meetings of the love, respect, and responsibility that is shared between us all. One thing that I have come to appreciate the most is how each auxiliaries coordinates to strengthen, enhance, and or support the other ones. We are all working toward the same goal strengthening our ward and the individual families of our ward, and that has become apparent as we all have worked to help support each other’s ideas. 

Hooked By One Look

(The picture above is a finalist in the 2014 Porn Hub ad contest they held. I believe they were trying very hard to normalize pornography and this add seems so simple and harmless until you take a closer look.)

When the readings turned to pornography I found it interesting in the different levels of feelings towards it. I felt like some of the information was taking more of a diplomatic approach and skimming the surface and not facing the true danger of pornography and that kind of bothered me. I specifically didn’t like this line below from the State of the Nation Report:

“These researchers believe that the majority of people who visit online sex sites do so without any harm,…”

The first view is harmful, there is no getting around that fact but many try to state that it isn’t harmful in small doses. It is good that the world in general is having more dialogue around the pornography issue but to me it feels too timid and politically correct. This is a disease ravishing our world and it is not getting the honest attention it needs in order to stop it. Back in the October 2004 Priesthood Session President Gordon B Hinckley said:

“It is like a raging storm, destroying individuals and families, utterly ruining what was once wholesome and beautiful. I speak of pornography in all of its manifestations.”

President Hinckley didn’t say that pornography would be harmless the first time or that this form was ok; it is destructive from the start in any of its forms. There needs to be more studies down that focus on all the impacts pornography has including the physical changes that happen in your brain. Something that has been scary to me is how certain forms of pornography are being seen as acceptable even among church members. I have several friends that see no harm in reading erotic literature and yet condemn men for watching pornography. They fail to realize they are being hypocrites and that the literature is porn.

The devastation is already beginning in families across the nation and with the Porn industries increasing efforts to normalize pornography we will begin to see increasing casualties. More and more people will become desensitized to the negative impact across all areas of a person because of pornography and justify their use.  

Dr. Gottman had some great insights to our dreams and how gridlock situations are a result of those not being met. It reminded me of something that Dr. John Lund said in a talk, he is a dreamer and his wife is very practical. He loves to talk and dream about a cabin in the mountains and at the beginning of their marriage she was afraid he would impulse buy a cabin they couldn’t afford. What it came down to was he enjoyed talking about his dream and he encouraged everyone to not kill their spouse’s dreams. This has always stuck with me and I can see another level of its importance from what Dr. Gottman said.

There is so much of our identity in our dreams and hopes and to have it unceremoniously discarded or discredited feels like an attack on who we are. In all of the scenarios that Dr. Gottman presented I could see how the one side was putting who they were out there. One of the scariest things about marriage to me was having one person have such intimate knowledge of me the good and the bad. There is a lot of opportunity for a spouse to rack their partner over the coals for the failings because of that intimate knowledge. Dr. Goddard said:

            “If I am unhappy with Nancy it is because I do not understand or do not honor the covenants I have made. I do not have charity.”

The las part of not having charity was so impactful on me. I have such a hard time with being charitable with myself and those I come in contact with and through the years I have curbed what I say out loud but the inner dialogue is horrible. I fall into the trap of thinking that my perception is reality and therefore that person is bad because of XY and Z. I realized through the readings it is because I am feeding the natural man inclination and turning away from Christ and seeing others as he sees them.

It is interesting because I don’t see my husband uncharitably but some of his family members I really struggle with. In fact one of our gridlocks is over his family members and it is because of my behavior and unwillingness currently to look beyond my perceptions. My husband is so loving and charitable to everyone, and from my perspective it comes as naturally as breathing to him, and it makes me take a defensive stance that I need to ‘protect’ him from being used and abused by those that I think are not deserving of such charity. This week I have learned a lot about the things that I need to work on and like C.S. Lewis said I have some rats in my cellar that I need to work on.

What is the Worth of My Sacrifice?

Pondering the idea of the quality of my sacrifices or if I truly do make ‘sacrifices’ I was struck by what President Young said of members living the law of consecration. He stated that some did it right while others gave their defective surplus. This made me consider my contributions, and what category I am in based on the contributions/sacrifices I have made.

More often I am closer to the members that gave the defective cow than the greatest that I have. Thinking of contributions to food banks, can food drives, etc that I have done I am usually giving the things that I don’t really enjoy but have on my shelf, that I don’t care if I give away. It becomes more a motivation of clearing my shelfs of unwanted food than it is of sacrificing things I cherish to benefit others.

The other great example was of Abraham and Isaac; both are willing to give up their most cherished things for the Lord simply because he asked it. Made me stop and think would I be willing to do as much for the Lord or my spouse. I really loved how this question was asked in terms of our marriages and this excerpt really brought home the point to me:

“Do we bring our greatest generosity and richest forgiving to our marriages? Do we offer our whole souls and our best efforts as an offering?”

This made me stop and pause because I feel like my husband gets the leftovers; I put a lot of my energy into work, and my callings and my husband gets what remains. The priority according to my actions is everything outside of the home and my relationship with my husband and by the time the weekend comes we are both so drained that we stay in bed and have very lazy around the house days instead of enjoying quality time together and building our relationship.

While our current pattern hasn’t become an issue yet I can see that we are creating a pattern that can turn into feelings of disinterest towards one another down the road. We are not investing our best into each other. Life is only going to become more hectic and busy and if we don’t start making a habit of putting our best efforts into each other now we may find down the road that we had unnecessary hurt and heartache. 

Truth an Enemy...

I found it really interesting in the reading about the ‘truth’ and how we all perceive our views as the only right one. This is something that I have noticed recently that it bothers me when other people don’t see that they are biased from their perception and yet I do it all the time! I think a major part of why it bothers me in other people is because I know that I do it myself and it is something that I want to correct.

Connected with this was another Ah Ha moment from the reading which was, you can only critics if you love the person. This really hit home to me because in my mind I am very critical of people. I go through a whole life history in my head from one look and it is all my perception and imagination, and yet I act as if that was all truth.

 Being on vacation in Rome I especially noticed it, there are a lot of people vying for you attention to buy something or to eat at this restaurant. It tends to be very tedious to be constantly bothered to buy the same thing over and over again and when I first got her I was contemptuous of it all. After meeting up with my parents I learned of the incredible struggle in Rome to get work. There are too many people here and not enough jobs, and the jobs that are available are only given to the Italians. Most of the street vendors are immigrants and after gaining that insight I saw men doing whatever they could to provide for their families.

When I was willing to apply the knowledge I had gained of the true situation here, and saw through my mother’s actions the compassion she had for them I began to act differently. I didn’t go out and buy everything, however, my attitude and actions did. I was much more civil, realizing the amount of stress they are under, and the amount of rejection they receive on a daily basis. I started to try and walk in their shoes and worked on being nicer as I would want to be treated if the roles were reversed. 

Reflection Brings Clarity

I tend to feel like a martyr a lot, over simple dumb things. I’m very selfish with my time and constantly battle that. Even with doing normal chores or favors for my spouse I tend to feel put out and upset over it, and not turn toward him and serving him. In recognizing this as a barrier to me turning to my husband I have made an effort to not only be more aware when I feel this way but to find ways to meet both our needs.

I use to simmer and get upset but I have learned that even though I mind doing that activity if I am appreciated for it I am fine. Every time I do something I don’t want recognition but the times that I do and my husband hasn’t realized what has been done I have let him know. It is not just communication but being honest and open with my feelings that makes the difference. My husband isn’t a mind reader and it is rude to try to withhold to get more attention or forcing him to guess what is wrong.

When I am able to own my expectation and say something like “Honey, look I have vacuumed the rooms, do you want to go with me to see what a difference it has made” it takes away that feeling of silent martyrdom and allows me to share with my husband and for him to take part in the recognition of it. This may seem simple or even silly but for me it is these things that create a huge wedge and lead to stonewalling.

Another thing that both my husband and I are very aware of is making sure that we give ample opportunity to the other to choose the movie, restaurant, activity, etc they want to do. In my experience a lot of these little considerations fall by the waste side and lead to the bigger ones. We have different tastes and it makes such a difference if I am willing and cheerful about doing something he loves he reciprocates the behavior. The positive outlook has to be there to have and enjoyable time for both of us, and something I have come to realize is no matter the activity, chore, whatever my husband and I will have fun and enjoy being with one another if we have the positive outlook from the start.