Intimacy in Marriage

As a young mother with little children, the world is a wonderful and curious ball of questions just waiting to be asked. “Why is the sky blue?” and “where does snow come from?” and “how do you spell hippopotamus?” Many of the questions stem from observations and the desire my children have to understand more about the world that they are surrounded by. I am grateful for these little chances to explain and teach my children about the world, weather, and animal spelling—it’s fun (most of the time) and if I don’t know the correct answer, we find out together. As my children learn more, they are growing and maturing intellectually in their understanding of their surroundings. Talking about the world is easy, but it feels trickier when talking about more sensitive subjects like sexuality. What do you say when a child asks “How did a baby get in your tummy?”

Answers to these types of innocent question needs to be geared toward the child who asked it. It is important to speak clearly and honestly, which is difficult for most people. Having the “sex talk” can feel awkward and uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be that way. One of my favorite sources that I have read to our kids is called “In the beginning…” and it answers these types of questions about marital intimacy and human development in a simple and biblical way. It introduces this topic by talking about Heavenly Father’s plan when God created Adam and Eve to be together.

Elder Richard G. Scott provides wonderful insight concerning this topic as well. He said “Fundamental to the great plan of happiness and central to the teachings of the Savior is the family. A new family begins when a man and woman make sacred marriage vows and are legally bound together to become husband and wife, father and mother. The perfect beginning is through sealing in the temple. With marriage they commit the best of themselves to be absolutely loyal to each other and to invite children to be nurtured and taught….Within the enduring covenant of marriage, the Lord permits husband and wife the expression of the sacred procreative powers in all their loveliness and beauty within the bounds He has set.  One purpose of this private, sacred, intimate experience is to provide the physical bodies for the spirits Father in Heaven wants to experience mortality. Another reason for these powerful and beautiful feelings of love is to bind husband and wife together in loyalty, fidelity, consideration of each other, and common purpose” (Making the Right Choices, 1994).

Marital intimacy is wonderful and beautiful and talking to our children about it is important. Because it is a sensitive and sacred subject, many parents and married adults have a hard time knowing how and what to say. Helping children to understand that intimacy is not only a good thing, but vital and wonderful part of marriage can help them to understand and have healthy intimate relations when they are adults. 

Learning and Reflecting on Marriage

I have been quite surprised by the amount of reflection and learning that I have made in studying more about marriage and the difference it has made in my own life. From John Gottman’s The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work he shares over 25 years of expertise and the keys of what he has discovered that help marriages to be fulfilling and long lasting—or what makes them crumble and fall. In his book he has compiled together his research from studying couples in his “love lab” to define what sort of habits, problem solving skills, and how couples communicate with each other—for good and for bad. He has found it is more than what couples do in their marriage, it is how each of them choose to love the other-- how they reach out to one another, support, defend, and uplift each other. I can see in my own marriage how the exercises he teaches help to strengthen and build the friendship that I enjoy so much with my husband. He is my closest friend and confidant—he supports and loves me in spite of my many faults and frailties. Our friendship is that foundation that helps us as husband and wife to understand and know each other better. As we draw closer to one another, even if we disagree, we know that our friendship is stronger than any problem we may experience.  Overall, I’ve learned from reading this book that it is the little things I do that will add up to make a big difference in my marriage. My time, thoughts, emotions, and actions are interrelated when it comes to how I think about my spouse, any problems we face together, and how we can work through them together.

As I was thinking about Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, author H. Wallace Goddard shares the gospel perspective on what God has intended marriages to be. While it is true that many marriage experts teach that lessons of communication and problems solving skills can help marital problems, Goddard shares that “the key to a healthy relationship is being a healthy, saintly, God-seeking person” (p.15) 

and “The only way to build a truly healthy marriage is by being a truly good person.”(p.133)

Throughout his book Goddard shares many wonderful insights and lessons from the scriptures that we can apply to marriages. One of the first things that he shares is that “God designed marriage to help us to grow spiritually” (p. 142). This is absolutely true! What better place for us to learn spiritual lessons such as faith, forgiveness, and humility than in marriage? Goddard shares how to best strengthen our relationship with the Lord as a partner, how to overcome issues and applying forgiveness, praying and removing negative influences such as pride, and turning your heart over to God. It is through our closest relationship with our spouse that we can learn and develop more Christ-like attributes. Goddard also shared that “Marriage is ordained to stretch and refine us” (p. 134). Just as an athlete in training completes exercises, drills, and is constantly pushing themselves to become better—so can we as we apply those same lessons as we stretch to be more patient, loving, and thoughtful to our spouse. Constantly working to become better as a person and in our relationship will be worth it.

A favorite quote that I read this week from Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage especially illustrates what it means to turn our focus in marriage into an eternal perspective. President Ezra Taft Benson once said

“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their soul, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life.” 

This is what God has intended marriages to be. As we turn toward Him, rely on His grace despite our weaknesses (and weaknesses of others), He can make our lives and our marriages more than what we can do on our own.

Problems Solving in Marriage

I remember reading this week that when we get married we inherit from our partner a set of problems—it’s a package deal. The trick is finding (and realizing) the set of quirks are ones you can deal with. From the book After the Honeymoon by Dan Wile we read “When choosing a long-term partner… you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that you’ll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.” Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds!

According to John Gottman, 69% of all problems in marriage are perpetual, meaning they are found to be the same issues that couples discuss year after year with no solution in sight! They appear to be immovable and continuous! These issues can be related to whether the couple wants to have children, how housework is divided and done, religious practices and observances, and also how they choose to discipline their children.  Stable marriages choose to work on these issues by talking it out so they don’t feel overwhelmed by them, and that is a good thing. Even if these couples don’t solve their problems overnight, what matters is how they approach the issues at hand. Also, a key to being able to deal with these “problems” is to understand that no one is completely perfect. Elder Robert D. Hales emphasized this so well when he said “none of us marry perfection; we marry potential. The right marriage is not only about what I want; it’s also about what my companion—wants and needs me to be.” (Meeting the Challenges of Today’s World, October 2015)

Whether a problem is solvable or perpetual, there are several underlying keys to successfully addressing these types of conflict. These techniques are great to keep in mind when a couple is facing and handling their marital problems together. The first is to understand that negative emotions are important.  This can be hard to do, especially if these negative emotions are directed at you, but can bring about a better understanding and skill as partners learn to express emotion without attacking the other. The second thing to remember is that no one is absolutely right in a marital conflict. Just like when you ask 10 different people how to solve a complicated problem, you will most likely get 10 different opinions on how to get the job done. You will always have two perspectives and opinions when solving conflicts together. Third, it is key to focus on being accepting of your spouse for who they are—emotions and all. The point was made that children are much more receptive to change when their emotions are acknowledge and validated.  We can remember the same technique with our spouse. Finally, when working on conflicts together, it is wise to focus on your admiration and fondness for one another. Loving your spouse and remembering how special they are in your life can help to blend the faults that we can see so easily.  Remember the old saying: Keep your eyes wide open during courtship and half-closed after the wedding. Sometimes those things our spouse does that really bother us, don’t need to bother us after all!

Loving Influence in Marriage

Have you ever had a disagreement with your husband/wife and you just knew that they were wrong? Even after pointing out every flaw in their argument, even after breaking it down and showing how ridiculous their side was with a 10-minute power point presentation? No matter what you said or did, they still wouldn’t change their mind? This can feel rather frustrating, for you and for them. I have been learning this week about forgiveness, humility, and accepting influence and learning how integral these principles are for marriages to be successful. When both spouses allow the other to influence them --especially when they disagree-- issues are worked out together. This isn’t to say you won’t have differences of opinion, disagreements, disputes, but it is saying that you how you handle one another can make all the difference.

It has been found that marriages are stronger when spouses allow their loved one to influence them. I thought of how this strongly relates to solving marital problems together. So often in a disagreement, we are so focused on who is right instead of what is right. We want so badly to "win" and have things done our way. Instead of listening to what our partner is saying, we try to shut them down, ignore anything they are trying to say, their point of view, or even listen to how they would solve the issue. This is the opposite of allowing our partner to influence us and doesn't really help solve a problem together. From "Drawing Heaven into Our Marriage" Goddard wrote "When we are in disagreement in a marriage, very often our focus is on persuading our partner that we are right... as we try to take from our partner her or his beliefs and preferences, we will get resistance and defensiveness." He then mentions the difference between dragging our spouse along and inviting them to be with us together. Just as we allow our spouse to help and influence us and us for them, a unity is created that allows two people to work together to solve problems, influence one another, and be stronger together. My favorite quote came when Goddard said, "As we choose to love and appreciate our partners in spite of our differences, we open the door to love" (p. 62). It is about having an attitude of love and being humble that allows that Savior to strengthen our marriage with our spouse. 

Big Changes and Adjusting to LIFE

I learned a very important lesson as a young newlywed about turning towards my husband, although I will say it wasn’t done intentionally on my part. We had just been married a month when our new life together officially began with our first long distance move away from everyone we knew for Ben to start medical school in Glendale, Arizona. This was the furthest distance I had been away from my parents since graduating from high school and attending university that was only six hours away. We loaded all of our earthly possessions into the back of our half-sized ’88 Nissan truck that Ben drove, and I followed behind him in the ’96 Ford Taurus my parents had gifted to us for our wedding. The drive stretched over the course of 2 days to make it to our first small apartment in the heat of the desert, a total drive time of nearly 14 hours!

After we carried our belongings and wedding gifts up the three flights of stairs and dumped them into our apartment (which wasn’t an easy thing in the 99 degree heat) we were both red and sweating profusely. Ben found a box with that had cups, filled two of them to overflowing with the luke warm water from the tap, and we sat down together on a box we made into a couch to cool down. Later, we walked to our room and spread out our wedding gift sleeping bags on the floor (we didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on) and laughed. It finally hit us. After the rush of the wedding, honeymoon, and carefree summer—this was OUR beginning.

It felt like our new life went from this... 

... to THIS! (LITERALLY)

Over the next few weeks of job searching and moving again, the stresses of school and real married life started to sink in. Looking back I can laugh, but I have to admit this was a transitional point for us. Of course we were happy together, but there were typical misunderstandings and conflicts that started with the two us trying to learn to become a new family. We were alone, separated from our previously support system of parents and siblings, but we had each other. Having the distance between us and our parents allowed us to truly lean on and support one another, to turn towards each other to discuss problems and work through them together. Even though that first year of medical school and being married wasn’t an easy one (or four), it was an important time for both of us to learn how to be together. I can also see how that time was especially important for us in growing stronger together, which has allowed us to be strong over time regardless of the distance between us and our extended family.

I read this week that “There is a deep connection between the hard things of life and the best things of life” (Covenant Hearts, p.66). I can absolutely say that our “hard” and difficult times allowed my husband and I to pull together, lean on one another, and help each other through. I know that I can always rely on him because of what we have been through 

Knowing Your Spouse and Maps

As I was reading in “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman, PH.D. I really enjoyed the chapter discussing what a love map is and why it is an important part of a marriage relationship. First of all, I love maps of cities! Almost everywhere we have traveled, we seem to grab a map so we can find our way around. Without a map we would wander hopelessly around and chances are we would get lost. I have also started collecting globes of the world because I love the way they look. If you walk into my home, you can find globes all over the place. There is just something about landmarks, oceans, and mountain ranges that I just love looking at. One of my favorite classes in high school that was World Geography. Over the course of the semester, we would look at maps of continents, learn the countries and capitals, oceans, rivers, and mountain ranges and we would take a test on those specific areas. For the final, we had to fill in the entire map of the world. At the beginning of the semester, the final seemed to be an enormous and impossible task—one that I was fairly confident that I would NOT be able to complete and pass. I was surprised that because we had learned specific areas and built upon what we knew each week, the final test was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. The relationships we have with our spouses can be related to taking a class in world geography, only the class doesn’t end after the semester—we get to keep building and adding to our “love maps” over our lifetime (and beyond)!

Dr. Gottman explains that the love map is a term he uses for that part of our memory where we store all of the relevant information about our partner and their life. It includes their likes, their hopes, dreams, and even what fears and worries they have. It’s like having a map in a city that you have never been to before. The map you create about your spouse enables you to know them better and you can remember those things that you need to remember.  Over the chapter I found a few statements that solidified to me why having a love map is a good thing. He said “The more you know and understand about each other, the easier it is to keep connected as life swirls around you” AND “the more profound and rewarding your relationship will be.”

But as Dr. Gottman explains, having a love map is only the beginning. Successful and happily married couples build on what they know about one another and add ways that draw them closer together. This is done through expressing and nurturing their fondness and admiration for one another. He tells us that fondness and admiration are the essential ingredients for creating a romantic relationship that we all want. The words honor, respect, and cherish flow from admiration and fondness fuels love, kindness, and charity toward one another.

Friendship and Trust in Marriage

Something that I have heard from several newlywed couples is how lucky they are, how much in love they are AND that are so glad that they’ve married their best friend. Of all the things that they could have said, starting together in the journey of marriage with your best friend is starting on the right track! It is vitally important for a marriage to be grounded in a deep and abiding friendship because even when you are having a disagreement, you know that the foundation of friendship is there.

Even if you think that having a good marriage is hard these days, the relationship expert John Gottman, PH.D, says the formula for a great marriage is simpler than you think. He says that the foundation is to “strengthen the friendship and trust that are at the heart of any marriage.” (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, 1999, p. 51).

In speaking with a friend she shared some thoughts about that quote with me. She basically said that between friendship and trust, generally friendship comes more easily. It is the trust that takes time and patience and perseverance to develop. It is the trust between a husband and wife that is like the glue that holds a relationship together.  When you trust someone completely, you know they will never consciously do anything to hurt you or abuse you.  They will always have your best interest at heart.  This trust is important when nerves are frayed, bodies are tired, and you are at the end of your rope. It is the trust that helps us overcome the annoyances we face each day with another imperfect person.  

 

I know before I even thought about getting married, I was taught by youth leaders about friendship and dating. In high school, dating was the time to learn to have interactions with boys my age, how to have fun, talk, and get to know people. I was able to have such a great time and built great and easy friendships during that time. Fast forward to when I was in college and dating. Again, before I started to date (and date more seriously) I always started off with building that friendship. My date and I did activities that would allow us to engage in conversations and other discussions. We learned about likes and dislikes, hobbies, families, and activities that made life exciting and fun. We were able to share our feelings with each other and be honest if we no longer wanted to pursue the next step in our relationship. Above all else, we were friends and so we respected those thoughts and feelings coming from a friend. When I did meet, date, and court my future husband—we started with the type of friendship that set our marriage up for success. And now that I have been married to my best friend for almost 14 years, I can say that our love has grown because we were friends first!

What is does it mean to be friends in marriage?One of the first scriptures that comes to my mind is  when the Savior said "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). When we know that we can depend on someone at this level, we have a friendship that belongs in marriage. We can trust, love, forgive, support, and uplift one another.