Creating a new family

In-laws

As I grew up, I knew that my parents didn't get along with their in-laws very well. As a kid, I never understood why I loved each side!  My dad favorite "joke" about in-laws is " Do you know the difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted!" Things like this made me worry about what my future in-laws would be like. Would they like me? Would I love spending time at their house? Would they treat me like a daughter or an outcast?

Luckily, I married into a wonderful family who accepted me freely. My husband jokes that his mom is more excited when I call then when he calls. But, it is a transition even if you end up with great in-laws like mine, there are still steps to take before you become buddies with your in-laws. In my family, we are loud and joke openly about each other. That's how we "Invite" you into the family. We tease you because to us that helps us feel comfortable when a situation is awkward. My husband's family is almost the complete opposite of my family. They don't joke like my family, and they are a lot quieter than my family. I still sometimes feel uncomfortable and not sure how to joke when I am around them, but I have learned to love them for who they are and have learned a lot from them. I know that if I ended up being stranded somewhere, either side of my family would help me out. It's nice having more family to love, and that loves you.

If I were to offer any advice for someone that is dating and thinking about marrying someone is to start now getting to know their family and don't compare them to yours. If you have an open mind, you will learn to love them just as much as your own.

Balancing!

Marriage is between a husband and wife, and they both have parents, siblings grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, their best friend, their best friends dog, and the lady next store who has a cat that they took care of one time. Then when we get married, we don't realize that we need to help each other balance each other's life while merging to create one big happy family.

Balancing takes time. My husband and I have been married for a year and a half. We still haven't learned how to balance our lives perfectly together yet. I have learned on thing though when it comes to balancing If we learn to love our spouse and the people who helped them become who we love, then balancing comes to a lot easier. These are the people who helped shape my husband. When I started looking at it this way it was a lot easier for me to let my husband talk to his best friend who he hasn't talked to in a while, even when he has been at work all day, and I missed him. When we respect the people who our spouse loves, our marriage will deepen even more.

Happily Ever After

Growing up, I always admired many couples. I mean they had a best friend who they were able to be around whenever they wanted! Their own Prince Charming! What I didn't realize is  Prince Charming is everything I have ever wanted but life can be hard sometimes and Happily Ever After takes work. 

Last week I talked about fidelity in marriage and why that is important. That is the first step to your happily ever after. The next one is becoming one as a couple.

President Eyering once said

"Our Heavenly Father wants our hearts to be knit
together. That union in love is not simply an ideal. It is a necessity.
The requirement that we are one is not for this life alone. It is to be without end. The first marriage was performed by God in the garden when Adam and Eve were immortal. He placed in men and women from the beginning a desire to be joined together as man and wife forever to dwell in families in a perfect, righteous union. He placed in His children a desire to live at peace with all those around them."

To do this, we need to make sure that we are working together, trying our best. We need to make sure that pride is out of our relationship, and we are doing what is best for our spouse and us. We need to have clear goals on how we are going to work through things.

How do we do this? RESPECT! We also need to make sure that we are discussing with one another.

If we have respect, then we will genuinely look out for the other person. We will make sure that we are on the same page with them that we have the same goals.

I have a personal story that happened last night. My husband just got a new job a month ago, and we moved states. My husband has had weird schedules for his training as a manager, the last two weeks have consisted of 12 hour days him getting home eating dinner maybe watching a show and getting back to bed for his early morning the next day. Being in a new state with no job and friends miles away, it has been hard for me not to feel lonely. Last night when he got home I lost it I broke down and cried. My husband let me cry and told me to let it all out. After I was done crying, he asked what I needed. If I needed advice or for him just to listen. I told him I just needed him to listen, and he did.

Nights like this remind me why I want to be with him for eternity.

We do this by making sure we are on the same page. As Elder Ballard has talked about many times, we need to the council. I feel loved, respected, and needed when he is around. Now we aren't always like this, but I sure hope to be better. We need to make sure that we are supporting our spouses when they need us. This way Happily Ever After can happen.

My husband and I don't have any children with us yet. What are some things that you and your husband do to stay close even with the stresses of childhood? 

Why is it important to consecrate our marriage?

       My husband and I dated for a year and a half before we were married most of this being long distance. One day I was talking to Kevin on the phone about how my roommate and a group of friends wanted to go out camping. Lovelingly, Kevin expressed his opinion that this wasn't a good idea. I didn't understand why we were just a group of friends, and no one in that group would do anything wrong like that. I trusted them. After talking to him for a while, I realized that that I didn't feel good about this decision either. I decided not to go camping, and It wasn't until we were engaged, that is when I realized why we don't give exceptions for people that we know or for ourselves. My husband and I came to realize while engaged that if we didn't put up our boundaries, we would fall into immorality. This wasn't because we weren't trying or that we weren't strong in our faith. It was because if you put yourself in a spot where you can be tempted... you will!  And if you continue to put yourself in a situation where you can be tempted it will be harder and harder to be able to resist those temptations. We can't say that nothing bad will happen when we put ourselves into a situation that has the opportunity of going bad. 

WE HAVE TO DO THE SAME WHEN IT COMES TO FRIENDSHIPS! We cannot allow friendships to ruin our marriage.

     Know I realize this is a very bold thing to say and of course you need to have friends I am not saying that your spouse is the only person you should ever talk to but, if there ever comes a time when you are thinking of someone more than your spouse then you need to re-evaluate what kind of relationship you want with that friend and how you are going to change the one with your spouse.

President Ezra Taft Benson once said :

“If you are married, avoid flirtations of any kind. Sometimes we hear of a married man going to lunch with his secretary or other women in the office. Men and women who are married sometimes flirt and tease with members of the opposite sex. So-called harmless meetings are arranged, or inordinate amounts of time are spent together. In all of these cases, people rationalize by saying that these are natural expressions of friendship. But what may appear to be harmless teasing or simply having a little fun with someone of the opposite sex can easily lead to more serious involvement and eventual infidelity. A good question to ask ourselves is this: Would my spouse be pleased if he or she knew I was doing this? Would a wife be pleased to know that her husband lunches alone with his secretary? Would a husband be pleased if he saw his wife flirting and being coy with another man? My beloved brothers and sisters, this is what Paul men at when he said, “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

        We cannot allow ourselves to get attached to another person. It may be hard for non-married friends to understand this. I know my friends are still having a hard time with this idea. I have this friend who has helped me through hard times for several years. He and I talked for hours every week, and we enjoyed each other's conversations. Now our talks are minimal because my focus should be building my eternal relationship instead. We still keep in contact and keep each other updated on life but not like it was.  

I feel like the world has such a twisted view of this. They watch tv shows, view pornography, and even have side people who they turn to when times get rough.

Dreams or your marriage? Why not both?

       My husband and I are recently married. When we were dating, it was easy for me to set me aside and focus on his dreams because they seemed so exciting. When we talked, he seemed to have such a clear picture of how his life was going to look like. It was one of the reasons I fell for him; he is so driven and motivated. A couple of months ago, I realized that we weren't working toward my dreams. 

     Many of us come into a relationship with separate goals and ambitions in life. Many times these goals get pushed to the side. When this happens, it is easy to come into what Gottman calls a Gridlock. This is when couples come across a problem that they think there is no solution. This week I would like to share an event of how my husband and I worked a situation that could've quickly become a Gridlock.

      One example is I have always dreamed of adopting some children. It has been a dream of my ever since I was a little girl. My husband Kevin never really thought about it, and to me, it seemed he pushed it aside. Now, this could become a gridlock we could fight about this for years. I could use his distance from my dream as an excuse to think that he doesn't listen to me or he doesn't care about how I think our life should go. How do we stop a dream from becoming something that we fight about? Respect John Gottman mentions that respect is how we can make sure that dreams don't come in between our spouse and us.

      Kevin has always been very respectful to me so to help solve this, Kevin and I sat down and talked. Once he realized that adopting has been a dream for me and that I can't imagine being in a world with no family, and I want to help as many kids have a family. Kevin didn't realize that this wasn't just a fun "what if" idea it was a dream that I wanted to achieve. He was all in! We are now planning on having children and adopting when we can. After hours and hours of talking my husband and I have come up with OUR dreams. Now something that could've been a problem. Respect and communication fixed it, and we now know where we want to go as a family. I have found myself way more happy knowing that I am not just helping my husband fulfill his dreams, but we are fulfilling our goals together

Is Marriage Worth It?

Is Marriage worth it?

Have you ever been walking around the store, and hear couples arguing about something that happened years ago?  Or have you been that couple? These type of conversations are what John Gottman calls perpetual arguments. These conflicts are things that you and your husband haven't resolved and are shelved to be used as weapons later. John Gottman's study led him to find out that 69 percent of the arguments that we have with our spouse ar perpetual. How can we avoid being stuck in this vicious cycle? 

John Gottman has given us steps on how to do this.

1. Soften your start-up

- Be sensitive to how we bring up something that bothers us.

2. Learn to make and receive repair attempts.

- Listen to your partner and be aware of the ways they try are trying to fix the situation.

3. Soothe yourself and each other

- Keep yourself calm and help your partner stay calm (Ice cream is always good, one bowl two spoons)

4. Compromise

- Be open to solutions that you didn't originally come up with.

5. Process any grievances so that they don't linger.

- MAKE SURE THAT YOU TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING! Pay attention to details. Do not let anything related to that issue remain un-heard or unresolved.

Do these steps take work, patience, and time? Yes, but It's worth the effort to allow hurt feelings and sad memories to be resolved the situation. 

The world today has a weird view on marriage and questions if being committed in a marriage relationship is worth the effort. From the book Drawing Heaven into your marriage, he quotes Micheal Novak who says,

"Marriage is an assault upon the lonely, atomic ego. Marriage is a
threat to the solitary individual. Marriage does impose grueling,
humbling, baffling, and frustrating responsibilities. 
Yet, marriage is not the enemy of moral development in adults. Quite the opposite.
Being married and having children has impressed on my mind
certain lessons, for whose learning I cannot help being grateful. My
bonds to [my family] are, I know, my liberation. They force me to
be a different sort of human being, in a way in which I want and
need to be forced."

Novak is reminding us that marriage can help us grow and be stretched that we couldn't do outside of marriage.  Without someone to see and love us with all of our faults or someone to help lift us when we fall, we cannot grow into a loving, compassionate, stalwart person.

Making sure Pride isn't in your Marriage

Growing up, I always had a hard time with the many definitions of pride. We are supposed to have pride in our school and pride in our homework, but we should never have pride in our hearts.  This quote by President Ezra Taft Benson and C.S Lewis has helped me understand the type of pride that the scriptures talk about "The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)" 

Pride by this definition, is judging others and putting them below yourself. This type of pride has no place in our lives.  We all grew up with the story of the Cinderella.  Cinderella's stepmother is the perfect example of a prideful person. No matter how hard Cinderella tried,  He stepmother viewed her as a servant girl. Even when she worked hard to get to the Prince's ball and she did everything that her Stepmother had asked her to do. Her stepmother didn't her perfect image ruined by having a servant girl with her, so she left Cinderella home in a ruin dressed.

Luckily, Cinderella had a great ending to her story full of love and happily ever after, but do we sometimes hurt the people we should love the most? Do we make the things they love important to us? Marriage should be a place where we feel the safest, where dreams can come true with our best friend by our side.

Are we creating an atmosphere where our spouse can come home and feel loved? My husband and I have just recently moved into a new apartment in Utah. A new place can bring so many new joys! New walls to decorate, new areas to explore and new ideas of where things should go. My husband's goal when we first got there was to make our house organized before he had to go to work. We decided that we would work hard our first days in our new place, putting everything away to make it feel like a home. We spent several hours to do this, and we still aren't done. However, our apartment is everything we hoped it would be! If I didn't share my husband's dream to have a beautiful home and he came home every day to an ugly un-organized apartment? He wouldn't be as excited to come home after a long day at work.

I believe the best way of removing pride out of any marriage relationship is both spouses working together on common goals. Here are some questions to ponder. What are some goals that your spouse has that you are actively working towards? What are some of yours that you haven't talked to your spouse about yet? Do have a bad attitude about something your spouse loves?

If you and your spouse can have shared goals and are actively working towards them, it can help prevent pride from coming into your marriage. Remember, the best time to fix a relationship is now.

Staying Connected as a Couple

My husband, Kevin and I have always been pretty good at creating things to keep us close. When we were dating, we came up with what we consider now as our family logos. The first one is " Forever with Faith," and the second is "Making Memories." While we were dating, it was tough to see if we would ever make it past the dating stage because of my desire to go on a mission. Forever with Faith was a reminder that if we made it, it was because we did it with faith. What I love about these is that they helped us then and they continue to help us. When we come to a hard time, we remember that we can make it to eternity if we did it with faith and right now, we are focusing on making memories.

 We have also created actions and symbols to help us look towards one another. The first action/symbol is three squeezes to the hand, which means "I love you." No matter the situation, Kevin and I can grab each other's hand and remind each other that we are thinking about them. It also can help us break awkward tension in the room. This one works even if we can't talk to each other. The other thing that we have developed over this past year of marriage is a circle that we make connecting our pointer finger with our thumb. This is a reminder that our love is eternal never-ending.

Now, these symbols and phrases are essential to my husband and my relationship. They may not seem like much, or even a little corny to some of those who know us, but they work for us. We know that the other one has our back no matter the situation, anywhere we are. 

One thing that my husband and I have done several times is a personality test. Our favorite is five love languages if you haven't taken it, I highly suggest it. Single or married, it is good to know how you receive love and how those around you receive love. 

Here's the link if you want to try it: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/ 

Giving 100 percent so you can receive 100 percent.

Marriage. I love the idea that each spouse gives 100 percent of their effort into maintaining a marriage.  When we first met my husband, Kevin, he realized that I had a strong desire to serve a mission, and it wasn't something that I was going to give up.  Right at the beginning, he knew if he wanted to have a relationship with me, it was going to be a while before we would be able to create something that would last forever. After a couple of dates, we knew that we wanted to have a lasting relationship, so we started dating, and in a few months, I left on my mission.  While on my mission, I had severe headaches; however, I continued to serve with them. Eventually, I had to return home and find out why I had severe headaches.

On the plane ride home, Heavenly Father opened an idea to my heart.  I had two paths to choose from that would shape the course of my life. I could heal and go back on my mission, or I could stay home and start an eternal family with my sweetheart.  When I first got home from my mission, I didn't want to see both paths that Heavenly Father had placed in front of me. I wanted to finish my mission.  I still had so much of the gospel I wanted to share, and so many more people I knew I could touch.

I called Kevin and talked to him.  Kevin was so excited for me to be home!  As we spoke, it seemed that no time had passed, we talked about how hard it was to be apart.  I realized that Kevin had done most of the compromising in our relationship thus far.  After praying to Heavenly Father, I realized that we had both done what we needed to do. Now it was time for us to grow and learn together instead of being apart. We were married a few months later, and I have never regretted my decision.

To me, this type of compromise is what keeps relationships growing! Both putting 100 percent in making sure that everything is best for the other person.

Friendship is the key for a marriage that last

We all know that some marriages end because of something that went wrong in the relationship but, do we talk about the ones that last?

 I love John Gottman's idea about making friendship the foundation of your marriage. I love his quote from John Gottman's book seven principles for making marriage work " Friendship fuels the flames of romances because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse."

I think Gottman definition of friendship means working on your relationship by making new memories by doing things you love doing and trying new things that you haven't done before.

I have six brothers, and four of them are married. They have shown me how marriages come in all shapes and sizes. My oldest brother Jeremy and his wife, love hiking and photography. My second oldest brother Tyler and his wife, just love adventures, nothing in specific just adventures. Then my brother Aaron and his wife love to play video games so much so that their little son can beat me at Mario Cart. All of my brothers have wonderful marriages, but none of them are similar except for one thing. They were friends before they were married, and they continue to kindle their friendships. My brothers are wonderful examples for me.

My husband and started our relationship off with adventures and doing things that both of us love. One thing that we loved doing was taking quizzes to see what we had in common and then do something with that common interest. 

Covenant Marriages, a thing of the past?

Are we living in a world where we give up on things when they get hard? Divorces in the world are common, and children are used to living in two different places because their families are separated. This not only breaks my heart, but I am sure that it breaks Heavenly Fathers heart to see so many of His beloved children hurting.

As I was doing my genogram, I was so surprised by how many divorces have been in my family. On my mother side, they don't have the gospel or don't follow the gospel standards ( except one brother), so I was expecting the number of divorces that were on her side but what surprised me was on my father side of the family. All of them grew up with the Gospel, so it surprised me that there were several divorces not only with my cousins but also my aunts. You would think growing up with the gospel and always learning about temple marriages and covenants that divorces would be less often. What made all of these marriages fail? What made all of the other marriages work?

As I was reading Elder Bruce C. Hafen gave a talk on Covenant marriage, some of my questions were answered. One story that helped me understand maybe why some of these marriages failed was the story he shared about three kinds of wolves that test marriages. The first wolf is natural adversity, things like your car tires go flat on you, or you break your leg. The next wolf is the imperfections of people.  In short, this wolf is in imperfections that we don't grow out of. If we are quick to anger or quick to judge these type of things cannot only test a marriage but could destroy them altogether. The third wolf is excessive individualism. The Idea of what is in it for me? Or how can I get what I want? 

One wolf that I have seen from a couple that has lived in my ward boundaries that were affected by the last wolf. This couple had been married for several years kids moved out grandkids and the whole shebang but, there was a disconnect in the marriage. The husband started getting caught up in the world and looking at different people and slowly they got a divorce because of his own selfish desires. All three of these wolfs can hurt or destroy our marriages if we are not careful

Now, how important is a covenant marriage to you? How are you going to keep your marriage sacred?

How to stay strong in your beliefs on marriage while loving people like Christ would.

Marriage between a man and a woman is what many people know days would say is the traditional way of thinking. They would also argue that we need to get with the times and acknowledge that the world has changed for the good in so many other ways from traditional ways of thinking.

Before addressing all of these ideas, I think the most important thing to do first is to find where you stand with marriage then decided how you are going to love people that disagree with you. After reading more and understanding different views from many different people I want first to say that I believe that a child has the best chances in life if they are raised with a good father and a good mother. Heavenly Father put Adam and Eve down on this earth together as an example to us on how he wanted his children to raise families here on earth. We have also been given "The Family Proclamation to The World" that our prophets and Apostles have given to help guide us on what God expects from us.

That being said, I am so grateful for anyone that follows the Saviors example and "loves one another." This was Christ first and great commandment if we don't follow his first commandment then are we really his disciples? I have had several friends who have identified themselves as gay. Do I love them any less? No, I love them just like any other friend of mine but, do I keep my mouth shut when they are discussing things that I disagree with? Absolutely not.

My favorite quote from this week was from "Disciples of Jesus Christ - Defenders of  Marriage"  by Russel M. Nelson he said " Many of your neighbors, colleagues, and friends will have never heard logical and inspired truths about the importance of marriage as God Himself defined it. You will have many opportunities to strengthen understanding of the Lord’s side of that argument by the eloquence of your examples, both as individuals and as families."  

This quote is my favorite because we need to get our thoughts out there. Heavenly Father doesn't want us to just wait for things to happen but he wants us to be active and MAKE things happen. Many of our friends and family will struggle with the identity of marriage and how it should be. That's okay but we have to make sure that we help them understand God's opinion of marriage.

Does this mean that you will change their minds on the definition of marriage?  Probably not, but at least they will know where you stand, and you will know where they stand and live in harmony.

Keeping Family Together

Recently my husband and I have thought about this a lot. We want to start our family soon and can't imagine growing up in this world that continues to grow evil every day? How will we raise children in this evil world? How can we help them live in the world and not be of the world? President Kimball, he stated, “ …only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us.” How do we become an active family?

The first thing that my husband and I have discussed is we need to teach them principles instead of the do's and don'ts because principles will guide them when we are not there.  Have you seen Despicable Me where Gru says "don't touch anything" and Agnus answers back " what about the floor?" and "What about the air?" It might have been easier to say "my house is full of things that can hurt you please be careful and not touch anything, not in this room."

 I would love my family to know the core doctrines of the church inside and out because doctrines never change. Especially with so many recent policies changes, it is essential for them to have a firm foundation in principles.

Also teaching them how to gain their testimony of things at a young age is crucial. Many of our young people are getting hit younger and younger with trail testers. 

The next thing that we have discussed is regular scripture study for ourselves and as a family. As I was growing up my family was a rough group sometimes to get family scripture study in every day, but I know that on those days my mom was praying for us and giving us the strength for the day. I want to be that type of mother; I want my family to know that when they are struggling mom is always praying for them.

Last but not least I want my family to know that our home is a haven. A place of refuge, a place where they come home and can get the stresses of the day off. I want them to feel like they can tell me everything even if it is bad. I don't want to feel like they will ever be judged, just loved. If you can have that in a home, I feel like you have gained everything in the world. Then you can help your family know that you are always there. This is where actual growing takes place.

Thoughts from School Work

President Spencer W. Kimball taught: “Two individuals approaching the marriage altar must realize that to attain the happy marriage which they hope for they must know that marriage … means sacrifice, sharing, and even a reduction of some personal liberties. It means long, hard economizing. It means children who bring with them financial burdens, service burdens, care, and worry burdens; but also it means the deepest and sweetest emotions of all.”