The Impact of PRIDE on Marriage

                                               

PRIDE

President Ezra Taft Benson wrote a landmark talk on pride in 1989 ("Beware of Pride", given by President Gordon B. Hinckley, link below). It is full of profound truths. He lists the faces that pride wears. 

CONTENTION: arguments, fights, unrighteous dominion, spouse abuse, divorce

SELFISHNESS: self-conceit, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, self-seeking, self-pity

Yes, self-pity and self-loathing are a form of PRIDE. Pride keeps us focused on "How everything affects me." 

If we feel that we are at the bottom looking up at others, pride may manifest in "faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous" (Benson, 1989). Whether we are looking from the top down or from the bottom up, we are judging ourselves against others. Pride says, "If you succeed then I am a failure" or "I can only be successful if others are below me". There is no room in a marriage for this kind of thinking. 

                                                         

I read "The 5 Love Languages" book a while ago. I found it interesting and thought it was helpful in that it helped me to recognize how I feel love and how to recognize ways my husband and children might need me to serve them to feel loved. However, there was something about it that bugged me for a long time. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 

One day, I noticed that I was feeling increasingly irritated with my husband because I learned my love language is words of affirmation and my husband really struggles with giving me words of affirmation. Like, he even struggles with telling me, "I love you." It comes out awkward. I can tell he is uncomfortable, and I feel it is insincere so I feel uncomfortable. I have told him over and over I need to hear words of affirmation. Yet, he just couldn't make himself. I suggested he write it in a note. He couldn't do it, so I was feeling hurt and irritated. I was loving him the way he needed. Why couldn't he do the same for me?? 

Then the Spirit whispered to me, "WATCH". 

So I stopped feeling irritated and started watching. I started to notice all the little things he did for me. He would fill the car with gas when he knew I needed to drive it. He would warm the car and scrape the windshield in the winter before I had to go somewhere. He would change the laundry if he walked by and noticed it needed changing. He would make me lunch if I got busy doing something and didn't want to stop to eat. And it hit me. My husband was practically SHOUTING at me how much he loved me, and I couldn't hear it because I was expecting it in the way I WANTED and NEEDED. I started crying. I cried because I had wasted so much time feeling irritated. I had missed all those opportunities to feel loved and to show my appreciation to my husband.                

                                                                        THE END

"When we are feeling irked, annoyed, or irritated with our spouse...we are guilty of pride...We are saying to our spouses, 'You are not meeting my needs the way I would like them met. Don't you realize that is your job?! Your every act is to be dedicated to my happiness. Now hop to it!'...In fact, anytime we feel irritated with our spouses, that irritation is not an invitation to call our spouses to repentance but an invitation to call ourselves to repent." (Goddard, 2009)

We can surely tell our spouse our preferences, wants and needs. I would just caution that if your spouse does not meet those needs, please do not dwell on all the negative feelings. Focus on the positive things your spouse does and allow your spouse to change at their own pace. 

Pride gets in the way of accomplishing the fourth principle of making a marriage work from John M. Gottman, Ph.D.

PRINCIPLE 4: Let Your Spouse INFLUENCE You

Letting your spouse influence you means taking into account their ideas, opinions, and emotions. It will help you to recognize and act on "bids of affection" instead of reacting with the FOUR HORSEMEN. (See previous posts)  Here is a great article to help you understand what this looks like.
https://www.gottman.com/blog/husband-can-influential-accept-influence/

Needless to say, this goes both ways. However, statistically speaking, this tends to be more of a problem with men. Sorry men. However, the data shows that the percentage of men who are willing to let their wives influence them is rising. It is currently at 35%. "When a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81% chance that his marriage will self-destruct" (Gottman, 2015).

Here is a quiz to see where you are in accepting influence.
https://www.gottman.com/blog/quiz-do-you-and-your-partner-accept-each-others-influence/

Ways that PRIDE manifests itself in a relationship:

Give a spouse the "cold shoulder" or the "silent treatment"

Blaming, defensiveness.

Refusing to apologize first.

Refusing to forgive.

Bringing up a spouse's faults.

Holding grudges.

Sharing a spouse's weaknesses with others

Displaying an attitude of entitlement in the marriage.

Stubbornness or unwillingness to change.

Withholding love and affection

How do these actions get in the way of allowing one's spouse to influence them? Are there other ways pride manifests itself in a marriage? How can we overcome these tendencies?
                                           

SOURCES:

Benson, Ezra T. (1989) "Beware of Pride" https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng 

Goddard, H. Wallace, Ph.D. (2009) "Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage"

Gottman, John, M., Ph.D. (2015) "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work"