Week # 10:  Charity is essential to marriage

What is charity and what does it have to do with marriage? “Charity is the pure love of Christ”(Moroni 7:47).  Imagine how wonderful our marriages would be if we all had charity and loved our spouses as Christ does!

We have learned that all marriages face challenges and difficulties.  We all have weaknesses.  In order to have happy marriages we need to have charity, we need to be able to overlook one another’s shortcomings and look for and see the good.  How do we do that though? We strive every day to have charity for one another and love as Christ does.

Marvin J. Ashton teaches us what daily charity looks like.  He said, “Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet.  Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcoming; having patience with someone who has let us down” (Goddard, 2009, p.116).

This is something I really need to work on.  Way too many times I do not remain silent when my husband bugs me or lets me down.  I make sure I point out exactly what he needs to improve on.  However, this does not help him improve.  It only makes him feel bad, get angry, and drives a wedge between us.  People may think that pointing out what our partner’s should work on, or criticizing them, helps them and helps them meet our needs.  This is simply not true and is selfish.  Just today my husband made a choice that I was kind of upset about.  I felt let down.  I immediately went to say some critical things, but I remembered this principle, bit my tongue, and walked away!

Gottman’s quote helped me. He said, “All criticism is painful.  Unlike complaints-specific requests for change- criticism doesn’t make a marriage better.  It inevitably makes it worse” (2015, p.282).  I have really struggled with criticism in my marriage and as a mother.  I have tried to not be so critical and to be more loving, kind, and charitable, but I have struggled to improve.  Gottman helps me know how to improve.  He says, “Expressions of thanksgiving and praise are the antidotes to the poison of criticism and it’s deadly cousin, contempt”(2015,p.283).  He suggests the following exercise to foster thanksgiving:

“For an entire week, offer your spouse at least one genuine, heartfelt praise each day.” If you do this, “you’ll receive a great gift: You will become less critical of yourself.  Grace and forgives will enter your world”(Gottman, 2015, p. 284). 

What a powerful gift to have.  I noticed that the week when I really focused on nurturing fondness and admiration for my husband that my love for him had grown.  I ignored the things that bugged me and focused on all the good things he had done.  I know this is a true principle.

But what if we do this and it still isn’t enough?  Goddard has the perfect answer. Have Charity, the pure love of Christ, seeing others as Christ sees them.  But how do we do this? 

We find the answer in The Book of Mormon in Moroni 7:48: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ….”

We must pray with all our heart to obtain charity and be a true follower of Christ.  We also need to turn our lives over to Christ and let Him heal us and change us.  Through Him we can do all things, including loving and seeing others as He does. 

Gottman has also found, that all marriages have perpetual problems that will not be able to be solved.  However, we can still be happy in our marriages as we learn to share our hopes and dreams with one another and help each other fulfill those dreams even if they differ from our own dreams.  When we are charitable to our partners we are both blessed.  Gottman encourages spouses to listen to one another’s deep feelings that are connected to the perpetual problem.  He says as couples listen to each other and try to support one another’s feelings, hopes, and dreams they are able to deal with these differences.  He says, “In a happy marriage, neither spouse insists that the other give up their dream or attempts to manipulate them.  They work it out as a team, taking into account each other’s wishes and desires…. The point is that their concept of their marriage incorporates supporting both of these dreams.  The way they go about making such decisions - with mutual respect for and acknowledgement of each other’s aspiration- is part of what makes their relationship so meaningful to them” (2015, p.240). 

References

Goddard, H. W. (2009) Drawing heaven into your marriage. Eternal doctrine that change relationships. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap publishing.

Gottman, J. M. (2015). The Seven principles for making marriage work (2^nd ed).  New York, NY: Harmony books.