"Meanwhile, mortal misunderstandings can make mischief in marriage. In fact, each marriage starts with two built-in handicaps. It involves two imperfect people. Happiness can come to them only through their earnest effort. Just as harmony comes from an orchestra only when its members make a concentrated effort, so harmony in marriage also requires a concerted effort. That effort will succeed in each partner will minimize personal demands and maximize actions of loving selflessness."     

 - President Russell M. Nelson

 

 

I want to share my feelings on this idea of built-in handicaps that start each marriage and why it is essential to recognize that in your relationship. The harmony that can result from understanding and accepting these handicaps and the daily effort almost keeps your relationship "tuned" up and loving.

My marriage started with two most definitely flawed people. We each had your own weakness, bad habits, etc. but also strengths and uniqueness. Generally speaking, each relationship follows a script—dating, courtship, engagement, marriage, married, children.  We follow true-to-norm dating/courting for about 8 months, getting engaged, and then getting married 3 months later.

Our engagement was kind of unique because both of my husband's parents are deceased. My parents were divorced, and both lived a great distance from where we were going to college. So, wedding planning was under the care of the two of us. That's it!  We planned a reasonably simple wedding/ reception. I was somewhat surprised to receive some money from my father with a note that said to use the funds for our reception because he didn't want to be embarrassed in his old hometown community.  I found this a little rude, but, in my dad's, own somewhat selfish perspective, he was trying to help us, but he was raised to think that surface things matter more- the "my grass is greener than yours" concept. I was so grateful that my husband and then-fiancé rolled with it instead of being offended by it. He patiently and kindly excepted the money and chose to accept it as a gift.  During the beginning of our marriage, we had challenges of adjustment of typical newlyweds. Still, we really had to rely on each other we didn't have a lot of family by so I feel that helped us grow closer. I honestly can't remember what our first fight was about.

I think it had to do with our roles as husband and wife. This is really interesting because 50 years ago, the roles in marriage were more clearly defined. Now, there is quite a lot of wiggle room for determining who does what in the relationship. For example- cooking, cleaning, paying bills, disciplining children.  Communication is vital to talk through who role is what and why. We were all raised differently. Sometimes, those roles are dictated, at least in our own minds, by how our parents played their roles and whether we found it positive and negative. My husband's father died when he was 9 years old, and he was raised by a widowed mother. I was raised by a single mom since my parents divorced when I was 7 years old. We had a similar experience but different perceptions. I grew up more independent of men in my life, but I knew I wanted a good man to rely on. My husband grew up protecting and caring for his mom, and therefore he was and is very protective of me. I really found this refreshing, and it is one of the reasons I love him. However, a few years into our marriage, I found this protectiveness in little smothering. We had conflicts about it and talked about how we could adjust this in our relationship. He began through awareness, adjust his level of protectiveness to allow me some space to grow as an individual. But this took time and trial and error before finding our way to make it work in our relationship.

Disciplining children was a difficult transition for us. My husband’s philosophy was more old school, carpal punishment. I remember him telling me that he and his brother would spend their summers on his uncle’s farm while he was young. If he did something that got him into trouble, his uncle would simply say, “Well, go get me a switch.” A switch was a thin green branch of a tree, and his uncle would use that on my husband's backside.

  I came from an abusive background, and I was afraid to use any kind of physical punishment because I didn't want that cycle to repeat itself. I would opt for grounding, time-outs, and privileges being taken away. This was and is something we don’t agree upon. My husband does understand the way I feel, and we tried to do our best as we raised our family. I handled the daily law-breaking when the children were younger, and he was okay with that, but if one of our children disrespected me, all bets were off!

 I really believe if we can go into a marriage with our eyes wide open. We need to clearly see both the positive (things we love about our spouse in the first place) and negative things too!  That is okay because we aren't perfect either. I try to remember that command for the Lord to love our neighbor as ourselves. Who is our best neighbor? Our spouse and I want to treat him as I would like to be treated. When I make a mistake, I really want him to show me compassion, forgive me for being stupid and help me try to be better.  So, I will try to do that for him. It isn't easy, but when you create harmony, it is worth it.