Marriage Moats- Get Out Your Notes, Class

Published: Mon, 02/25/19

Get Out Your Notes, Class

Caring for Marriage

I read about six habits of happily married couples. One of them is to cultivate forgiveness. What hijacked my attention was the reference to the Forgiveness Project by Stanford forgiveness expert, Dr. Fred Luskin. REALLY? Someone actually studied forgiveness! Does that make it as legitimate as microbiology or engineering? When we begin to understand the construction of resilient relationships as well as of condominiums, then we can build marriages fit to live in.

One of my pet peeves in early parenting was the scenario of one child hurting another, and then being gently led (well, strong armed) into apologizing, only to have the would-be-forgiver stick out her tongue. ARGGH! Now I wanted to punish the kid who was formerly the victim.

I was less proactive then than I try to be now. With these last few kids I have talked about what it means to accept an apology, and helped to follow through. I guess it is working because just last night Benjamin whined vociferously for twenty minutes about an errand we had to go on, and I told him repeatedly that that was enough. When we got home, his brother caught wind of the conflict and steered Benjamin toward me to repeat the script Zack had rehearsed with him.

"I am sorry for being difficult in the car."

Then after a brief pause, Zack nudged.

"Mom, can you accept his apology?"

Good call. "I accept your apology, Benjamin."

I suppose we expect people to learn compassion and forgiveness as automatically as we took up walking. There are no training videos or curriculum guidelines for mastering ambulatory skills, yet most of us learned by the age of one. But the skills that actually come in handy in life can be taught. Let me teach you one.

Ask your partner if this is a good time to talk. Intentionality alone triples your chances for success. (1.)
Invite him or her to share what they are feeling. Some people label these moments HAY's for How Are You? Listen well. (2.)
Then try to feed it back to your spouse, with the inclusion of a word that names the feeling expressed. It could sound like this:

"It was a hard day. The kids were ornery, I could not get caught up with the housework, and I wanted to be outside on a walk but it just didn't happen."

"You wanted to be outside on a walk but things did not go well with the kids or the house. You were frustrated. Is that right?"

In my experience the instantaneous relief this brings to your spouse is equivalent to a ninety minute full body massage. (3.) I invite you to try it in your own home. Keep at it for four years and you may even get an honorary degree in Marital Engineering.

Love,
Lori

1. I made this statistic up but it sounds impressive don't you think?
2. Pay attention as if this is the study session before a final exam in Multivariable Calculus, and your graduation depends on getting an A. It kind of does.
3. I am preparing to do further research on this premise.

Photo by Chara Smith

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