Welcome to News, Media, Information and Wisdom for everyday Christian Living. Stay tuned, we're always updating.

Learn to Celebrate Your Differences

Posted: February 24th, 2010 | Author: Pastor Sybil | Filed under: Marriage | No Comments »

Gary and Barbara Rosberg

America’s Family Coaches

We’re just going to say it plainly because it’s true: Nobody is perfect! You didn’t marry the angel of perfection you thought you were getting – and neither did your spouse. When the honeymoon ended and the glow of your first year together dimmed, you began to see your partner more realistically. You rubbed each other the wrong way occasionally. Probably not because you wanted to, but because your differences and flaws were beginning to show more clearly.

Let’s face it: The only one who could be a perfect spouse is Jesus, Himself. Your mate is going to make mistakes, and so are you. And you’re occasionally going to annoy each other or make each other angry. We’re human. But you don’t have to let those imperfections and differences ruin your relationship! So we want to coach you on how to learn to celebrate your differences – instead of focusing on the negatives.

Many people believe that their spouse looks at life the same way they do, but that’s usually not the case. If you don’t understand your mate’s way of thinking it can lead to assumptions and misunderstandings when they react out of their perspective of life and not your perspective.

When you see your spouse’s personality in a deeper way, you can see your differences as a blessing! You are meant to complement each other. That’s why it’s so important to learn and practice unconditional love in your marriage.

Grace. Affirmation. Safety. Time. Study. All are keys to unconditional love and acceptance. Here’s a checklist to help you begin to measure how you are doing in each of these areas:

  • Where do I need to show some grace, real grace, to the person I married? Where do I need to let go and let God do His thing with my spouse?
  • Who needs my words of affirmation more than anyone in my life? Is it easier for me to affirm my kids and my friends than it is for me to affirm my spouse?
  • What are we doing to build safety into our marriage so we can take the risks to love unconditionally?
  • When was the last time we took time to go deeper with each other? Are we making time to connect with each other daily?
  • Am I studying my spouse? Do I know his or her strengths as well as his or her weaknesses? Am I helping to build on the former and strengthen the latter so that I can best become one with my mate?

These are tough questions. Building a great marriage is not easy. As we’ve said before: True love doesn’t always take place on a romantic balcony. Sometimes it takes place on a battlefield.

Another thing you have to consider is this: People change. Very few of us have the same figure or physique we had on our wedding day as we walked down the aisle. And even if you can still fit into your tuxedo on your tenth anniversary, you’re not the same person you were when you stood at the altar. You may have a few wrinkles or an extra chin that didn’t show up on your wedding photographs. That jet black hair you had may be well on its way to gray or white. Or maybe it’s disappearing altogether

In whatever ways you and your spouse change with age, one thing about you should never change: your unconditional acceptance of one another. By accepting your spouse completely at every stage of life – wrinkles, gray hair, love handles, and all – you show him or her unconditional love.

But aging is only part of the issue. Other changes occur in ways that are not as natural and are often more difficult to deal with. What happens when the person you married is no longer the person you married? Old age takes its toll, but so do unexpected illnesses and injuries. You may have also discovered that your starry-eyed expectations for your spouse were a tad unrealistic. Or you now see a side of your spouse you were blind to when you were courting. He isn’t the corporate-ladder-climbing entrepreneur you expected him to be. After the kids were born, she never regained her girlish figure as you hoped. The social butterfly you dated has turned into a homebody.

On top of all that, you now realize that your spouse is human, not an angel. He or she makes mistakes, forgets things occasionally, and is sometimes short-tempered with you. How do you handle these disappointing changes and unwelcome surprises, great and small?

When you are trying to accept your spouse, try to remember how God responds to us in our weaknesses and failure. We are painfully aware of our own fumbling and bumbling as his children. But consider these passages from God’s Word describing God’s heart towards saints who are not always saintly:

  • Psalm 103:1-3 (NLT), “Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.”
  • Psalm 103:8-10 (NLT), “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.”
  • Psalm 130:3-4 (NLT), “Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.”
  • Ephesians 1:7-8 (NLT), “He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”
  • 1 John 1:9 (NLT), “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

How does God respond to us in our imperfection? He doesn’t look down his nose at us. He doesn’t condemn us or ridicule us. He doesn’t distance himself from us. He doesn’t compare us to someone who may be more disciplined or mature. He accepts us, just as we are, warts and all. How can he do it? The apostle Paul wrote, “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). God forgives you and accepts you because you are in Christ.

How does it make you feel to know that God loves you unconditionally, even when you may have trouble loving yourself? It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? This is how your spouse feels when you accept him or her despite his or her changes, imperfections and failures. What a privilege to serve our spouses as Christ has served us.

So, here’s the drill today. Think about which areas you need to be less critical and more accepting of your spouse. Maybe it’s your spouse’s appearance, behavior, or weaknesses.

Then, take the ten minute challenge. Set a timer for ten minutes and write down all the positives you can think of about your spouse in that time. Then either carry the list with you or put it up somewhere you can see it – to remind you of all the things you love about your spouse.

Take the risk. Ask God to help you love and accept your spouse unconditionally. Love your mate even if he or she annoys you, even if he or she disappoints you, even if he or she doesn’t deserve your love. Love your spouse with the kind of love that Christ shows you.

 

Honey, I shrunk the Argument

Posted: October 8th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Marriage, Relationships | No Comments »

Article | Honey, I Shrunk the Argument by Gretchen Reynolds

Credit | Oprah.com

The art of making a molehill out of a mountain.

Lisa Diamond’s research associate keeps her voice deliberately neutral as she talks through a microphone to a couple in the next room. The man, Tim, slumped on a couch, and the woman, Stacey, sitting upright on a wing chair, have been wired with monitors that measure their heart rate and respiration, as well as the flow of electrical currents across their skin—all of which are indicators of nervous system activity. An unobtrusive video camera records the couple’s every twitch and flitting smile. Earlier, they were shown a series of innocuous photographs of landscapes while their baseline pulse rates and other measurements were recorded. Now they’re being asked to argue.

“The source of conflict that Tim chose,” the researcher is telling them, “is ‘You treat me like you’re my mom.’” At this, Stacey, an elegant 30-year-old operations manager for a nonprofit in Salt Lake City, stiffens. Tim, her tall, lean 29-year-old photographer boyfriend, smiles awkwardly, abashed. With his slouchy T-shirt, clunky black glasses, and floppy hair, he’s a study in nerdy chic. He looks at the floor. “Tim, you should explain what you mean by this particular conflict,” the researcher continues, “and then both of you try to resolve it. You’ll have four minutes.”

“Um—” Tim says, by way of starting.

“What do you mean by that?” Stacey cuts in.

And they’re off.

For the past year, Diamond, the associate professor of psychology at the University of Utah in whose laboratory Stacey and Tim now snipe, has been studying how couples argue—specifically, studying the measurable changes that occur in their bodies as they fight. It’s a tricky business, though not because she has difficulty eliciting spats. (That part is almost comically easy: Just ask each half of the pair to write down a gripe against the other.) The tougher part is getting the couples to stop squabbling after the researchers have gathered their data.

And the deepest challenge is teasing out the complex interplays between wrath and respiration, heartache and heart rate. Diamond is trying to quantify the role the body and nervous system play in relationships and conflict. In the process, she’s uncovering lessons—some practical, some poetic—about how small gestures can lessen the damage of big arguments, and about how even a minor reconsideration of what’s really happening between you can tamp down, metaphorically and physiologically, all that furious heat.
“Men and women typically experience the same relationship very differently,” Diamond tells me as we sit in her laboratory watching Tim and Stacey spar. The author of Sexual Fluidity, a study of female desire, Diamond is a small woman with darting energy and masses of black hair. “We know from some large epidemiological studies that the long-term health benefits of marriage traditionally have been greater for men than for women,” she says. “Presumably this has been because women are often the relationship maintainers. They’re the ones putting in much of the work. Men have gotten the benefits of a relationship without as much of the heavy lifting.”

In the small room where Tim and Stacey are arguing, the atmosphere has turned icy. “It’s not like I wrote down the worst problem I have,” Tim is saying, his eyes downcast. “I mean, um, you’re bossy.”

“Yes, I’m bossy,” Stacey snaps back. “I like to control my situation. I offer suggestions. It’s not like I’m being a mom. Tell me one time I acted like a mom.”

“Um, I don’t know,” Tim says. “My mind is blank. I… ” His voice trails off.

“The classic pattern you see is the demand-withdrawal dynamic,” Diamond whispers, referring to a pattern in which the woman makes demands and the man, in response, shuts down. It turns out that each behavior has striking corollaries within the body. “The man usually finds it calming to withdraw from the conflict,” Diamond says. His heart rate drops. His breathing slows. Yet, as he pulls away, “the woman watches in growing frustration. She’s thinking, ‘Why won’t he talk to me?’” Her heart rate rises. Her breathing becomes shallow and short. “The more he withdraws, the more physiologically aroused she becomes.”

If you’re the demanding partner in this dynamic, your best response at this point is surprisingly simple: Listen to your heart, literally. Monitor your physiology. If your heart is racing, your breathing ragged, your eyes ablaze, step back and take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Calm down. This small action can be surprisingly consequential, even profound. “The body is so fundamentally involved in our relationships,” Diamond says. “But few of us pay attention to it.”

Your own body’s cues aren’t the only ones worth paying attention to, however. The most important small gesture you can make toward your partner is to empathize. Consider that the very behavior making you nuts—his mumbling and emotional retreat—is calming for him, Diamond says. “It’s quite possible that he can’t respond in any other way. Our conflict styles develop over a lifetime.” So don’t raise your voice and demand that he continue engaging in that persistent fight about money or housework or friendships or sex (topics that recur constantly in Diamond’s work). Let him withdraw.
Then, when you’re calmer, go after him with a smile. “Humor is very important in defusing tension,” Diamond says. She describes one couple whose argument in the lab had grown extremely heated. A lab assistant intervened, suggesting they move on to the second chosen topic of conflict. And that topic was, as Diamond recalls, “the neighbor’s cow.” The two combatants looked at each other, dissolved into giggles, and left, minutes afterward, arm in arm. “We never found out what that source of conflict was supposed to be about,” Diamond says. Whatever it was, it didn’t make them angry anymore. It made them laugh. It restored their shared affection. “It’s always reassuring when we see couples start to laugh.”

Back in the observation room, Tim is squirming on the couch and Stacey’s stare is glacial. The lab assistant, directing the interaction toward resolution, suggests that they tell each other something positive.

Tim looks at Stacey and smiles. “I think we have fun most of the time,” he says. “We make each other laugh.”

Stacey’s pursed lips slowly relax. “Well, there was the time you wore that really tight pair of underwear.” She smiles, too. “That was funny.”

The research associate unhooks them from the various machines. They rise, take each other’s hands—another important small gesture—and leave.

“It would be interesting to hear the conversations between these couples in the car on the way home,” Diamond says. Or maybe that’s one small area in which science should leave well enough

alone.