Your Marriage Partner's Influence

Letting Your Partner Influence You

Gottman’s fourth principle, “Let Your Partner Influence You,” focuses on how to overcome pride in marriage. In every marriage, you have to learn how to share power. Gottman says it’s mainly men who are reluctant in giving up power, because they tend to drown out their wives influence by using one of the four horsemen during a confrontation.

In my own personal experience, for about two years I have been trying to convince my husband to change his work schedule back to a traditional work week (five eight hour days) from a non-traditional four (ten hour days). I had two valid reasons: First, when he comes home from work he is exhausted and only wants to eat dinner, sit on the couch and watch T.V., go to bed, and start the routine all over again the next day. Second, working five shorter days would be better for me, since my school assignments are centered around turning in assignments five to six days a week. He had been unwilling to see my point of view. All he could think of the fact he likes only having to work four days a week, and felt we had more time to spend together. Finally, when a couple of his co-workers complained about having to cover for him every Friday, he asked me what I thought of him working five days a week.

I held back my tongue, because the natural sarcastic response I wanted to scream was, “What were your ears hearing these past few years, when I’ve been trying to convince you to work five days a week!” I took a deep breath, and once again reassured him working five days a week would be great since he would get home much earlier, and it would give me the fifth day I need to complete my school work before the weekend.

Pride

Here are some of the quotes from President Ezra Taft Benson in his article titled “Beware of Pride,” in the May 1989 Ensign, that made me really think about Pride:

·         Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing. The central feature of pride is enmity – enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen.

·         Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves.

·         Pride is the universal sin, the great vice.

In life, it can be trying to keep from becoming prideful/boastful. Just like in my example I had to hold back my tongue by taking a deep breath which gave me time to think before I spoke to my husband about his work week. What I have learned is, prior to now he was not ready to hear my point of view. I had to let him choose his own work schedule. Otherwise, he might not be happy with the arrangements and be resentful towards me if I had forced him to change sooner than he was ready to.