As my sweetie and I approach our 20 year wedding anniversary in a few weeks and have passed a lot of other 20 year anniversaries in the past 6 months: (First Date, First Kiss, First Trip, First almost Elopement, First Fight, etc.) I have been looking at where we have been, where we are and where we are going. What do we have to show for this past 20 years?
We have raised three kids to adult hood - when Trent and I married, my two children from my first marriage were 6 and 8 years old. Add twenty years to that number! We then added three more children to our family and recently saw the oldest graduate from high school and will soon be helping her move out as she begins her college years.
The realization that we only have five years to go before we are empty nesters makes me want to grab hold of my 12 and 15 year olds and never let them go! They will be having milestone birthdays in less than 2 months! What amazing girls they are! All of our children, including our recently added son in-law make us very proud. We look forward to adding another generation to our family tree in December with the expected arrival of our first grandchild - with the recent ultrasound indicating a boy on the way, it feels more and more real.
But back to my checkup - marriage is hard - at least making sure you are both happy, keeping the romance alive, and not losing yourself in the process. I had been feeling like we were in a rut, that I had in many ways sacrificed my dreams to raise my children all the while supporting my husband while he actively pursued his with my support. I don't regret being a stay at home mom for the 15 of the past 20 years. In fact, after going back to work for 3 years, I was thrilled to be able to quit work and just be at home. Sometimes it seems the kids take me for granted and expect that I make their school lunches, breakfasts and dinners, bring their forgotten items, and run them to and fro, but I am so glad that I can be there for them. I trust that they will appreciate me when it's their turn - and just in case, I tell them on a probably too regular (at least for them) basis that they will appreciate me when they become mothers.
In this state of mind, I started looking through the recommended relationship advice books for information to help have the best of marriages and came across the Gottman's book: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage. and have just finished reading both. I have only been able to share a small part with my hubby. He does not like to read and has very little time to give me... hence chapter 1 in Ten Lessons: "All You Ever Do Is Work" really caught my attention. Ten lessons uses the principles in the first book, but also gives dialogue before and after couples received direction from the Gottman's on how to discuss heated areas differently. It made me so much more aware of the negative things my hubby and I do when working through conflict. The Gottman's point out that it is common for all of us to do those things, but when we do them regularly, we get caught in a "negative sentiment override" where we lose sight of all the positives about each other and quickly assume the worst about our spouse when we have these discussions.
As Trent and I have made an effort to first understand each other's feelings about the issue before beginning to problem solve, and to discuss the issues without getting defensive about things that are said - by looking for our partner's longing in the message rather than feeling criticized or attacked (even when we may be getting criticized) we can quickly turn the argument around.
The Gottman's say they can tell the outcome of an argument in the first 3 minutes depending on how the issue is presented - was a soft start-up used or a harsh one and whether the 4 horsemen were present (defensiveness, criticism, disdain towards the partner and stonewalling - refusing to listen to your partner). They also say that when "flooding" occurs - they don't use these words, but when the logical brain turns off because fight or flight kicks in as evidenced by biological changes (increased heart rate, adrenaline, etc. then it's time to take at least a 20 minute break to become calm and rational again. We need to be able to tell our partner's we are flooded and allow our partners that time to calm down. If we can do these things, we can better deal with conflict.
That is not all - we need to know and support our partner's dreams, appreciate the great things about our partners, etc.
I have tried to apply these principles and am excited for our upcoming Gottman workshop where Trent might also get more involved in this process. He did say something about finding a mp3 audio of the book that he might listen to. He asked if he should wait until the workshop or get it now. Since I have already read the books, I think it would be awesome to have him join me in this!
I find it very fitting that the weekend before our 20 year anniversary, we will be at the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work in Draper Utah. I'll let you know what positive changes I see in our marriage - and what positive changes I see as I share the info with my children... we learn how to relate to our future spouses in our families. Maybe I am not too late to teach them so that they can have happier marriages.
Valerie
