My Marriage Plan

So in this class on marriage that I am taking, one of our biggest assignments was to take the material that we studied, and the insights that had come to us through the semester to build a personalized marriage plan that would pertain to our real future.

To make a plan for my someday marriage is an interesting undertaking for someone like me. It’s an assignment that I would have undertaken dreamily as a Mia Maid or Laurel, or, let’s be honest, even as a Rick’s College co-ed. As a newlywed, it would have been a more difficult assignment, because I was quickly being taught what resistance would look like when it came to building and nurturing our marriage relationship. Not too many years had gone by before I accepted the fact that being married to my husband would be about picking my battles, and that the energy that it would take to enforce boundaries around my husband's behavior would have to be my main focus if I was going to keep our family together. But my efforts to hold everything together were ineffective and costly.

I saw the most profound illustration of dysfunction when I was watching a show called “My Cat from Hell” on Netflix with my kids one night. The show follows a man named Jackson Galaxy, a kind of cat whisperer, who solves problems between cats and their owners when other people would say that the only solution to the extreme hostility or non-compliance the cat displays is to put it down. Well in this particular episode, Jackson was being introduced to a very hostile cat by its owner, who demonstrated how she would put on homemade shin guards that she had made out of knee-high socks and duct tape, and walk around her apartment backwards to avoid being sneak attacked by her precious kitty who would dart out from under furniture and bloody up her legs with its claws.

As Jackson watched the strangeness of this ritual with wide eyes, he made a comment about how this was the very definition of dysfunctional coping. We come to a situation that we don’t have any experience dealing with, and in our desperation, we invent the strangest means of living with it! We are so focused on making things work at any cost, that we don’t even see how strange our behaviors or coping mechanisms have become! As I watched this, the idea stuck to me, but I didn’t fully understand why. I was only beginning to see how dysfunctional my relationship with my husband had become, but I had a feeling that in ways I didn’t even recognize yet, I had been walking around my own home backwards, with duct tape shin guards, for some time.

Now that my marriage has ended I have found a measure of peace and happiness that I haven’t felt in a great many years. It is so satisfying to have the degree of chaos and hostility that he threw at me on a daily basis gone! I’ve found a way to keep things afloat, and even though its tough going and very imperfect, I so much prefer it to the way life was when I was married!

And yet, I am still willing to try this marriage thing again.

So here I go, a single mother of four children, looking back at the lessons of a sixteen year marriage, and doing my best to look forward and put together a ‘marriage plan’. I guess most of my plan revolves around this idea from John Gottman- “the key to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not in how you handle disagreements but in how you are with each other when you’re not fighting.” (Gottman 46) My plan has come to me as a series of commitments. They might even be regarded as affirmations. They are steps far away from the dysfunction that was in my life and in my marriage. So here is the list that I came up with from my own refection, and here are quotes that relate most of them to the material we have studied this semester.

I cannot save anyone else, and I will not try to. I can only take care of my side of the bridge.

“Until you accept your partner’s flaws and foibles, you will not be able to compromise successfully. Instead you will be on a relentless campaign to alter your spouse.” (Gottman 185)

I will not give up the job of loving me to someone else.
“If you maintain a sense of respect for your spouse, you are less likely to act disgusted with him or her when you disagree.” (Gottman 65)

I will know myself and share myself honestly and freely- I will not hide.
“A crucial goal of any marriage, therefore, is to create an atmosphere that encourages each person to talk honestly about his or her convictions. The more you speak candidly and respectfully with each other the more likely there is to be a blending of your sense of meaning.” (Gottman, 245)

“The basis for coping effectively with either kind of problem is the same: communicating basic acceptance of your partner’s personality… If either of you feels judge, misunderstood, or rejected by the other, you will not be able to manage the problems in your marriage.” (Gottman 149)

I will always look for fresh starts and new adventures.

I will choose to live my life with someone who values the things I value.
"To care about someone does not mean sacrificing one's time and energy for that person. It means devoting them to the person and taking joy in doing so; in the end, one feels richer for one's efforts, not poorer." Tzvetan Todorov

“Research shows that a husband who can accept influence from his wife also tends to be an outstanding father…This new type of husband and father leads a meaningful and rich life. Having a happy family base makes it possible for him to create and work effectively. Because he is so connected to his wife, she will come to him not only when she is troubled but when she is delighted. When the city awakens to a beautiful fresh snowstorm, his children will come running for him to see it. The people who matter most to him will care about him when he lives and mourn him when he dies.” (Gottman 110)

I will hold on to hope.


I will embrace change as a necessary part of maintaining balance, and I will live and love with a full range of expression and emotion.
“The couples we studied who adjusted to high levels of negativity (irritability, emotional distance) in their marriage ended up less happy or satisfied years later. Those who refused to put of with lots of negativity- who insisted on gently confronting each other when, say, contempt or defensiveness threatened to become pervasive, wound up happy and satisfied years later.” (Gottman 262)
“talk about issues in your relationship while they are still minor, before they build up steam and become combustible.” (Gottman 262)

“if they don’t work to find a compromise on the issue it’s likely that they will become increasingly resentful and entrenched in their positions. The conflict could deepen and take on more symbolic meaning. In other words, it could evolve into a gridlocked, perpetual problem.” (Gottman 135)

I will love him with my mind, body, heart, and soul- every day.
"Rather than looking at marriage as a skill issue, let's consider it as a heart matter. Most adults communicate quite well with other adults when their hearts are soft and they respect one another." Doug Brinley

“emotionally intelligent couple are intimately familiar with each other’s world. I call this having a richly detailed love map- my term for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about hour partner’s life… They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, each other’s hopes.” (Gottman 48)

“But if you don’t start off with a deep knowledge of each other, its easy for your marriage to lose its way when your lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.” (Gottman 49)

“Because they were in the habit of staying deeply connected, Ken was able to keep up to date on what Maggie was thinking and feeling.” (Gottman 50)

“if you frequently have the experience of being calmed by your spouse, you will stop seeing your partner as a trigger of stress in your life and instead associate him or her with feeling relaxed. This automatically increases the positivity in your relationship.” (Gottman 180)

“He makes a detailed map of his wife’s world. He keeps in touch with his admiration ad fondness for her, and he communicates it by turning toward her in his daily actions.” (Gottman 109)

“…real life romance is fueled by a far more humdrum approach to staying connected. It is kept alive each time you let your spouse know he or she is valued during the grind of everyday life… Turning toward one another is the basis or emotional connection, romance, passion, and a good sex life.” (Gottman 80)

Be The Poop Detector

I was very interested in the idea of the poop detector, and my kids would be thrilled by the name! 

I think it's really interesting how the idea of poop detector jives with an idea I'm learning about in my FAM 400 class. We are learning about family systems theory, and one of the concepts of the theory is that there are feedback loops which help the family to maintain homeostasis. 

Feedback loops are how we pull family members back into the realm of expected behavior, and how far we allow behavior to drift before we pull them back in has to do with how how rigid or chaotic your family system is. 

In a marital relationship, noticing when something is amok is something that is easy to do when we are closely attuned to one another. Having a vivid love map helps you to know when something is off as well. You have to know what normal is to know if there is a change. When we send out bids for engagement and our partner feels close enough to let us in and tell us what's up, that is evidence of a strong bond. It's hard to imagine a partnership like that getting into serious trouble. But a partnership where you don't check in until you start finding some kind of evidence of misdeed is going to have problems that are much more difficult to navigate.

New Eyes

I had a struggle the last few weeks with portions of the reading material in class. And this struggle is really interesting to me because it is evidence of how I have been changed because of my experiences in an abusive marriage. None of the others in my group read the material the same way that I did, even though they were generous as they tried to understand the points that I brought up.

I can see how my reading of the material was 'extreme', and I know that before my experiences, I never would have read into the material the things that I do now. But even though part of me feels like I should discredit my reaction, a bigger newer part of me believes that my reading is extra valuable. I've paid a dear price for these new eyes of mine, and I believe that they enable me to see a deeper truth. I think the flaws that I see in Dr. Goddard's counsel are real, even if most people can afford to overlook them. I know he says  in the book that this counsel is not for abusive relationships, but even in a non abusive relationship, I don't see following his advice to the letter as building the healthiest relationships.

Overall, I’ve learned quite a lot from previous chapters from Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, but the last two weeks there have been a number of passages that I underlined not because I felt that they were inspirational, but because they upset me so much!  My blog post last week was about co-dependency because I felt like that was the perspective that was missing from the reading that we did. Perpetual forgiveness of grievous wrongs isn’t healthy for anyone. Constantly ignoring problems in a relationship doesn’t really make anyone happier. The reading from Goddard seemed to assume that every problem was not just a solvable problem, but an inconsequential problem. That was upsetting to me. It concerns me that anyone who really needed help with serious issues would be driven deeper into themselves, and deeper into the dysfunction of their relationship.

Last week the line that most upset me was, “acceptance may be more important than change in strong marriages.” It reminds me of a line my husband threw at me when I told him I was upset with the inappropriate messages he was sending to female co-workers. He said, “It’s only a problem because you are making it a problem!” I wonder  how much unrighteousness and unkindness one is expected to just accept, and just how exactly he defines a marriage as ‘strong’?

Another line that bothered me was, “In fact, anytime we feel irritated with our spouses, that irritation is not an opportunity to call our spouses to repentance, but an invitation to call ourselves to repent. We are irritated because of our own lack of faith and humility.” I don’t like the way this teaches people to ignore their intuition, blame themselves, and dismiss their feelings.

I think what this has taught me is the danger of relying on self-help books. While some people may need to hear this counsel because they tend to be bothered by insignificant things, other people will hear that counsel who have been accepting things that they shouldn’t have, and feel ashamed of the feelings they have had to speak up for themselves and their children. A counselor can act as an objective guide and help you see your blind spots and point out opportunities for greater self-compassion.

This week’s reading had me much more concerned. I have a very big concern with the suggestion that we can be saviors to our partners. Dr. Goddard said, “Then consecration moves us from acceptance to using our spiritual energy to rescue our imperfect partners.” This perspective seems way off base to me. If we presume to have the spiritual energy to save our partners, we are putting ourselves in a position that eclipses their actual Savior.

He continues to encourage people to compare their role in their marriage to that of the Savior in ways that can lead people down spiritually damaging paths, but the statement that really made me angry was this, “While some may argue that they do not care to sealed eternally to the spiritual pygmies that are their partners, those who understand the things of God know that their imperfect partners will one day be made glorious. One day we may feel honored to have known the people that we now disdain.” I’m really not sure how that would work. I’m not sure what part of the plan of salvation says, you don’t actually reap what you sew, or, this life isn’t really about working out your personal salvation. I don’t know where in the gospel we learn that we will be made to be like our Father in Heaven against our will and contrary to the choices we make in this life. I don’t understand how this perspective could be presented as truth.

I really feel like the flaws in this material, without being addressed in a proactive way, bring it up short as course material for people who are expected to go forth to help encourage healthy attitudes and relationships.

A Letter to My Co-Dependent Self

This is a picture that I drew to represent my co-dependent self.

The ball on my back is heavy like lead and the points are sharp. It is way too heavy. It represents all the responsibility, worry, and blame that I took upon myself. My eyes are closed to the truth. One tear escapes, but no one notices. I have to keep the big smile on my face so no one notices. That's part of my job. And I have to wear high heels so I look good while I carry this weight. The guy is my ex-husband. I'm tying his shoe because it's something he should do for himself. He is clearly indifferent to both the service I am rendering, and the burden I am carrying.

Dear Co-Dependent Self,

Writing this letter to you is difficult for me because the way I feel toward you is complicated and a little confusing. You are someone what I love and pity. You are someone who I want to defend and protect. But honestly, I hope to never see you again.

You’re like a dear little horror that I would like to tuck into bed, kiss on the forehead, wait to see an honest smile of peace on your face, and then turn off the life support forever.

You did what you had to do. You did it bravely, and the best way you knew how. Now you have earned the right to slip peacefully into the blackness, and I have earned the right to live with light and joy and freedom.

I know that you were trying to take care of us-all of us. You believe in the family like I do, and you had the strength to be a bumper pad for the abuse. It gave me the time I needed to exhaust all the possibilities for somehow finding a different answer besides breaking apart my family. You bravely tried to protect our kids. When the love for him ran out, it was the thick, tough love for those kids that enabled you to keep us moving and working and trying to find solutions and answers.

I won’t let anyone criticize you for what you did, because your exhaustive tenacity bought me time. And that enabled me to make a clean break– when it was time. Your sacrifices bought the reassurance that I had done everything I could.

In a strange twist of irony, maybe your biggest flaw was over-confidence. The impact of all the blows you took was so heavy that even your thick skin and strong love couldn’t absorb all of it. You over estimated your ability to absorb damage, and underestimated the harm your thinly disguised pain would do to the kids. Though you worked hard to be a cushion from the darkness, the deep wells became less sweet, and the nourishment that we had to offer the children was less nourishing than it could have been. We gave them the best of what we had, but it was sour, even though we offered it as sweet.

In your strength you were blinded to more destructive dangers, and you blinded me to my greater capacities. Your stubbornness limited my view of truth and light to a single goal- ‘preserve-my-family-make-this-work-do-not-fail’. You were afraid of the medicine that healing would require, but ended up taking much worse poisons trying to avoid it. Those poisons infected me and it took a lot of fighting, and a lot of help to work those out of my system.

I felt so small, so worthless. Stupid and ineffective. I felt like a burden and an annoyance. I felt contaminated and contagious. I wanted to hide and keep the rot of my sorrow and disappointment and failure to myself.

But as I shook you off, I was able to accept help to clean my wounds and wash my face. I started to believe that I really could put my burden down, and that I could rely on help to carry what was mine to carry.

I began to be able to feel warmth again, and light returned to me. The shame that welded us together began to dissolve and my view opened up to truth and opportunity that I hadn’t been able to consider before. My mind was released and so was my creative power. 

I had more than a strong back to rely on, but I had forgotten that. In this new power, I discovered that under those heavy burdens were buried wings.

So, my dear co-dependent self. Please rest in peace. When you try to wake up, I will tuck you back into bed. You are not the one to fight my battles anymore.