Battles Over Money

 

 

When my husband and I were first married we fought over money regularly. We had opposing ideas about how to best manage our finances. We both grew up in families who lived in the lower middle class and at times below the poverty level. My husband and I both knew we wanted to have a better lifestyle than our families but since we had not seen a stable financial lifestyle modeled to us by our parents, we were clueless about how to go about achieving our goal. Each of us brought a different perspective on how to manage our finances. Bernard Poduska says in his book, Till Death Do Us Part, "In a way, each person's family of origin is like a 'village' that supplies the rules brought to the marriage-rules that tend to bias perceptions and govern behavior." We definitely brought different rules taught to us by our parents and somehow we had to work these differences out.

At one point, several years into our marriage, our arguments had become so heated and regular that I considered divorce. I was tired of having the same battles over money and feeling like our finances were spiraling out of control. My husband and I were lying to ourselves about the financial state we were in and it felt like there was no end to our financial woes. I could not continue to live like this and told my husband it was time to us to sit down and be honest about our money situation. It was time to us to face our financial truths together and do something to fix them.

 I am a saver and my husband is a spender and since he controlled the money I felt powerless to change anything. I shared this consideration of divorce with my husband and thankfully we were able to recognize the magnitude of our financial distress. We decided to turn it around. It took us literally five years of barely scraping by, living paycheck to paycheck, consolidating our debt and using all our resources to pay off all our credit. Along the way we learned some very valuable lessons and salvaged our marriage. 

As I look back on those stressful and frustrating times I am thankful for the lessons we learned about sacrifice, selflessness, working toward a common goal, and compromise. I am thankful for the strength and unity my husband and I have gained from communicating about our money matters and working together to mend our ways. We have been blessed by the decision to get out of debt and stay out as we have been instructed to do by the Prophets and Apostles.

President Hinckley said, "I urge you to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures, discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage." I am thankful for the lessons I have learned about how to work together with my husband to solve our major issues and I am thankful to say that we rarely, if ever, fight about money matters at this stage in our marriage.

"You're a Mean Mom"

I love the analogy Richard Miller gave in his article, “Who is the boss? Power Relationships in Families”, which is about parents being the executive committee and board of directors of the family. Miller talks about the hierarchy of the family and how parents should lead and their children should follow. It is important that we be willing to set the guidelines and boundaries of the family and set forth the expectations for our children. It is also important that we are willing and able to follow through with them when they violate these boundaries. Being an example by adhering to these boundaries and expectations ourselves is also important.

One of my favorite quotes from Miller’s article is this; “God forbid that there should be any of us so unwisely indulgent, so thoughtless and so shallow in our affection for our children that we dare not check them in a wayward course, in wrong-doing and in their foolish love for the things of the world more than for the things of righteousness, for fear of offending them” (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 286). In my observation and opinion parents refusing to hold their kids accountable for wrong-doing has become an epidemic in parenting that has caused widespread damage. Children nowadays are allowed to do whatever they please and are not being held accountable by their parents for bad decisions or behavior. This form of parenting has not done society any favors. Kids think they run the world and no one can tell them what to do.

As a mom of two nearly grown, adult children, I have spent the past 22 years teaching my children to respect the created boundaries, rules, and expectations and holding them accountable for violating these. It is not fun to be the parent sometimes and discipline is a difficult aspect of motherhood. No one wants to be disliked. But as parents it is our job to teach and guide our kids and many times that guidance requires us to be unpopular with our children. I’d rather be unpopular with my children than stand before the Lord someday and be accountable to Him for neglecting to teach my children what is right and wrong.

Very early on I recognized that when my children were mad at me or upset with me for inflicting consequences of their bad choices on them, I was most likely doing a good job as a mother. Eventually I began adopting a phrase that served me well as a mother. Whenever my kids would lash out at me in anger or frustration and tell me I was a “mean mom” and/or that they hated me, I would say, “Good! I am doing my best to be a mean mom. If you are mad at me then I guess I must be doing something right.” My philosophy when it comes to having a relationship with my kids has always been that my kids can make and have all the friends they want to in this life but they have only been given one mother. If I don’t take my role as their mother seriously then they are in big trouble!!

Now as we approach the season in life where my kids are grown, I am reaping the benefits of those rules and boundaries and the hard lessons we have had to learn together. Both of my children have thanked me for being strict and for holding them accountable to obey. I am discovering a friendship with my children now as we enter a new phase of parenting and I am thankful that my kids are good people who care about the Lord and who want to be productive members of society and are striving to become a “mean mom” and a “mean dad” themselves someday.

Sexual Expression Within Marriage

 

 I was raised by parents who did not talk to me about the importance of sexual expression within marriage. The only time my parents talked to me about sex was to tell me that it was evil and bad and that I should not do it. Once I married and sexual expression was the expectation, I had a difficult time letting go of the idea that sex was bad. I had spent too many years telling myself that I was not supposed to have sex and that sex was bad. These ideas and feelings created a difficult hurdle for me and my marriage. My husband was patient with me as I learned to embrace sexuality in marriage but there were still too many tears, too much hurt, and too much sadness experienced over something that should have brought us both joy and happiness.

In the article Fulfilling the Sexual Stewardship in Marriage by Sean E. Brotherson he says,"As couples learn to communicate about sexual intimacy, they must learn to become comfortable with the topic and expressing their feelings and thoughts in specific ways. This is something that does not happen immediately, but over time as a couple trusts each other and learns to talk about a subject that may have been glossed over quickly or left undiscussed previously." My husband and I had to learn to communicate about our sexual expression and what we both wanted sex to be for us. It was an uncomfortable subject for us to discuss at first but it was a necessary part of creating a mutual understanding and appreciation for one another.

As a mother myself now, I have chosen to teach my children about sex differently than my parents taught me. I have taught my kids that sex is a gift from God and that He wants us to experience and enjoy sex with our spouse. I have taught them that sexual expression is a unique kind of love that God has allowed us to explore and enjoy as husband and wife. God does not want us to feel that our sexuality is evil or perverse. God gave us the sexual feelings because it is part of His plan for families. Satan is the one who wants us to be conflicted about sex and to view sex as dirty or filthy. I am thankful that my children and I have had an open and candid dialogue about sexual expression as a form of love and that they are willing and comfortable talking to me about any questions or concerns they have about this subject.





 We know that our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy as husbands and wives. We know that He has created a way for husbands and wives to enjoy and fulfill one another in a special way that strengthens marriage and is reserved only for the bonds of matrimony. What a blessing it is to be able to love one another and give to one another a satisfaction and joy that only a husband and wife should share! It took me a long time to truly understand sexual expression and see it as a form of love but I am thankful that I have been able to help my children view sex in a light that makes it important and special. Hopefully as they marry they will understand sexual expression better and recognize it as a blessing that God has given us as His children.

Charity in Marriage

As I finished H. Wallace Goddard’s book Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, I contemplated how blessed I am to have the gospel in my life and to understand more fully the sacred nature of marriage. Goddard reminded me that I made covenants with my Father to love, honor, and cherish my spouse and to see him through His eyes. Charity is the all-encompassing principle upon which our eternal salvation is predicated. Marriage is hard but as we strive to love Christ, receive love from Christ, and love like Christ, we can learn to be charitable and to strengthen our marriage and become better spouses.

I watched my parents’ marriage begin to deteriorate after they had been married for 15 years. My dad had to have two open heart surgeries that year and the reality of the financial, emotional, and physical strains these surgeries put upon their shoulders began to heavily tax their relationship. They fought more at first which eventually led them to almost never talking or engaging with one another. My dad needed his wife and her support more than ever before and my mom needed her husband and his support more than ever before and what they ended up with instead was the least amount of support they had ever gotten from their spouses. Each of them turned inward and began to self-protect. Life at home got uneasy and complicated. They both made choices that made the gap between them grow wider. 

Because of these choices, after the surgeries and healing were complete, there was a significant amount of residual damage done. My dad tried to undo the hurt and anger and made several repair attempts. My mom remained guarded and resisted his attempts. Their marriage never recovered from this stressful year. They remained married for 39 years until my dad’s death in 2013 and he never gave up on his marriage or trying to build a happier relationship with my mom.

As an outside observer I did not understand why my dad would stay in a loveless marriage and subject himself to her angry, hurtful, and selfish behaviors. I thought he was ridiculous to remain cheerfully committed to someone who so obviously took him for granted and did not want to love him or make any attempt to mend their fractured marriage. However, as I have read Goddard’s book I have been given some valuable insight into my father’s charitable heart.

Goddard says, “Charity sustains us in every need and influences us in every decision.” (pg. 118) I realized that my dad had charity in his heart and had turned his marriage over to the Savior. He had also called upon the Atonement to heal his aching heart and trusted in Christ and the covenants he had made to Him to make his marriage whole again someday. My dad was a flawed man who knew that with Jesus Christ, all would be made right again. My father understood what I did not understand at the time; his responsibility was to stay and do his best to honor his covenants and to love his wife, regardless of her choices. He had achieved the mighty change of heart and charity that is required of all of us. Goddard points out that, “We are to cheerfully do all that we are able to do. Then we ask God to make up the difference…” (pg. 147, 148)

I used to pity my dad and feel that his refusal to divorce my mom was a sign of weakness. I love my dad but I always considered him spineless. I am humbled and in awe of my father now because of what I have learned. I know that I can take this knowledge and apply it to my own marriage and strive to become a more selfless, kind, submissive, loving, and thoughtful wife. I can strive to learn charity and to turn my heart and my marriage over to Christ to make of them what only He can.

 

Surrender=Victory

I had not fully considered how the law of consecration applies to marriage until I read chapter six in Goddard’s Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. Boy, have my eyes been opened!! I had a full-on “aha” moment as I read his insight into how surrendering all that I have and all that I am will equate to a victory in my marriage. Goddard says, “Consecration is the only surrender which is also a victory. It brings release from the raucous, overpopulated cell block of selfishness and emancipation from the dark prison of pride.” (pg. 99) As I let these words sink in and pondered upon them, I was struck by how simple this concept is, and yet how hard it can be to employ.
I have been together with my husband since we were 16 and 17 years old. We were married at 19 and 20 years old and brought into our union a great deal of teenage drama, immaturity, selfishness, self-centeredness, and unrealistic expectations. I honestly felt that if he truly loved me he would want to give me everything. I felt that what was mine was mine and what was his was mine. It was easy for me to feel like my husband should surrender and allow me to take whatever I wanted that was his, such as his time, money, and talents, but also keep my time, money, and talents for myself. Because of this mentality we had some vicious, mean, and nasty knock-down, drag-out fights for many years in the beginning.
As time progressed, we grew and learned, we began to work through these seemingly insurmountable problems. I recognized that my husband needed to feel valued and appreciated and that he needed me to give more of myself to him. He began to see that I needed the reassurance and stability he provided for me and he began giving of himself more willingly. One strategy that has helped us become more selfless is anytime we begin to act greedy or selfish and begin to argue the other will say, “Same team!” This is our code word for deescalating conflict. It is a reminder that we are on the same side and not opponents. I am thankful for a marriage that has evolved into a partnership and that we care about one another enough to willingly sacrifice our time, talents, energy, and money to help each other.
After 21 years of marriage we are both much better at sharing more of ourselves although I realized I can still do more. Goddard says, " Those who experimented with His ways know...that the more they turn their lives over to God, the better their lives become. The ultimate joy is to surrender completely to God." (pg. 99) I know I can do more to think of my husband and I can ask for guidance from Heavenly Father to help me know how I can help him be happier, more cared for, and to express how much I appreciate all that he does for me. Our Father wants us to happy, successful marriages and by living the law of consecration we are making the reality of having a happy, successful marriage possible.

A Prideful Near Miss

In President Ezra Taft Benson’s talk Beware of Pride, President Benson warns us about the destructive tendencies of pride and the damage that is done by pride.  He says, “The central feature of pride is enmity-enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.’ It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.” I had never thought about pride in this way. Pride is like a destructive missile launched for destruction. If we do not shoot it down, it can, and often times will, destroy us.
I have always thought of pride as self-centeredness, cockiness, and a sense of being better than others. I had never thought of pride in terms of my relationship with God and willingness to obey and honor Him. President Benson tells us that enmity means being rebellious, hard-hearted, stiff-necked, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and a sign seeker. As I thought about this definition of pride I began to reflect back upon my journey and choices in life and how pride has negatively affected me and the course of my life.
I was sixteen years old when I began to question the truthfulness of the gospel. It was important to me that I look around at other religions and investigate to see if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the right one for me. I asked my mom if I could begin attending other churches with some of my friends. She vehemently disagreed with me going to other churches and told me that as long as I lived in her house I would attend church with her. Without pride I would have humbly accepted her answer but being a stubborn, prideful teenager, I decided to move out of my parents’ home instead.
I moved in with my boyfriend and quit attending church altogether. In a few short months I was pregnant and was expecting our first child. I began feeling repentant and humbled. As an expectant mother who wanted to do right by my child and teach him of God, I began feeling pulled back to church. I attended church for a few weeks and very quickly I realized that people were looking at me as I walked by and whispering and talking about me in the hallways at church.  Without pride I would have turned my sad, hurt, and offended heart over to the Savior but being a prideful and offended young woman, I quit attending church altogether. I spent ten years being inactive in living the gospel. Without pride I would have turned myself toward the Lord and asked Him to help strengthen me to endure the judgment of others and to guide my life but being defiant, rebellious, and justified in my stiff-neckedness, I remained distant from the gospel.
I married my boyfriend and after the birth of our second child my marriage and family became intensely unhappy and stressful. I could sense that without serious intervention, my family was in danger of breaking up. I began feeling that it was my responsibility as a wife and mother to be an example to my family and most importantly to teach my children they were children of God. I began to humble myself and to do some soul searching. I began to pray again for the first time in many, many years and ask for direction and guidance. It didn’t happen overnight but I did make my way back to church with my children. My children and I have been active members of the Church for 13 years. My marriage and family have remained intact and are better and stronger than ever! My husband is still not a member of the Church but he has seen the good that living by the Church’s teachings has done in my life and in the lives of our children and how happy it makes us and he supports us in our church attendance and church callings.
I can see in retrospect, an almost immediate change in our lives as a direct result of my willingness to submit to God and His will. As soon as I began to let go of my pride and submit to my Heavenly Father and to welcome His love back into my life, the happiness of my home and family began to improve. I know that pride has nearly destroyed me and my relationship with not only my husband and children, but more importantly, with my Heavenly Father. I am thankful that I have been welcomed back into our Father’s fold through His grace and charity. I am thankful that I have been able to shake off the shackles of pride in order to try to live my life in accordance with the gospel and in keeping my sacred covenants. As I took inventory of my most destructive prideful phases of life I realize how much happier I am as I try not to be prideful. I thank my Heavenly Father! My life has been richly blessed!

Happily Ever After

 

 When I was a little girl I had the same fairy tale vision of my marriage that a great many other little girls have; a handsome young man would fall deeply in love with me and woo me with his outpouring of lovely sentiments, generous gifts, and selfless acts of love. He would then vow his undying love for me in the wedding of my dreams and from that moment on he would happily and willingly do my every bidding because he loved me so much. Imagine my shock when I married my husband and over the first few months this vision of my "Happily Ever After" began quickly unraveling!
As a married woman living in the real world I recognized very early on that this vision was absolutely not going to play out the way I always thought it would and I felt like I got ripped off! My husband was selfish and not at all interested in doing my every bidding. He was a pig who was grouchy and only concerned about what he wanted and in getting me to do whatever it was he wanted me to do! At least that was my perception as a young 19 year-old bride.
It took me several years and lots of soul-searching to understand that we each have a responsibility to our spouse and their needs in order to have a strong relationship. In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Jon M. Gottman says, “[Romance] is kept alive each time you let your spouse know he or she is valued during the grind of everyday life.” (p.88) The truth is that we have to deliberately turn toward one another every day if we are to be happily connected by doing the seemingly insignificant things that over time add up to mean so much. Gottman refers to the “bids” spouses make for each others attention and says that the way each partner responds to those bids is either a turning away or turning toward their spouse. (p. 88)
I found this quote by Fawn Weaver. She says, "Happily Ever After is not a fairy tale. It is a choice." I know I have to work on my marriage to have a happy, successful relationship.
My husband likes to have a delicious homemade dinner each night when he comes home from work. I couldn’t care less about homemade dinners but I learned to cook dinner every night for him because it matters to him. I have also realized cooking his dinner allows me to do what I like. I like to spend time together with my husband. As we eat dinner we talk about our day. He would probably prefer to go without rehashing our days every night but for me, having his undivided attention lets me know that I matter to him. When he will take a few minutes each night to sit with me and talk over our days, I feel closer to him and it helps me to process my day. Having dinner together is a small something we do each day that matters to both of us. I have realized we choose daily whether to pursue our "Happily Ever After" by choosing to put our spouse and our marriage first.
As our children have grown and our alone time together has increased, we have begun doing more of the little things together. We run errands, clean the house, do yard work, and play games or watch movies together. I have noticed an increase in fondness and admiration as we have turned toward one another in these seemingly small ways. Our relationships has intensified and strengthened and we feel more connected to one another. He reaches out to me more often for love, guidance, reassurance, and support and I do the same in return because we know that the other person will be there for us. I am excited to explore the next phase of our relationship as we are preparing to become “empty nesters” and it is because of the small and simple acts of love and turning towards each other that we are deepening our love and strengthening our marriage. My marriage may have started out with distress and grief over the realities of our relationship but at this stage in our marriage I have every reason to believe that we are well on our way to our "Happily Ever After".

Our Wedding Day September 1994

Our 21st Wedding Anniversary 2015