Charity

As members of the Church, we are always taught that Charity is the pure love of Christ. In a marriage when charity is not present, selfishness and pride take over and whither down the once beautiful relationship. Charity is being able to put your spouse's needs first and think of them in a more Christlike manner. Are they happy? Is he doing well with the stresses of work? Can I help her out by taking on more of the housework? There are so many ways to practice being Christlike in a marriage, but we tend to focus more on the negatives instead of the many blessings that come from the sacrifice and hard work in marriage.

If we put our trust in the Lord and are constantly praying to see our spouse the way that the Lord does, we will be able to practice Charity and grow our love for our spouse and the Lord. We cannot love the Lord with all of our heart if we are hating and judging others for the mistakes that they make. We are not perfect and we should not be acting as if we are. If we do, we need to repent and ask the Lord for forgiveness and the strength to do better. We do not have the right to judge and cast others aside just because they tripped up with something in their life. When we practice charity, all the mistakes that those around us make will not matter to us anymore. We will be so focused on making sure that others are taken care of, comforted and loved that we do not see the faults anymore.

As humans, we tend to rely on ourselves and put our own interests first. When this attitude enters a marriage, fights and arguments will ensue. If we work on how we approach disagreements and look for the cries of help from our spouse, we will see that most of the arguments are based on a lack of understanding which leads to defensiveness. Spending time trying to understand why our spouse disagrees with a particular decision gives us a chance to dig deeper into their mind and heart and to find the dreams that are backing the negative behavior and emotions. In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work(2015) Dr. Gottman explains that couple will experience what he calls "Gridlock"(pg 238) when the dreams and aspirations of each person are not understood by their spouse. A good way to overcome this "gridlock" is to work together through listening and asking questions that pertain to the disagreement.

Actively seeking to understand and working on finding middle ground in a disagreement will help the couple become closer and learn more about each other's dreams and goals for their family. We can have a wonderful marriage if we ask for the Lord's help and work hard to alway practice charity and seek to understand each other.