Dreams

What are dreams made of? This week, reading The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work helped me understand that dreams, or life-long goals, are deeply seeded from our upbringing or a result of something experienced somewhere along the road of life. He suggested to look for and listen to your partners dreams. In becoming a “dream detective” (Gottman, 1999, p244), we can better understand where some underlying feelings, fears or hang-ups are coming from. This can help us negotiate or create compromises that will help our marriages in the long run.

While doing the suggested exercise in the book this week I was able to work through some hang-ups that I was not aware of. These are things that I didn’t understand why they were important to me until concentrating on them, with the help of my spouse.  I was also able to understand a little more of why my spouse reacts to some of the things that I do. These came from a perpetual conflict that bares its head every so often. The problem itself may never go away, but I can now understand why the reaction occurs. I don’t need to take it personally and can better help alleviate the damage when it occurs.

In his book, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, Goddard asks readers to focus on the Savior’s invitation to come unto Him and to have charity. This alone will increase the love and care one has for their spouse and thinking about it has helped me understand how much my spouse has charity for me. It’s not even fair. Here I am trying to become better to my spouse and I realize that she more loving than I deserve. Goddard gives the example of John Glenn’s devotion to his wife who has a stuttering problem. This problem was not a problem to John Glenn and he loved his wife anyway. It is an excellent example of how focused and supportive one should be toward their spouse. There is a lot of work to do in order to become a better and more charitable spouse. I hope to have a greater focus and to support my spouse. I know this will help me become the husband and father my wife and children deserve.