A Great Idea …
“You won’t learn anything by beating yourself up or condemning your partner when either of you makes a mistake … Compassion for yourself means understanding how difficult it is to change old patterns and how much you deserve to change them to get the kind of relationship you’ve always wanted. Compassion for your partner means understanding how difficult it is for him or her to change old patterns and how deserving he or she is to have a closer relationship with you.” (Marriage experts, Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, in their book, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, pp. 97-98)
In Other Words …
Sometimes we spend too much time conducting investigations and holding court in our relationships. We worry about who started a problem and who deserves the blame. We can get stuck in blame and recrimination. When mistakes are made in our relationships, we can choose NOT to get stuck. We can choose to offer compassion and forgiveness to ourselves and our partners. We can invite compassion and forgiveness from our partner by apologizing.
How This Applies to You…
The next time one of you blunders in your relationship, take a deep breath and go looking for your compassion. Accept that both of you are human and will inevitably make mistakes. Offer compassion to your partner and ask for forgiveness for your mistakes.
To Find Out More…
For an excellent (and free!) program on marriage, see The Marriage Garden at Arkansas Families. For more in-depth reading, we recommend How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking about It by Patricia Love and Steven Stosny or The Marriage Garden by H. Wallace Goddard and James P. Marshall.
Comment
Does this apply to sins as well? Mistake and sins are two different things. Mistake involves unknowingly doing something and sin dictates knowingly breaking a commandment. I get over my own frustrations w/ mistakes a lot easier than that of sins of mine and others esp. my spouse:(:( Faith, repentance, and Time do help me seek compassion and forgiveness and I eventually find and offer them JOYFULLY!