Before dinner preparations begin, your spouse walks into the room looking tired, leans against the counter and sighs, “That was a long, tough day.”
Imagine how you would respond. What would you say or do?
In hundreds of ways our spouses are inviting us into their lives. Often, we don’t recognize their invitations. Maybe we continue on with whatever we were doing. Maybe we try to cheer them up. Maybe we lecture them about having a good attitude. Maybe we feel unsure how to respond and say nothing. Or maybe we offer suggestions for dealing with their tiredness.
John Gottman, a leading marriage expert, described three general ways of responding to our partners when they reach for us.
1. We may turn against them.
“You bring this on yourself by taking on so many things.”
“You are always complaining. You don’t hear me complain about my overload!”
2. We may turn away from them.
<Sigh> “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“We need to talk about our schedule for next week.”
3. We may turn toward them.
“You sound exhausted. Tell me about your day.”
“What a load you carry! How can I support you?”
Rather than recognize our spouse’s comments as an invitation to be a part of their emotional lives, we often react out of our own feelings at the time. Maybe we are tired or frustrated and we react with irritation or judgment. Perhaps we are distracted by our own issues and activities and hardly even sense our spouse’s distress. Or maybe we are feeling compassionate and we genuinely seek to understand our spouse’s pain and struggle.
We may not recognize that, when our partners reach out to us, it provides us with a precious opportunity to connect. Over time, the moments in which our spouse invites us into their emotional lives can either strengthen the marital bond or weaken it—depending on our response.
Of course, sharing hard times is not the only opportunity to connect. Our spouses will also make positive bids for connection.
“You’ll never guess what happened today!”
“I learned something interesting today.”
“I’m running to the store. Would you like to go with me?”
In strong relationships, partners turn toward each other’s bids for connection far more often than in distressed relationships.
While Gottman describes three ways of responding to our partners’ bids for connection, I believe that Jesus teaches and models a fourth kind of response. He is the one who bore every one of our infirmities so that His compassion would be fully informed (See Alma 7). He experienced our everyday pains and disappointments so He could fully understand us. So, the fourth option is:
4. We join them in their experience.
“You look like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.”
“I am so happy when you feel happy!”
The most important part of our response is not in the words we use, but the way our minds and hearts enter their experience. Do we earnestly seek to understand the thoughts and feelings behind what they are saying? Do we seek to discern why the thing they are feeling is so important to them? Do we lean in or otherwise signal that we are truly hearing them? Do we engage with their feelings and not just jump in to immediately offer our take on the situation? Are we willing to invest time in helping them process their feelings before moving toward solutions? Do we ask what kind of support from us would be most helpful?
The challenge for most of us is that—over time in our marriages—we fall into habits and assumptions. We think we know what our partners will say and feel like we have heard it all before. We assume we know what they mean and we react without listening to discover what they are really saying. We are tired of their imperfections and complaints and respond with irritation and judgment. We attend to our own concerns and begin ignoring bids for connection from our partners.
That is the path of natural man or woman thinking. The mind of Christ is different. Rather than looking for reasons to condemn or reasons to deflect bids for connection, we look for ways to bless and redeem.
The Lord’s counsel is to follow His example: “Succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5). This is particularly true regarding one of the most important relationships we have—our marriages.
Many times every day, we choose a path. We can choose to bring our self-centeredness, tiredness and irritation to our partner. Or we can choose to seek connection and bring our compassion to them.
In this case, compassion has rich connotations.
This Greek word [translated as compassion] is used elsewhere in the New Testament only in sentences that describe God’s or Christ’s emotions of mercy. As is well recognized outside the original parables of Jesus, there is no instance of the word being used of men.
John Welch, 1999, p. 81
Any time we humbly enter our partner’s experience, we are following Jesus’ example. To show compassion is to be Christlike.
Of course, we do not learn the mind of Christ quickly or easily even when we want to do better. We must choose day after day, frustration after frustration, in the midst of our own busyness and concerns, to see as Jesus sees, to love as He loves, and to bless as He blesses. We cry out for mercy from Jesus because He is the heart of compassion. As we experience His compassion, we seek to model it with our beloved companions.
You and your spouse are invited to an upcoming marriage retreat led by Dr. Wally Goddard that will combine the lessons of Jesus with proven discoveries from research to make your marriage more purposeful and fulfilling. The retreat will be on September 13, in Alpine, Utah. There are a few seats still available and if you register now, you can get the early-registration discounted price. To learn more and to register, go to DrWally.com.
Thanks to Barbara Keil for her important contributions to this article.
References
Christensen, A., &. Jacobson, N. S. (2000). Reconcilable differences. New York: Guilford Press.
Welch, John W. (1999). “The Good Samaritan: A Type and Shadow of the Plan of Salvation,” BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 38 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol38/iss2/4
