Seeking to Understand

“Perhaps the greatest comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down.”

-Marvin J. Ashton

When reading Gottman’s chapter about gridlock, I didn’t expect it to be about dreams. But it makes sense and it was an interesting read. I don’t ever want to be spouse who doesn’t support my husband’s dreams or makes him feel like he can’t tell me his dreams. No one wants his or her dreams to feel diminished or unimportant. And if there are differences in feelings or opinions, I think that is okay but it is important to be able to discuss them without hurting our spouse. I think this tied in with Goddard’s chapter about charity. We need to love and respect our spouse and his or her dreams, the perfect way to do so is through charity. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Marvin J. Ashton said this about charity, “Perhaps the greatest comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down.” I thought this was a great explanation of charity that we could apply to our lives and our marriages. Having charity is often times easier said than done. It can be hard but through constant prayer and practice we can display charity in our lives. We must make the choice to display charity in our lives and make it an attribute in our character. By bringing it upon us first, it will then come into our marriages too. Goddard stated, “Our partners will love us because we first love them. Love first. Don’t wait to be loved.” I love this statement. I know often times I can wait for my spouse to love me or take initiative instead of just loving him and taking action first. But the times I have loved first, he has quickly loved back. Things happen much quicker and easily when either one of us loves instead of withholding while waiting for the other to take action first. We need to be our best selves and focus on our spouse’s best self to overcome the gridlocks and frustrations of marriage more easily.