Premarital Counseling

Chris and I had discussed whether or not we should pursue premarital counseling. In the end, we decided it would be beneficial for our relationship in the long run. One of our pastors, John, has guided us through four out of five sessions thus far. I’ll only be discussing the first two lessons today and will preface this by saying that Chris is Christian and I was raised Buddhist, but would describe myself as spiritual.

Lesson One: Covenant of Marriage

It was emphasized that a covenant is a bond, a contract, a promise of forever because not only do you form a covenant with each other, you also form one with God. Your relationship has been elevated because God is also a part of your relationship. The idea is that your love for God and His love for you is the most important, followed by your relationship with yourself, followed by your significant other. Some of you may be surprised, but kids come last.

My belief is that you must have a good sense of yourself in order to know what you want before committing to another individual. Then a stable and loving relationship with your other half provides a solid foundation for your kids. From what I’ve gathered, children look to their parents to see how to receive and give love. This lays the groundwork for how they will approach their own relationships with friends, family, and future husbands/wives.

Maybe looking deeper, you can see why you feel awkward giving hugs, showing physical affection, or even saying I love you. Or perhaps this doesn’t describe you at all, but it could explain why your significant other has trouble with acts of love.

Lesson Two: Conflict and How To Deposit Into Each Other’s Emotional Bank Account

Our pastor introduced us to the four horsemen ideology developed by Dr. John Gottman of the Gottman Institute (and no, we’re not talking about liquor): criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling. These are communication styles that may show up in conflicts that you potentially have with your friends or loved one(s).

Criticism – this is an attack at the core of a person; a complaint is on one single event whereas the criticism is on the whole being of your significant other.

Examples:

• Complaint – “You didn’t feed the dogs. I thought we had discussed that tonight, you would be in charge of that.”
• Criticism – “I told you to feed the dogs! You clearly care more about your phone than our pets. How selfish can you be?”

See the difference? According to Dr. Gottman, the antidote is to complain without blame. This takes away the criticism.

Chris and I discussed whether or not we have this line of communication when we get into heated debates and we found that in our initial stage of the relationship, there would be misunderstandings resulting in criticism. But as we’ve grown together as a couple, this has lessened tremendously.

Contempt – treating others with disrespect, sarcasm, mocking, eye rolling. This has potential to lead the other individual into feeling rejected, worthless, and hurt. According to Dr. Gottman’s studies, this is the single greatest predictor of divorce.

The antidote is to be kind to one another. I know that sounds silly, but think about if you’ve said thank you for when he/she does something as simple as turning on the hot water for you to shower, or for taking the trash out without you asking, or doing the dishes.

I have communicated to Chris with contempt sometimes – I’m pretty sarcastic in nature and I do love a good eye roll every now and then. Good exercise for my eyeballs! But what I’ve found is the longer I let a pebble of a problem nag at me because I think it’s not that big of a deal and/or think it’ll resolve on its own, the bigger the blow up when it comes out. The best thing that I’ve found that worked for Chris and I is to address the issue soon after it pops up. Yes, some people need breathing room or a few minutes to gather themselves – I’m one of them, but don’t let it fester.

Defensiveness – looking for excuses during conflict so that the other person will back off. This is the natural inclination when you’re being attacked; you want to defend yourself and find excuses to decry what they’ve said about you.

The antidote is to accept responsibility, even if it’s only for part of the conflict.

Chris will admit that this is one type of communication that he does often. Especially when his social calendar comes into play. I also have a hard time with apologizing and accepting responsibility, but I’ve finally grasped that this is not a battle between us. We are working together as a team to build our future because we’re each other’s person.

Stonewalling – my area of expertise! This means when the listener withdraws from the conflict. I was notorious for doing this; for shutting down and refusing to interact to resolve the problem. Especially when Chris keeps asking “Are you okay?” every 5 minutes.

The best way to resolve this is to truly take a break – but not so you can think about how they wronged you. You should be calming yourself physiologically and mentally.

When John taught us these types of communications, I thought, “Oh boy. All of these types describe me.” However, the good thing is now that we’re cognizant of it, it’s easier to discern when we do have a conflict.

Chris and I went through examples of our past conflicts and it was a good exercise for the both of us to thoroughly discuss those previous heated exchanges while presently in a calm manner. I highly recommend it!

Resolving conflict:

So how do we resolve conflict? Making deposits into each other’s emotional bank accounts. I’m sorry, what did you mean by that Pastor John?

Both of us receive and give love differently. Chris likes to hear words of affirmation and have physical affection whereas I appreciate quality time. So the hope is to give love to the other as they need to receive it and make these “deposits”; when there is a conflict (considered a withdrawal), they have this bank full of love words, hugs, time spent together, etc. that they can withdraw from and the conflict won’t seem so terrible.

This is probably one of the most difficult things to do because you have to be in tune with your significant other to know how they need to be shown love – it could be the same, or it could be different from yours. You have to continually be conscious of it in order to fulfill their needs.

And just to prove that men and women are incredibly different in terms of their needs …

Hope y’all were provided some insight into your own relationships with what I’ve written tonight. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Julie