Pride Vs Humility

This week’s studies were focused on the topic of pride and how being prideful will affect your relationships in life. I know that in my married life there have been circumstances where being prideful and not wanting to be the person in the wrong have come up. We learned in our reading this week about how we can help ourselves to be less prideful in our relationships. I think something that stood out to me was the fact that the opposite of prideful would be humility.

In today’s society we see things on television where the man treats his wife as a person of less importance or not being able to be a part of decision making because she is not capable of doing this. I know in my marriage we have worked hard to not have this type of relationship. We strive to work as a partnership or a team. In the beginning of my marriage my husband and I occasionally clashed over who was “right”. I think that sometimes we may have known we were wrong but didn’t want to have to admit it.

In our reading this week there several suggestions to help you overcome the struggle of pride. In the book by Jon M Gottman entitled The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, we learned several things regarding how to strive to overcome pride. Some of the suggestions were to share the power of decision making with your partner. We can do this by not always assuming the other person’s opinion. We can be attentive of each other by making sure we are paying attention to our spouse as they talk to us and not be distracted by the television or our computers; We need to remember the efforts we have put forth in making this relationship and remember that we put effort into dating and we should continue to put that same effort forward to ensure our relationship survives and grows.

In Dr Gottman’s book he reminds us of the importance of yielding to win. He shares the story that many homes have gone through of the toilet seat. He shared, “For many women, a raised toilet seat is symbolic of the male’s sense of entitlement. So, a man can score major points with his wife just by putting the seat down. The wise husband smiles at how smart he is as he drops the lid.” (John M Gottman, 1999)

As I read this week in Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage by H Wallace Goddard, I was able to see a more spiritual side of the issues of pride in a marriage. It outlines the fact that the opposite of pride is humility. Therefore, if we work to serve our partner and try to serve them often this would be a simple solution. The problem is that often life can get in the way.

We are reminded by Dr Goddard in his book that “If a relationship does not bring pleasure, insight, satisfaction and fulfillment to the self, this it is regarded as wrong.” He also stated, “To the modern mind, it doesn’t make logical “sense” that if we sacrifice our own wants and needs, in favor of our spouse’s, that we will find true love and happiness.” (H Wallace Goddard, 2007) Both of these statements stand out to me as showing the right ways of being with your spouse.

Simply we need to remember to have humility as well as faith in our Father in Heaven that letting go of pride and working to serve our partner will have an incredible impact on our relationship. We must remember that “Appreciating is more powerful than correcting.” (H Wallace Goddard, 2007)

J.

Works Cited

H Wallace Goddard, P. (2007). Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage. Fairfax: Meridian.

John M Gottman, P. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York: Harmony.