Week 8- Pride

 Pride. It is common when we hear that word that we often first do not think of ourselves, but someone else who we feel is guilty of being prideful. That is a common way to know if we are guilty of pride or not. We learn from previous president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Ezra Taft Benson, that there is no such thing as righteous pride. All pride is sin. Pride is feeling enmity towards God and others. Pride causes us to have feelings of selfishness, gossip, look down on others, and criticize others.
            The opposite of pride in a marriage is turning to and valuing your spouse. A spouse who does not listen to their spouse and take their input can be found guilty of pride. In Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work, he says “statistically speaking when a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81% percent chance that this marriage will self-destruct”. Yikes. Pride really is a burden and weight in anyone’s marriage no matter how strong they are. From our readings this week, I learned that the only way to save our marriage is to turn it over to Christ in humility (the opposite of pride). In the book, Drawing Heaven into your Marriageby H. Wallace Goddard, which we are also studying in my marriage class, states “Love is not a happy accident; It is a choice.” I think we can substitute the word humility in that statement. We are not all of the sudden going to be a humble spouse and person. We have to work at it day by day as we are tempted daily to be prideful. How do we do that? The first step in my opinion, is to get down on our knees and sincerely ask the Lord how we can be less prideful. If we listen He will answer our prayer.
            I realized that I was being prideful in my marriage when I was not appreciative to my husband for all he was doing. Instead I was looking for things he was not doing. When I switched my mindset, and started being appreciative for every little thing he did, my love and appreciation grew for him more and I feel I was able to be a little humbler as I lifted him up instead of down.

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