Blogging about women and the priesthood has brought to the surface all my many trains of thought on the subject of what constitutes an equal, fulfilling, and happy partnership in marriage. So, I figure this is as good a time as any to post. Fact: The equality of the priesthood and motherhood is founded on the eternal truth that men and women are suppose to be equally powerful.
It is a logical function of the brain to toss out anything that isn't working; it is in fact, a survival mechanism and serves us well in many settings. One place I don't think it's working for us is in the current views (based on current statistics) on marriage. I think the way the brain works is if this mechanism is activated too many times in one setting, it sends the conclusion to the brain and eventually the heart that the we should remove ourselves from the setting permanently. Now insert the contradiction: the innate and ingrown fear of what we don't know and can't control...which leads to a sense of emotional paralysis. In other words, most people are emotional pack-rats. The result? Divorce, separation, and high amounts of pain, frustration, heartbreak and repulsion.
Dr. John L. Lund has said something along the lines that it's time we were honest and admit that we will either marry our greatest trial or give birth to it. (not that men give birth birth, but you get the concept.) So, it makes sense that emotional paralysis could happen often in marriage. So what's up with this?
I think we are misusing the structure of marriage. I don't think the structure itself is the issue, for God's laws are truth, but I think it's important to remember that we need to apply truth to truth, otherwise we turn truth into a lie. God will not be mocked and we cannot expect that we will be excused for actions committed in the name of misused truth. It is impossible for us to be saved -or find any semblance of happiness- in our ignorance*. It's time to step up to the plate and be real, otherwise we are going to get left behind, crippled by our own fear of doing something wrong. 1 Peter 1:14, Ephesians 4:18. Doctrine and Covenants 131:6
*Ignorance: Purposeful (whether conscious or sub-conscious) avoidance of truth in order to sidestep responsibility.
I am currently very single, therefore I can understand any trepidation about trusting or considering the words of someone who has never really "been there", or "knows what it's like". However, my singleness also leaves me as a very unbiased and interested third party, a party who is more than willing to face and address her misconceptions about marriage and marriage relationships. I am also a hopeless romantic, complete with all the gushy, mushy, poem-writing tendencies that come with it. So, while I may not be the most experienced source, I believe there is some merit in what I am about to say.
1. Sacrificing too much is just as bad as not sacrificing enough.
They say marriage is give and take, a meeting at the half-way point and in order to give and take, you have to compromise and compromise requires sacrifice. For the record, I hate the word compromise in this context. Marriage is about bringing two different people with different backgrounds and outlooks together and creating a new future. It's cooperation, not compromise. It's a merger, equal companies joining assets to improve productivity and net increase.It sounds like merging traffic during rush hour to me. What it does not require is sacrificing identity. There is a huge difference. A marriage only works if both individual identities remain uncompromised. Characteristics or tendencies such as anger, impatience, selfishness, martyr complex, etc, need to be addressed in a relationship because they only manifest at the expense of another person's identity; they play off of the weak or insecure points in a person's character. They are the very antitheses of love, both for self or for other people. They are also defensive mechanisms, a desperate, albeit typical attempt to protect one's vulnerability. It is taking the energy of the true emotion and projecting it outward into an emotion that effectively takes the responsibility off of you and onto another person or circumstance. Sacrificing too much is also a defense mechanism. It is protecting ourselves from the understanding that we can never be perfect, we can never control a situation enough to avoid pain, frustration or aggravation. It is the ultimate cover-up. Sacrificing too much means trying to be the answer to everything, always being the one to give in, give up, or fall back in order to avoid confrontation. These things are crucial to a healthy marriage relationship, but there is a line. A line that gets crossed too often.
Here is the kicker: If you are sacrificing too much, then you are encouraging/causing/teaching your spouse to sacrifice too little. Funny thing is, the real change in the relationship usually comes down to the "weaker" (horrible word, but it gets the point across) person or the person who looks most like the victim.
It's a doubly-barbed threat either way, in order to truly fill someone's needs, you have to fill your own. The merger comes when you start to realize what are needs and what are societal and background-based expectations that are expendable.
Home is that safe place where the beautiful after the storm can happen, can be savored, can live. Home is the go-between between heaven and hell, wrong and right, chaos and stability, love and hate, fear and faith. That means it's going to get messy. It's not a sterile environment, and that's ok. What better place than home?
3. If you feel like you are in the background and are unable to feel satisfaction in yourself, you are probably doing too much.
If you are not feeling good about yourself, or if you feel unappreciated, then it means somewhere your needs aren't being met. Sometimes the decisions we make ourselves, even if they seem innocent enough are the very opposite of what we actually need and create this feeling of emptiness, and sometimes it is because the people we are involved are being dorks. However, either way, it is our personal responsibility to address the emptiness on the inside. They say that you cannot rely on circumstances to make you happy. Well, you can't. Our identity has to be filled with our own beliefs, our own understandings, and our own convictions, otherwise we are running on phantom fumes. If we rely on an outside source to validate our identity, say a neighbor, a parent, child, sibling, spouse, mentor, teacher, or otherwise, we are placing our sense of self in the hands of another mortal, one whose ideas, motivations, and feelings are subject to change at any time. In other words, we leave our sense of worth to be judged and juried by the fragility of human emotions.
Taking responsibility for this means that we are willing to address our needs. You can't save someone who is drowning unless you know how to swim, otherwise you'll just drag each other down. In the same way, it is impossible to really be there for the person you love if you haven't been there for yourself.
In order to be a supportive spouse, you have to be your own best cheerleader, you have to believe in yourself.
4. Loving someone means that you are willing to do the hard thing.
The presence of love doesn't mean the absence of pain, it means that the happy times go deeper and the pain isn't wasted.
It's quite the cliche, but in a relationship, honesty is the best policy. Why? Because suppression of any kind of truth, and I mean any kind of truth causes stagnation, or to put it more bluntly, damnation. Damnation in its literal definition, as a stoppage or force against progression. It's not about making choices that make it the easiest for everyone, that is not love. It is about making the choices that facilitate the most future.
5. Fairy tale vs. Happy Endings
Growing up, I was the queen of the fairy tale fantasy. I knew what it was suppose to be like, and I wanted it. There would be a man, handsome, kind, basically perfect and we would be the most beautiful couple, and we would be completely happy, with no arguments, no frustrations, we would like all the same things, and we would be the soul-iest soul mates this world had ever known. The dream, the expectation was my heart and soul. I felt like it would be the end, the destination, the pinnacle. It's been a journey to come to understand that what I really want is a happy ending, not a fairy tale. Well, I guess it's more correct to say a happy continuing, rather than a happy ending. The relationship is not an ending, it's a beginning, and more than that, it is a continuation of the you you were before. It comes down to realizing that it's not about the perfect fit, it's about the right fit. The fit that can support you, the fit that's got you're back, that's willing to give up the stupid things and hold to the important things, the fit that supports your dreams and gives you wings to fly, the fit that requires you to do the same for them, the fit that drives you to be a better and better you. It's not about the perfect fit, it's the right fit.
6. Being equally yoked.
Like I said before, the equality of the priesthood and motherhood is founded on the eternal truth that men and women are suppose to be equally powerful. I am not intending to be sexist here, but I have seen so many women living more timidly than their true nature suggests and demands, because they think that is what is appropriate. Well folks, it's not. It is not appropriate. And the more timidly women choose to live, the more men will follow and the more it will become expected. That's the truth of the relationship between the priesthood and motherhood. That saying "Behind every good priesthood holder there is good woman"? Well, first of all, none of this "behind" stuff, that is total semantics. But the principal here is that women have the ability to set the tone of the progression of both self, children, and spouse. I am not ratting on men. Please understand that. I deeply respect men. But when I said our understanding of motherhood was compromised, I wasn't kidding. That was actually an understatement. It is our perception that is broken, not the system. I've seen it mostly in women, but that doesn't mean it only happens in that scenario. The bottom line is that people need to start being bold, because life is too stupid to be anything else. There is too much joy, too much opportunity to be had to waste time on being timid. There is only enough time to live.
7. The best way to avoid looking stupid is to take responsibility for your mistakes.
Like, really. It's not hard to spot. Might as well own up to it and keep your self-dignity intact. We have to be willing to take the risk that it might be our fault. I have seen so many times where people do not acknowledge their mistakes. So many times when people find it more important to be right than to be happy. From what I have observed, there is nothing more damaging than someone refusing to see the truth, especially if it means admitting that they messed up. Marriage is a risk. Happiness is a risky endeavor and it means we have to be willing to see, actually see. Not second guess, not dumb down, not punish, but see! That means it might be uncomfortable, but if nothing was ever uncomfortable, we would flat-line.
Anyway, I believe in love. I believe in passion. I believe in dreams, and growth, and hope. I believe in love.
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