Staying Emotionally Connected with your Loved One

  One thing that stood out to me as I was reading in H. Wallace Goddard's book "Drawing Marriage Into Your Marriage", in the 3rd chapter titled "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ", was when he said "Satan knows that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His redemptiveness are enemies to his cause.  Satan's best hope is to keep us from looking up.  He must keep us fully absorbed with the trivial, fretting over our inconveniences and stewing over our grievances".  He does this in our daily lives with our devices and technology.  Everything is so instantaneous and the world's "its all about me" mentality are some of the Satan's greatest tools to destroying marriages and family.  When we are selfish we can't have charity or compassion for others because we don't even think about them.  This draws us away from Jesus Christ and creates room for Satan to move on in with all of his cunning tools.  John Gottman mentioned technology and how we are a very distracted people.  When we are distracted and are used to interruptions we don't give people our whole undivided attention.  This makes it hard to turn towards our spouses in different ways.  One way is that if we are not focused on them, we might miss a bid for attention or miss when our partner is trying to turn towards us. Another way is that we miss opportunities to turn towards our spouse to show them our love and appreciation.  Most of the time couples ignore each other's emotional needs out of mindlessness, not malice.  Gottman said that most of the "arguments between couples were not about specific topics like money or sex, but resulted from those failed bids for connection.  Each time partners turn towards each other, they are funding what I've come to call their emotional bank account.  They are building up savings that, like money in the bank, can serve as a cushion when times get rough, when they're faced with a major life stress or conflict".  When we have added to our emotional account each day most of the time these big stressful events or trials won't shake our relationship.  This takes awareness on our part.  We need to be more in tune to our spouse so we can catch the bids of attention or opportunities to turn towards our spouse.   This might take us changing our perspective and not being distracted.  We can do this by small ways each day by thinking of them and what ways we can turn towards them and show them our love and appreciation.  Another way is by putting the Lord first and have an eternal perspective.  This will help our views of our relationship and spouse change.  Our priorities change as well to reflect that view.  Goddard mentioned that "when we have the eternal perspective on our marriages, everything is different."  I know that because I have the knowledge of the plan of Salvation and because of the covenants I have made in the House of the Lord my perspective, my goals and my focus are different.  This knowledge gives me hope that my spouse and I can overcome anything that comes our way, only if we have the Lord as our partner and seek His guidance.  Goddard also said "The gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to lift our vision from our own petty and relentless wants to something nobler.  "Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God." (D&C 82:19)  If we were more focused on others, we would be less selfish and more love and kindness would abound in this world.  Goddard said that "it is a matter of replacing irritations with compassion and charity; replacing accusations with humility; replacing frustration with invitation.  When we change our attitude or focus we allow our hearts to be softened and we can obtain the pure love of Christ for our spouse, our family or those around us.  We will see more clearly how the Lord sees us and we will be reminded of the bigger picture of this wonderful plan.