Finding My Best Friend Amidst the Conflict

“Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse”

John M. Gottman, Ph.D.

          Before I got married, I often heard the popular phrase, “my spouse is my best friend”. I didn’t understand what that meant. I never had friends that were the opposite sex, so all my best friends were girls. How was it possible that a husband and wife could be the best of friends when the romantic relationships I observed in my own life didn’t emulate that of “friends”. Sure, I thought that it could possible, but at the same time, it seemed very impossible, especially after getting married and having a very tough few years.

            My husband and I met online at a time in both of our lives when neither of us was looking for love. I was living in Oregon at the time and he in Washington. We were four hours away from each other. If anything were to blossom, we certainly did not know how it was going to turn out. We had hit it off right away. Our conversations, whether chatting on the phone, texting, emailing, Facebook messaging, would last for hours on end. There was always something new the both of us couldn’t wait to share with the other. It felt as though we had known each other before. As though we had been friends before we came to this earth, and we were simply picking up where we had left off. At times I felt what was happening between us was too good to be true. I had plans! Big plans of moving away from Oregon and starting a life being single. He was a single, widowed father raising two precious girls and he needed to think of their future. Neither of us ever thought that our online relationship would turn into an eternal marriage.

            But now, here we are! We just celebrated our 6^th wedding anniversary and are still going strong. Our marriage hasn’t always been filled with laughter and jokes. There have been countless times of arguments, yelling at each other, and even thoughts of breaking it up. All marriages come with challenges. I would be lying to myself if I told others our marriage was absolutely perfect. However, through the conflict and strife, we both have learned valuable lessons in how we communicate and serve each other. We have learned that our marriage isn’t about each of us doing 50% of the work to equal a whole. It is about both of us giving 100%. We made a covenant to love and uplift each other. We promised that we would work closely, side by side, to build and strengthen our relationship and rear our children. And we promised to do this even through the toughest moments.

            There is a psychologist who has been studying marital relationships for over 40 years. John M. Gottman, the founder of the Gottman Institute in Seattle, Washington, has taught many principles that help save, protect and preserve marriages. I started reading a book he wrote titled, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. In the first few chapters he explains first how he and his colleagues, through their strenuous studies, discovered these seven principles. In one chapter, he spoke about what makes a marriage work, and the focus of this chapter was the friendship developed in the spouses. He states that, “happy marriages are based on a deep friendship” (Gottman, 2015, p. 21). Some might wonder, “how does one truly build a friendship with a spouse that you have hard time getting along with?” I know this has been a question on my mind for a while. Let me share with you how I have tried to build a friendship with my husband.

            Like I mentioned earlier, when we were first married, things were tough. We were two separate people who were used to doing our own thing and living life a certain way. It was hard for the both of us to change our perspectives so that we could truly understand each other. We did fun things. We went out and had our date nights and attended the temple as regularly as we could. We found time to spend together after the kids were in bed. We began to slowly accept the different hobbies and likes each other had. For example, I am not into a lot of sports, and my husband likes to watch hockey and baseball. A couple of summers ago, we got on the topic of baseball and he mentioned he was a huge San Francisco Giants fan. we talked about watching a game and he did some searching for TV games and how we could watch the Giants play, and now we watch them every summer all season. I enjoy hiking and being in the outdoors. My husband, not so much. I got him to go hiking with me when it is warmer outside, and even at times when it is snowing heavily and we are looking of the perfect Christmas tree in the woods.  Where I am getting at is that the more we both opened ourselves to each other’s interests and likes, our relationship changed. There was still a problem with communication, and we really needed to get our conflict and fighting under control.

            After our son was born, things sort of took a turn for the worst. We had just added a fourth child, work was crazy for him and school crazy for me. We began to find ourselves drifting, but not intentionally. We desired to be close to each other but didn’t know how to stop the anger from building when one of us got frustrated. What were supposed to do? We could not figure out why were so angry at each other. We knew there were some underlying issues that needed to be settled. It was time to get some help.

“Most quarrels are really not about whether the toilet lid is up or down or whose turn it is to take out the trash. There are deeper, hidden issues that fuel these superficial conflicts and make them far more intense and hurtful than they would otherwise be”.

John M. Gottman

  Sure, we had both been praying and studying our scriptures and trying our best to keep Christ in the center of our lives, but it seemed as though we needed extra guidance. We met a wonderful counselor who gave us some awesome tools in how we both are to only help each other, not fix or control each other. We both are very service oriented people and we just thought that what the other person needed was for the other to FIX them. Turns out, being “fixed” by our partner was not the solution. We learned that healing doesn’t come from the other person, or the counselor for that matter, but that it comes from ourselves and Christ. We had to change our own ways of thinking that we could fix each other, to understanding that we are there for support. We are only here to stand by each other and comfort in times of need. We learned “how to live with the [conflict] by honoring and respecting each other” as stated by Gottman (p. 28). As we have done the work presented before us, we have begun building a “shared meaning and a sense of purpose into [our] marriage” (Gottman, 2015, p.28).

We still have a lot to learn as we take this journey together. There will always be something that comes into our marital path. But with how far we have come, and all that we have learned in the pursuit of becoming the best of friends, we are starting to be “attuned” with one another. John Gottman shares that when there is a “courtesy of [the couple’s] mutual understanding of each other on a core emotional level” that is what he calls “attunement” (p. 24).

I now can see how a spouse can be your best friend. We have seen each other in our most vulnerable moments. We have seen each other cry, laugh, yell, be angry and so much more. My husband may make me crazy at times, but he is also the one that knows how to get a good belly laugh out of me. He knows what brings a smile to my face when the days have been long and hard. He knows my fears, dreams, anxieties and joys. Not only does he know this of me, but I know this of him.

I am grateful that we were placed in each other paths and fell in love. I am blessed to have him by my side and that we each get to be the other’s support. We may be complete opposites at times, but these opposites have become quite complementary. I know that because our marriage is built around the teachings of Christ, and with some tools to guide us in our communication, we have been able to feel our love in a much deeper and holier way.

“The Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love”.

2 Nephi 26:30

References

Gottman, J. M. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage Work . New York : Harmony Books .