What have you given up to help your marriage?

 

[NOTE: I was asked to answer a series of questions about marriage for a couple. This was one of the questions, which incidentally coincided with a dream I had.]

[Necessary background information: My primary love language is physical. Mike’s language is not. In fact, some days would go by without any physical touch from him other than a goodnight kiss. I crave being touched. I feel love when I am caressed. I feel so dejected and alone with the lack of touch…alone in the same house. The thing is, I know it is his personality; but if I walk up to him, he automatically backs up so he is not in my way, instead of leaning in and giving me a hug. Is he afraid of me? Do I repulse him? When I told him I needed hugs, his way of trying to appease me was to set his alarm to come to me with arms open wide, and announce it was time for a hug. It was not natural. It felt that if he had to have an alarm to remind him to even touch me, that he didn’t even feel a desire to be physical…at least to me. It didn’t used to be that way, but I guess as life when on, we got busy,...and  physical desire and urges left. I had resigned myself to a life of feeling alone.]

 

The Dream: One night in May 2022, I had the following dream: In the dream, I was in the dark, in the back, …facing toward an open doorway—with no door. Bright light was emanating through the doorway. I noticed a woman entering in front from the left, at the same time as a man entered from the right. They met in the center, at the doorway and hugged…happily declaring how much they loved each other and that they wanted to be together forever. Then, they proceeded, hand in hand, through the doorway towards the light. This was repeated for about 3 couples.

I remember thinking how cheesy it was, because they were not newlyweds, but they still acted like newlyweds. (I always hate it when couples post on Facebook, about how great their spouse is, and make it sound like they’ve never had a bad day in their entire married life…especially since that is not what I’ve experienced.) I took this reuniting of couples, and their overt happiness to be similar to my scorn of Facebook couple ‘braggadocios’. 

Then, to my amazement, I saw Mike walk to the doorway…alone. He looked back at me with a sad question in his eyes. I audibly answered, “No, I don’t want to be with him forever,” sadly thinking I didn’t want to endure all we had been through in our earthly life for eternity.

 

Then…I watched him walk through the doorway into the light…alone. I was left in the darkness.

My heart hurt. Yes, I hurt for the sadness he must have felt, but most of all I hurt for me. My despondency was so great, I woke up—but, you see, I was not sad that I wouldn’t be with Mike, it was that I held on to the aloneness I felt in our marriage, I had no guarantee that the personality characteristics and qualities of his, that I had come to despise, would be magically changed in a Celestial world) but I hurt because I wanted to love and be loved by someone. I wanted to have that happiness!

As I considered the dream, I realized two things:

1. It was my choice to reject or stay with him…not Heavenly Father’s.

2. I realized that Mike went to the Celestial Kingdom and I did not. It was shocking! I had rejected Mike; Heavenly Father had not! What had I done or not done that would keep me from the Celestial Kingdom, but not Mike? I mean, he was not perfect. I knew it. Why was he going and not me?

I knelt and prayed, pouring out my heart to the Lord. I asked what commandments had I not kept? As I prayed, in my mind, I went along the ‘Covenant Path’—over every covenant I’d made; over every commandment I knew. I soon realized that whatever kept me from progressing to the Celestial Kingdom had to do with whatever covenants I had made at marriage. 

What were they? In a covert attempt to ascertain my failings, I made appointments for Mike and I to do sealings at the temple and specifically listened to the words of the sealing of couples: “counsel”, “love unfeigned.” I realized two things. One was that I had to learn to love him on Earth as he is…without guarantee that he might be different when resurrected. That meant, I had to let go of being offended by his personality. I also realized that I am not his judge, Heavenly Father is…and Heavenly Father judges the heart. Wow! Since Mike went through and I didn't, it was my heart that needed to change, regardless of any perceived need of mine for him to change to make me happy. 

One of the things I did as a result, was that I began ‘counseling him’. Mike rarely asks me for counsel, in fact, in the past, he has rejected it, thinking of it as me telling him what to do (which he hates)…but in order for me to do what I had covenanted, I needed to counsel him. The result? It was horrible. He got very angry. Finally, I broke down in tears, reiterating my dream, tearfully telling him I was trying to do what I covenanted to do. I told him he didn’t have to do what I said, but he didn’t need to get angry that I said it. 

I thought Mike would be sad that I had rejected him in the dream, but oddly enough, the opposite was true. He actually was buoyed up by the fact that the Lord felt he was worthy to enter the Celestial Kingdom with all his faults. He was also humbled and overjoyed that (as a result of the dream) I wanted to love him for eternity. As a consequence, Mike found himself praying about how we could counsel together. He has even come to me to ask me to offer my opinion on some things. 

One day, after he had been praying, he came to me and said the Spirit told him that just like he has personality traits that annoy me (i.e. his engineering mind: like his desire to simplify, or avoid the hard way of doing things—which I had always thought of as him avoiding work), is one of his personality traits. He furthermore, was given that one of my personality traits (i.e. that of being a workaholic: that I am always thinking of what hasn’t been done that needs to be done) had to do with who I am, and not who he isn’t.  Furthermore, both of our traits are inborn characteristics. He was given to perceive that when I would mention things that needed to be done, it was not a message to him that he had failed or not done enough…neither was it said to maliciously tear him down, but it was said, because that is who I am and how I think…just as much as his engineering mind averts him from such things. 

Wow! After 44 years of us fighting over that characteristic of mine (and his) we were given to understand that understanding! What a gift! 

Simultaneously, when he was angry at me for counseling him, I had been praying and praying, asking Heavenly Father, what I could sacrifice so that I could love and be loved by Mike. I was told simply to go to bed at the same time as him. That meant, I needed to stop reading into the night after our couple’s prayer. I have not done that perfectly, but I have gone to bed with him when he goes to bed (whether I have sneaked up after he sleeps to read and do Wordle). What happened as a result?

As a result of my going to bed with him when he goes to bed, was that I did get physical contact. In addition, we talked with each other—even when he had his sleep head gear on and I had my oxygen on! (I kept the CPAP off till he was asleep). As a result of our bedtime closeness, it spilled over to other times during the day. When Mike would see me, he DID naturally want to hug me. Could it be that simple? What a realization that I was just as much,  or more, at fault for the decreased physical contact and communication, by setting my sleep clock (by reading at night while he was asleep) to be opposite of his. What a revelation, that something so simple could change our relationship! 

Something that Mike gave up that made a HUGE difference in our marriage (not that he gave it up for me, but for a sacrifice to Heavenly Father in order to have Yuliia, Kevin’s fiancé, make it to the United States) was that he gave up television viewing…unless it was with me or a religious program. That was substantial in our relationship! The time he used to watch TV was spent listening or watching conference addresses.

 

[Note to readers: What Mike likes to watch makes me have anxiety and not feel the spirit. What I like to watch, often has immodest clothing, so Mike doesn’t feel the spirit.) We had to compromise to find something we would both watch.]

So, all at once we were doing something together we had never done before. We were watching chic flicks or ‘feel-good’ movies…TOGETHER! Now that Yuliia is here, he has gone back to watching some shows he used to, but we have the residual desire to watch something together that we both can stand. 

Another thing Mike had to sacrifice was early in our marriage: When we had been married one day, his friends from Houston came and crashed our home...and when we went to our open house in Houston. Mike was out there socializing with them, leaving me in the dust, so to speak. For hours I was left alone, while he was with his friends. Of course. They knew them better and longer than he knew me. I was extremely sad to be abandoned. When I brought it up to him, he announced that I would have to get used to it, because he needed to spend time with them every week. I tried to tell him that was not conducive to a good marriage, but it fell on deaf ears, till he read The Miracle of Forgiveness by President Kimball one day, and there was basically the opposite stated, that you put your wife first and do not leave her alone to do things with your friends, and that if you do things with your friends, you include your wife. The Spirit spoke to him and told him that I was right and he needed to change his way of thinking. He has done so ever since.

Yes, I have friends that I go to lunch with, and he has his friends he calls every few months, but we don’t put those friends ahead of, or even on equal level with our spouse. Our spouse comes first, and we are friends with each other’s friends. If we visit them, we visit together. He doesn’t go hunting, camping, or fishing without me, and I don’t go on female vacations without him.

I just wanted all my daughters to know that Heavenly Father can help you through your marriages...and that if you draw close to Him and sacrifice for the sake of your marriage, you will be blessed. I also wanted you to know that sometimes we think we will be happy if the other person changes, when in fact, YOU need to be the one to change, as my example illustrates. But I further more I wanted all my girls to know why I may be going to bed sooner than they do, and admonish them to do likewise. Do not get your sleep cycle turned around from his.