Week 5

I enjoyed learning about Gottman’s thoughts about marriage and how in many ways its fostering a friendship between your spouse. It really hit me hard this week because of a family vacation we took just last week. In preparation for this family vacation I was trying to get 2 weeks worth of my classes done so I would not have to do as much work while we were gone. Also my wife was doing the same, preparing for the trip, packing, etc. It was just a few days before we left and we both were incredibly stressed. We took that stress out on each other and argued. After releasing some tension and working things out we just realized that we had not given each other the time we both needed. If we had simply even just made some time in preparation for our vacation to just watch a movie together or give each other longer hugs when we saw each other after work, we could have avoided such arguments. It was nice to be able to go on vacation and mend those ties that we neglected and be able to build up our friendship again. The natural man inside of me was missing my wife and was also not realizing that my wife was feeling the same thing. I wanted her to appreciate my efforts of working hard and put more work on her shoulders to help get our child down and keep the house in order. When we both put the natural man behind us we realized that we were doing these things out of love for each other but might have overlooked our minor responsibilities. Putting down the natural man and focusing on the needs of someone else was what helped me be a better husband.