Humility is the antidote....

When I think of the big and the little arguments that my husband and I have had over the years, and we have had our share, I’m realizing that the core issue dwindles down to pride. Either not wanting to admit defeat, feeling as though our needs come before others, inability to take advice or learn from the other, the list goes on. The world celebrates the idea of individualism, making one feel happiness can only come when one’s individual needs are pursued and met first. It is no longer the two of us but often a you and I perspective. Goddard in his book, “Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage” makes a good point when he states,” The natural man is inclined to love himself and fix others. God has asked us to do the opposite. We are to fix ourselves by repenting, and to love others.” (69)

Honestly, who really wants to admit when they are wrong, are not cutting it or needing to make a change for the better? It’s so much easier to make it someone else’s problem or turn away from what we know to be right and this is pride. President Ezra Taft Benson in his amazing talk “Beware of Pride” taught,” Pride adversely affects all our relationships-our relationship with God and His servants, between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employee, teacher student, and all mankind. Our degree of pride determines how we treat our God and our brothers and sisters. Christ wants to lift us where He is. Do we desire the same for others?”

Pride is something we all experience and is a constant work in action to remove it from our lives. The key to doing so is humility and repentance. President Benson in the same talk gives us a list of things we can do to become more humble:

-Lifting others as high or higher than we are.

-Be wiling to receive counsel and chastisement.

-Forgive those who have offended us.

-Rendering selfless service. (This includes within our marriage and family)

-Putting God first and submitting to His will.

Our marriages and our other relationships will become stronger if we chose humility over pride. “Rather than be bothered by the things we want to change in our partners and marriages, we can learn to accept humanness and flaws in our partners. We can laugh at the foibles that bedevil all of us. We can pray for mercy for ourselves and our partners. Because each of us desperately needs mercy, we can offer mercy to each other (Goddard, 85).”