wedding

In the Talmud, we are told that, No one knows another persons thoughts. When someone is in a bad mood or disappoints you, you may be sure that he or she trying to hurt you intentionally. Unless abusive or mentally ill, assume that the person is doing his best, but simply does not have the emotional maturity or skills to do any better. What distinguishes healthy guilt from unhealthy guilt is intention. We all inevitably hurt people, because it is impossible to fulfill all their needs or always know how to please them. And we all have annoying habits. If you accidentally cause pain to your spouse, simply apologize and say, Im sorry. I had no intention to hurt you. Practice now by forgiving those who have no intention to hurt you. If necessary, clarify what happened.

According to researcher and practitioner Jeffrey Larson , most wedding going through at least three general stages of development: (1) romantic love (2) disillusionment and distraction and (3) dissolution, adjustment with resignation, or adjustment with contentment. In the first stage of marriage, according to Larson, couples tend to be so caught up in passion and physical attraction that issues like sacrifice, selfishness, expectations, and crises are not faced or dealt with. When the honeymoon begins to wear off, then these issues begin to influence and impact the relationship. Daily life stressors and other crises often occur that require sacrifices to be made, selfishness to be checked and given up, and expectations to be discarded or modified. Such disillusionments and distractions can lead to less time spent together, less time spent on the relationship, a reduction in a couples sex life, and sexual boredom. When a couple reaches the end of this second stage, according to Larson, they often feel disappointed and unfulfilled. It is then that a couple moves into the third stage with at least three options available to them: (1) They can dissolve the marriage relationship; (2) They can adjust while resigning to the fact that their marriage will not improve and that they will continue to grow apart; or, (3) They can work hard on their relationship and experience growing contentment and satisfaction as tools are gained, issues are worked through and resolved, and increased companionate and altrusitic love are developed with a little romantic love added to the mix. One of the toughest things for men and women to sometimes understand is that as the relationship develops and moves through these stages, intense and passionate love tends to diminish as it moves more fully into these other two styles of love - companionate and altruisitic love. Larson concludes by saying that every couple must make the decision whether or not they will dissolve the relationship, adjust in the relationship with resignation, or adjust in the relationship with growing contentment and satisfaction. His point is that many marriages could adjust with growing contentment and satisfaction if they would commit to recognizing their marriage needs help, become aware of strengths and weaknesses, understand the contexts that influence marital adjustment, gain the tools to improve traits that help or hurt the relationship, and commit to a plan for improving the relationship.

Never go to bed angry at your spouse or, If my partner and I have a disagreement, our relationship is doomed are just two of the many myths that we can dispel before we ever get married. Sometimes, because we are tired and stressed, the best practice is to settle down and to get some needed rest before we deal with the issue the next morning. Other myths, according to Jeffry Larson , include the following: 1.If my spouse loves me. 2.he should instinctively know what I want and need to be happy. 3.No matter how I behave, my spouse should love me simply because she is my spouse. 4.I can change my spouse by pointing out his inadequacies, errors, and other flaws. 5.I must feel better about my partner before I can change my behavior toward him. 6.Maintaining romantic love is the key to marital happiness over the life-span for most couplesMarriage should always be a 7.50-50 partnership . 8.Marriage can fulfill all of my needs.

Larson and Holman have identified three general domains of important predictors of marital quality and stability : Marital quality is defined by these authors as a subjective evaluation of a couples relationship. Marital stability is defined as the status of the relationship as intact or nonintact . These domains are : background and contextual factors, individual traits and behaviors, and couple interactional processes . Larson calls these three domains the Marriage Triangle. According to Larson , the Marriage Triangle highlights these three domains and focuses on the interactions between them.

Contexts and environments are the settings in which individual and couple traits are developed. These influential contexts are placed at the bottom of the Marriage Triangle because they form the foundation of the development of individual and couple interactional traits. Larson divides these contexts into two general domains personal contexts and relationship contexts. According to Larson, personal context characteristics include family of origin influences, such as the degree of love and unity in the family in which you grew up, the quality of your parents marriage, and your degree of autonomy in your family of origin. Relationship context refers to the situation or environment in which your relationship currently exists. Examples of relationship context factors include support from in laws, chronically unresolved marital problems, and stress caused by spending too much time or energy in raising children, dealing with financial problems, and so on.

Individual traits that influence marital satisfaction or dissatisfaction include a persons personality, attitudes, and skills , Larson identifies difficulty coping with stress, dysfunctional beliefs , excessive impulsiveness , extreme self-consciousness, excessive anger and hostility, untreated depression, and chronic irritability as the major liabilities toward the achievement of marital satisfaction.Conversely, Larson identifies extroversion , flexibility, good self-esteem, assertiveness, commitment, and an ability to love as the major assets toward the achievement of marital satisfaction.

Couple traits that influence marital satisfaction and dissatisfaction include communication and conflict resolution skills and several other traits specifically pointed out by Larson , that include the following:Cohesion time spent together compared with time spent apart that leads to a perception and feeling of emotional closeness. Intimacy the combination of selfdisclosure, affection, sexual relations, and cohesion.Control or power sharing ,the ability to influence another person to go in the direction you want. When there is give-and-take and the power and control is equitable and shared, then a feeling of satisfaction generally occurs. When one spouse tends to exercise too much power or control in decision making, then dissatisfaction can occur.Consensus ,the degree of agreement you and your partner experience on a variety of marital issues such as proper behavior in public, religious matters, decision making, and displays of affection. Similarly, Larson states that consensus can be realized in one of three ways in marriage:(1) you accept and appreciate that you are already similar,(2) you accept your differences without resentment or despair, or(3) you reach consensus through healthy conflict resolution

Douglas A. Abbott (2003) shares three principles that can lead toward greater marital satisfaction: (1) Change your behavior: Change first. (2) Change your attitude. (3) Change your heart. He also includes three ways to change ourselves first as follows: Exercise patience with your partners faults and annoying habits. Drop the insistence that he or she must changeTake responsibility to change yourself and improve the relationship. The focus becomes you not your partner. You change first. Assuming there is good will and love between you and your spouse, your partner may then desire to also change. As you act in loving, forgiving, and benevolent ways, your spouse may reciprocate.

Dr. Abbotts , 80-20 rule was developed from a story he read several years ago called 80 percent I love you, 20 percent I hate you. From this story he concluded, to avoid overfocusing on the spouses negatives, you can train your mind to focus on the positives. Overlook the few small things(20 percent) that you dont like about your spouse and continually remind yourself of the 80 percent you like.

Dr. Abbott cites C. Terry Warner in his article who discussed the following about the need to change our hearts in our relationships: A Change of Heart Without a change of heart whatever we do will carry the smell of manipulative, selfish, or fearful intent, and other people will readily discern it .The self-help movement that began in the latter half of the twentieth century suffers particularly from this flaw, for the personal and interpersonal skills it seeks to cultivate are almost always designed to get us more of what we think we want, rather than to bring about a change of heart.To the extent that we can come to see others differently, we can undergo a fundamental change, a change in our being, a change of our emotions and attitudes, a change of heart.We do not control the timing of a change of heart. We make ourselves available for it by faithfully doing the right things for the right reasons; that much does lie within our control.There is no better means of promoting another persons change of heart than allowing our own heart to change