Selfishness is a sure way to rob a marriage of happiness. When my husband and I were first married, I can remember looking for him to make me happy. If he didn't take out the trash when I felt that it should be taken out, I felt frustrated with him.  If he left his clothes on the bathroom floor after a shower, I was bothered and before long I found that the small and unimportant things in life were plaguing my marriage, and effecting my feelings towards my husband. If allowed the irritations of life can become much more than a just a bother. As Goddard describes they can "transform into evils" and "with time we come to think of our partners as disappointments or failures." The root of this behavior is selfishness.  We become so focused on our own needs and forget about what our spouse might need, or we allow small irritations to dictate our feelings. This type of behavior makes it difficult for a marriage to thrive. President Hinckley gave some great council on the dangers of selfishness.  He said "I find selfishness to be the root cause of most of the problems that lead to broken homes. I am satisfied that a happy marriage is not so much a matter of romance as it is an anxious concern for the comfort and well-being of one's companion...There is a remedy for all of this. It is not found in divorce. It is found in the gospel of the Son of God. It is in repentance. It is not in separation. It is in simple integrity that leads a man to square up his shoulders and meet his obligations. It is found in the Golden Rule." If we recall and apply the golden rule to our marriage it would mean that we do all the things for our spouse, that we would love for them to do for us. We look to turn toward our spouse and put our focus on them.

 

This is exactly what changed my situation early in my marriage.  As I stated, I found that the little irritations were no longer little, they were starting to consume my thoughts.  I began to harbor ill feelings against my husband and I knew that I had to change my attitude or my marriage would not be pleasant.  I decided that I would serve my husband and do my best to not put such an emphasis on what my husband wasn't doing, but rather I'd try to focus more on what he was doing. I started to realize that he was learning how to be a good spouse to me too, and in order to obtain the highest level of happiness with one another, it would require a lot of patience from both of us. I began to notice that he would rise early and study his scriptures and I really appreciated this example, since this was not a strength of mine.  I appreciated that he went to work every day, would always give me a warm greeting as he returned, and would fulfill his calling at church.  I realized that we were both imperfect beings, trying our best and that was all that mattered.  With time, some of those annoyances went away.  I can report that he is still terrible at leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor, however, I have accepted that this flaw comes in the same package as all of his strengths and I'm okay with it. Goddard gave some great advice on how we can find less fault with our spouses.  He said that we should ask "I wonder why he feels or acts that way?" "I wonder why that is important to her? Rather than judging our partners, we can seek to understand them." 

 

One of my favorite reads this week was the story from a BYU-Idaho student and his decision to turn to his wife more fully.  He felt selfish with his independence.  He didn't want to give up his personal time to assist his wife with some of her necessary tasks.  He decided that he would try to turn towards his wife, and do the things that were important to her, important to him. This is a snippet of the selfish behavior that he was trying to overcome "I started my own personal experiment by looking for ways I could turn towards my wife in different situations. This helped me realize a major problem I had. I professed my love to her in marriage over thealtar, and yet daily I was not communicating that love to her. Each time she would ask me to go dosomething that needed to be done, like grocery shopping, cleaning the house, taking laundry to thelaundromat, etc., I would look for a reason to not do those things. This was not because I didn’t wanttobe with her, but because I didn’t want to do those things. In denying our marriage this special time together, even for little errands that I didn’t want to necessarily do, I was denying the very thing that I now feel keeps a marriage together." Through his efforts, this husband was able to secretly make his marriage better.  He gave his wife one of the most valuable gifts; his time.  If his wife was going to the store, he'd go along. Before he'd attend to his schoolwork, he made sure to ask her about her day and spend time talking to her.  The difference that he saw in his marriage was profound.  He discovered that his wife was much more willing to allow him time with his friends, and she was very appreciate of his help and would often verbalize this. 

 

We can each choose the antidote to selfishness which is to forget about what our own needs are, and focus more on turning towards our spouse.  This choice is what will allow our marriage to flourish, will heal irritations and grievances, and will ultimately draw us closer to our spouse.