Pride and Marriage

Why is it that *sometimes*, in marriage, we are so focused on the needs of the other partner? With patience, we empathize with them regarding their frustrations with life. We are their cheerleader, encouraging them to try new things and to keep going on projects on which they feel like giving up. We cry with them, hold their hand, look for small ways to make them happy and comfortable. They are always on our mind and their interests come first.

And then there are the other times. We feel like we need to look out for ourselves because no one else is looking out for us. We need to defend ourselves to the other person. We plead for their respect and put every effort into making the case of why they are not treating us well enough. We withhold emotional and physical closeness from the other until they make things just right, stacking the odds more and more each passing day against actually ever making things right again. We complain, sometimes to ourselves and sometimes to others, that no one fully appreciates us and no one realizes what a burden we carry all alone. We are ever on the lookout for examples that provide us with further evidence of the insensitivity of our partner.

Why the difference? Is it us, or is it our partner?Is it the demands and stresses of life? Changes in the phases of the moon? Physical and emotional exhaustion? How can we so easily turn from defending, and doing everything we can to support the person we care most about, to tearing them down and blaming them, whether actively or passively?

Through the years of schooling, life experience, and work experience I've had, it boils down to one answer for me: pride. Pride ruins marriages. It tells us that we are not being appreciated fully or treated well enough and that we need to make someone pay a price because of it. It keeps us from apologizing and mending the small things and allows them to evolve into bigger things. It draws constant comparisons between who gets the most sleep, changes the most diapers, earns the most money, spends the most money, is called on most often by the kids for help, cares the most, etc. Pride has so many faces. The most dangerous of them are those that we do not recognize as pride because they have us so fully-convinced the other partner is at fault and we are the victim. Pride is easily offended. Slow to forgive. Conditional in support. Impatient. Unkind. Self-pitying. These are all of the ugly sides of marriage.

Some may find it odd that I would say pride, more than anything else, destroys marriage. Isn't it really extramarital affairs, addictions, and other poor choices that ruin relationships? While I believe there are certainly many innocent victims of such circumstances, my answer is unchanged. It is the pride of both partners that makes it so they cannot get past the challenges they face rather than the events in and of themselves. One prideful spouse will not admit a weakness and will not change. Another will never forgive, no matter how many years pass or or how repentant the other spouse.

The Arbinger Institute does great work on the subject of self-deception in relationships. It is tough reading, though, because it never allows you to place the blame for your unhappiness or self-pity on your partner. That is hard to swallow, especially for someone in a rocky relationship. However, they share story after story of success in helping people take full responsibility for their own happiness through forgiveness of others and through eliminating the trap of self-deception (which is pride at its finest, convincing us we've done no wrong and that we have been taken for granted and treated wrongfully by others).

Here is to more days of being a cheerleader as a marriage partner, and less of being a cynic.