Big Green Monster

            I love children’s books.  I have a huge collection, and frequently read them to my children.  Here is one of their favorites when they were young:

            With the turn of every page some new scary aspect of the monster appears: a big red mouth, sharp white teeth, curly purple hair or squiggly blue ears.  The point of the story is to tell each characteristic to “go away!”, and by the end of the book we feel confident enough to tell the whole monster to depart.  It’s a cute book with a good message.

            This week I studied about Pride.  Pride is the “big, green monster” in marriage.  Unlike the monster in the book with limited scary aspects, pride seems to have an unending number of faces.  Do any of these appear in your relationship?

*Self-centeredness     *Conceit     *Boastfulness     *Arrogance      *Haughtiness     

*Enmity, which is hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition

*Competitive in nature       *Rebellion        *Hard-heartedness

     *Stiff-neckedness     *Unrepentant     *Puffed up     

*Easily offended     *Tempted to elevate selves

  *Diminishing others     *Faultfinding     *Gossiping     *Backbiting                *Murmuring     *Living beyond our means     *Envying     *Coveting     * Withholding gratitude     

*Withholding praise that might lift another     *Being unforgiving      *Jealous

*Disobedience is essentially a prideful power struggle against someone in authority

    *Selfishness     *‘How everything affects me” attitude     *Self-conceit     *Self-pity      

                   *Worldly self-fulfillment    *Self-gratification     *Self-seeking

            *Contention     *Arguments     *Fights     *Unrighteous dominion     

*Generation gaps     *Spouse abuse     *Riots     *Disturbances

             *Holding grudges     *Not receiving counsel or correction easily

                    *Defensiveness to justify and rationalize frailties and failures

                                                                                    (see Ezra Taft Benson's talk on Pride for more)

            There are a lot of ways for the Pride Monster to rear its big, ugly face in our lives.  And Satan uses every single one of them to stir up trouble every day.  We need to diligently tell each feature to “Go Away!”  We need to let go of our pride.

Pride has no place in our marriages.  Pride adversely affects our relationships.  It limits or stops our progression as individuals and as couples.  Pride chases away our feelings of unity and oneness.  It separates and divides us.  God wants us to become one. 

            So how do we tell our monster to “go away”?  Just like the big, green monster, we need to chase away each form of pride.  Repentance is the remedy, and humility is the antidote.

            We can choose to invite humility into our marriages by esteeming our spouse as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than ourselves.  We can do this by rendering selfless service and considering your partner’s opinions.  Gottman calls this “letting your partner influence you”.

            Basically it means that we consider our spouses opinion when we make decisions, what they feel, prefer and think matters to us in our day-to-day choices.  Accepting influence is an attitude, but it is also a skill that you can learn if you pay attention to how you relate to your spouse.

Essence Encounter:

           This idea comes from Gottman's book.  I think it is a fun and interesting activity.  Try it out this week with your spouse.

           The Gottman Deserted Island Game:

            Imagine yourself shipwrecked with your partner on a tropical desert island– the two of you are the only survivors. You have no idea where you are. A storm appears to be on the way. You decide that you need to prepare to survive on this island for some time, and to find some way to ensure you can be spotted by a rescue party. There are a lot of items from the ship on the beach that could help you, but you can only carry ten items.

            Step 1: Each of you writes down on a separate piece of paper what you consider to be the ten most important items to keep from the inventory list below. Then rank these items based on their importance to you. Give the most crucial item a 1, the next most important item a 2, and so on.

Ship’s Inventory:

•   Two changes of clothing                     •   AM-FM and short-wave radio receiver 

•   Ten gallons of water                            •   Pots and pans 

•   Matches                                               •   Shovel 

•   Backpack                                             •   Toilet paper 

•   Two tents                                             •   Two sleeping bags 

•   Knife                                                   •   Small life raft, with sail                      

•   Sunblock lotion                                   •   Cookstove and lantern 

•   Long rope                                            •   Two walkie-talkie sender-receiver units 

•   Freeze-dried food for seven days        •   One change of clothing 

•   One fifth of whiskey                            •   Flares 

•   Compass                                              •   Regional aerial maps 

•   Gun with six bullets                            •   Fifty packages of condoms 

•   First-aid kit with penicillin                  •   Oxygen tanks

            Step 2: Share your list with your partner. Together come up with a consensus list of ten items. This means talking it over and working as a team to solve the problem. Both of you need to be influential in discussing your viewpoint and in making the final decisions.

            Step 3: Once you have compromised on a third list, it’s time to evaluate how the game went. Think about how effective you were at influencing your partner and how effective they were at influencing you. Did either of you try to dominate? Were you competitive? Ask yourself if you had fun. Did both of you work well as a team and feel included, or did you sulk, withdraw, express irritability/anger?
             Acknowledge any problem areas and agree to work together on these issues with your spouse.  This is overcoming pride, choosing humility and defeating the big, ugly monster.  We can't change habits overnight, but we can move forward, if we take responsibility for the part we play in our relationships, and we can choose to work together.  Take that you big, green, ugly monster!  Go Away--and don't come back again!