Long time to build - quick to come apart

In 2015 Las Vegas was called the “Implosion Capital of the World,” by the Las Vegas Sun and not because of the fortunes lost or lives destroyed in Sin City, but because of the number of buildings that had been imploded over the last several years.

My grandkids are true Las Vegans, they love to have me build high towers of blocks so they can knock them down. They are less interested in building than they are in destroying.  They even love to watch videos of the Riviera Hotel being imploded.  And it is not just them, my teenage son and his friends will spend hours watching videos of things getting destroyed.  What took months and sometimes years to build can be destroyed in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

Which made me ask…. WHY IS IT EASIER TO DESTORY SOMETHING THAN BUILD IT UP?

According to Gottman the ratio for a happy marriage is 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction.  (23)  This means we have to be continuously building our marriage to make it successful.  But even when we know this key to success it is difficult to maintain the happiness ratio.  Goddard taught that the “human story began with obedience and sacrifice.  The success of our marital story hinges on our willingness to apply the same principles.”  (45)

The part I focused my thoughts on was in the sacrifices we make to have a success marriage.  The word sacrifices creates a negative feeling. Like we gave up something important, like we lost something of value. But that isn’t it at all.

To help clarify let’s think about the opposite, selfishness.  Henry B. Eyring gave a talk titled Our Prefect Example.  He states that, “..selfishness is the absence of love.” He goes on to remind those of his faith who have entered the temple that we made a covenant to put others first. As we become more concerned for our spouse than our self we lose our selfishness and sacrifice our time and energy into building up our marriages.  Destruction comes quickly, building takes time.

In what has become a personally transforming quote Goddard says, “ We covenant to bring all to the alter.  The Lord cannot bless what we will not bring.”  (46)  The Lord cannot change a heart we selfishly hold on to, he cannot right a wrong we will no let go of, he cannot replace angry with peace if we don’t sacrifice it all and bring it all to Him. 

We are giving up, we are giving up everything that has been hurtful and harmful in our marriages and forgiving freely our spouse.  Recognizing that they too are making this same sacrifice for us.  Together placing it all on the alter allowing it to be transformed into something we cannot create alone.

This will not happen overnight.  Gottman offers pages of exercises to help us along this path. Henry B. Eyring in the talk referenced above gives us a list of things to pray for, a list that in now taped to my mirror.

I am grateful for Gottman’s reassurance that it is never too late to improve and even save a marriage. “There is nothing complicated about reviving or enhancing your fondness and admiration (in marriage). Even long-buried positive feelings can be exhumed simply by thinking and talking about them.”(74)

Happy sacrificing!