Accepting Influence from One's Spouse

"Husbands and wives, learn to listen, and listen to learn from one another"
-Elder Russell M. Nelson

You know this is somethings that I never really thought was going to be a big deal before I got married.  I always thought my wife was way smarter than me and I would always be learning from her.  After we got married I found out that that idea wasn't quite right....Not to say anything bad about my wife but we have our own strengths and weaknesses.  One of my major weaknesses is that I don't listen.  Once I have an idea in my head I usually can't be talked out of it until it has exploded into a million pieces right in front of me, even though everyone else told me it would happen that way.  This is something I am trying to work on even now.  Hahahaha so I guess in that sense I was right all along.  The wife is always right!  It is so hard because we have such different communication styles.  I assume this is the case for everyone.  Even when you think you both communicate great, chances are you don't or at least not as well as you think.  My wife and I can be saying the EXACT same thing and we will argue with one another.  It's because we are both explaining it in different ways and we don't realize we are saying the same thing.  Then a few hours later I realize what a dope I was because I realize we were on the same page.  And that is why what Elder Nelson said is so important.  If we learn to listen we can learn!

Dangers of Not Accepting Influence

In this video John Gottman describes the dangers of not accepting influence from your spouse.  I have to admit I have had some of the same thoughts run through my head when he said "If I accept influence from my wife on this issue, I'm gonna have to give up something that is too central to who I am.  The loss is too great."  I think some of this thinking at least for me come from having to be the man of the house and my wife doesn't know about that.  In reality most of the time she knows a lot more than I do.  Maybe it is even that I am afraid of giving up that "man of the house" power.  But Gottman says that's where it starts and that the "mental" divorce happens long before the actual divorce.  According to our text which I believe is a quote from Gottman men have a harder time accepting influence from their spouses than women.  "Women, Gottman argues, are already well practiced at accepting influence from men, so it is critical for the well-being of marriage that men learn to do likewise" (Hawkins, Dollahite, & Draper, 2012)

How do we Accept Influence?
In the text it suggests a few things that Gotmann said:

• Turn to your spouse for advice
• Being open to his or her ideas
• Listening and considering their opinions
• Learning from our spouses
• Recognizing points we both agree on
• Compromising
• Showing trust
• Being sensitive to their feelings

The key point here is that this is a change in ourselves.  All of the suggestions listed above are changing something within ourselves to make those things happen.  When doing a youtube search looking for a video to explain exactly this all I could find were people with videos explaining how to change your spouse.  That is not going to work, it never has, and never will.  I married my wife because she is the most amazing woman on this planet.  I married her for her.  So why would I want to change something about her.  In order to make this work I need to learn to accept influence from her.  Imagine if both spouses were able to accept influence from each other without fighting or arguing.  It would be amazing.  I know a lot of times I feel like my wife is trying to argue with me or attack me.  Lately she has been pointing out during those times, I dunno I guess I have something that gives it away that I'm feeling that way, that she isn't trying to fight or attack me and our conversation has been so much better.  It tells me alright you are ok and lets my try to accept her influence.