Healthy Marriages Major in History (NOT Math)
It’s Marriage Monday over at Chrysalis. Since today is an “open topic,” I thought I’d repost a blog that my good friend Kathi Lipp included in her newest book, The Husband Project:
Think about a high school math class: What does the teacher put on the board every day? Problems! What is the math textbook filled with? Problems! What do students have for homework each night? Problems!
And what is the goal with all these problems? Solve them!
In contrast, think about a high school history class. What does the teacher discuss in class? Facts! What is the history textbook filled with? Facts! What do students memorize for quizzes? Facts!
And how do we approach history facts? Do we try to somehow “solve” them? Do we try to change Independence Day from July 4 to, say, May 28? Of course not. We know that we can’t “solve” facts. When it comes to facts, our goal is to accept them, understand them, and learn from them.
So why do I say that a healthy marriage majors in history, not math?
Because one thing I’ve (finally!) learned is that no matter how I may be feeling at the moment, my husband is never “a problem”! He does not need me to “solve” him. “Math mode” simply does not work for marriage.
“History habits,” on the other hand, strengthen marriage. My husband is a living, breathing, walking, talking collection of facts. And he needs me to accept him, understand him, and learn from him.
What does this look like in day-to-day living?
Back when Daniel and I were dating, I was an expert at “history habits” — I focused on my beloved’s strengths and liberally exercised my bragging rights, telling everyone what he was famous for.
After marriage, however, I quickly slipped into “math mode.” Whenever things didn’t go the way I wanted, I switched to critical thinking, focusing on my husband’s weaknesses, trying harder and harder to “solve” the problem: him!
What might this switch sound like if a woman is married to a Popular Sanguine? While dating him, she might have written a letter like this:
Dear Mom & Dad,
I’m in love with the most WONDERFUL man!
He’s an incredible conversationalist. He is never at a loss for words; I sit and listen to him for hours.
Everyone invites us to parties, because he is so much fun — always in the middle of any crowd! And such a storyteller . . . he’s so expressive, he holds everyone spellbound!
I love everything about this man, and I always will!
After a few years of marriage, however, she might end up lamenting to a friend, over coffee:
Oh Karen!
I have had it up to here with this man!
You know the country song, “A Little Less Talk, and a Lot More Action”? I could so do with a LOT LESS TALK! The man is a motor mouth with no “off” button!
It’s embarrassing at parties — he always has to be the center of attention. He tells the same stories over and over again, never remembering that he’s told the SAME stories to the SAME people a dozen times already.
Will he ever grow up? What happened to the man I fell in love with?
Indeed, what has happened? What has changed? Nothing but her perspective. She’s stuck in “math mode,” focused on his weaknesses, trying desperately to “solve” someone she once vowed to accept.
One thing I’ve learned is how easily I can overlook my husband’s myriad strengths and fixate my attention on a few particularly annoying (to me!) weaknesses. When I get stuck in “math mode,” joy and intimacy are subtracted from our marriage.
So, now it’s your turn: What do you do to practice “history habits” and purposefully focus on your spouse’s strengths?
Cheri,
Brilliant and filled with truth. Oh, that we all would stay in history mode.
Great post. Hugs, Lynn
This is really good, I never thought about the math/history angle, but you are so right!
What a terrific analogy, Cheri! I’ll keep “History” in mind, the next time I’m tempted to default to “Math.” e-Dad will be grateful I sat under your teaching!
Thanks for joining us for Marriage Monday today. :~D
Really appreciated the witty way of making your point. I was posting on a similar topic. It is so important not to focus on changing others, especially our men… how do we know our version of what they should be would be the best for all involved?
That was great Cheri! Rob and I both are history buffs (yay!), so this was great. And I loved the component from the temperaments. I’m a San-Mel-Chlor and Rob is a Mel-Chlor!
{{Hugs))
Jen
Cheri, it is all too easy to let what we love about your husbands also be the things we grow weary of. Thank you for the reminder to not look at my husband as a “problem to be solved,” but as a person to be cherished.
Very interesting! Glad I’m bad at math, LOL!
Seriously interesting stuff, thanks for sharing it.
I enjoyed reading your post this morning. I liked how you related Math to problems and History to facts.
Like “nice A” I was wondering which track you were going down in terms of Math and Hisory. (I am a History nut so this especially appeals to me.) I was thinking in lines of OUR History, the ones we build as we grow together.
I am reminded of something our Pastor has said in the past,
“Don’t let what you feel, control what you know. Let what you know, control how you feel”.
Satan loves nothing more than to sow seeds of discontent, inequity and selfishness in our marriages. Once we start going down that road we need to stop and do a 180 before those become negative habits.
Connie
We try to remind ourselves about those strengths from our dating days…that they are still strengths…and part of what we love about each other. We try to encourage each other to grow in strength…not fade away in weakness.
When I was reading your title at Chrysalis’s mcklinky, I was trying to predict your content. I playfully guessed my personal associations with Math and History in relation to marriage and I came up with another perspective in not applying Math into it. What I usually hear from friends is their complaints about their husband doing just a little share in the household chores or this and that. So this is calculating, LOL. For History, I didn’t have any guess as I was actually running counter to your idea that instead of using Math mode, use History. What I’ve learned in a relationship is never to remind our spouse with the past issue or relate the present issue to the past. But you’re talking about the mode in focusing on facts which I really I agree.
Thank you very much for this very interesting post. The letters strike a familiar chord:)
I enjoyed this post.