Brian & Trula » Communication

Top Ten Marriage Tips #10

Trula — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:09:40 +0000

A friend asked me what would my top ten marriage tips for hippy DIY culture couples trying to live an ethical, spirtual, down to earth life be. This includes couples with children! and while living in a materialistic world. When I started thinking about it, I realized this was not going to be a short list because there is so much I want to say about all of them! So I will break them down. My tips really are all equally important, and basically apply to all types of couples/marriages, but since this is a top ten list I’ll number and order them. Starting from the bottom, my number ten tip is:

#10. Treat & respect your spouse as you would a friend.
Brian and I started out as friends. We knew each other and hung out socially together for quite some time, eventually becoming very great friends. We didn’t begin dating until we had been friends for about a year and a half. I would say that having that foundation of friendship has truly been a strength in our marriage. Now I realize that many couples do not start out as friends, they start out dating. Even in relationships such as mine, once the relationship becomes romantic and sexual that changes the dynamic of the relationship. Both physical and emotional intimacy has a way of lowering boundaries in how we relate to another person. You may become so comfortable with your spouse that you feel you can say or do anything. Contrast this with how you treat your friends. You don’t just say anything to them, you take into account their feelings. Right?

Sometimes with our spouses we forget this, and talk and/or treat them in a disrespectful manner. This includes being uncommunicative, surly, even grumpy and rude in the morning. I say to you, if you growl at your spouse in the morning and then go out into the world and speak pleasantly to your friends, co-workers, even total strangers, then you’ve got it backwards. Your spouse deserves your cordial, respectful treatment before others. Ideally you’d treat everyone with respect but if you’ve only got one smile in you that day give it to the person who loves you and has comitted to you for life. You do it for your friends, so do it for your spouse.

This helps with kids because not only does it help create a more happy and harmonious household, but shows them how to value and prioritize a partner. next tip: Mutual Ethics & Values

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Why Would I Ever Underestimate Him?

Trula — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Today Brian helped me a great deal with some bookstore stuff; I had a lot of running around to do what with getting some more bookcases and going back and forth the store. I had myself all worked up into a ‘woe is me, no one wants help me’ frame of mind but felt too proud and stubborn to ask him for help. But he stepped up and helped me without my saying a word, it was really sweet.

This blog entry written by Trula. Thanks for visiting Brian and Trula: A Marriage!

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The Four Agreements Book – Marriage

Trula — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:41:00 +0000

I want to share this book with you all. I have found it to be very helpful for me as I grow and develop as a person. don Miguel Ruiz is a wonderful person whose words have had a tremendous impact on my consciousness.

“Everything we do is based on agreements we have made – agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth.”

“In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.”
From his website:
In this powerful book that has remained on The New York Times Bestseller List for over five years, don Miguel reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. When we are ready to change these agreements, there are four deceptively simple, yet powerful agreements that we can adopt as guiding principles. The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
http://www.miguelruiz.com/fouragreements.html

I am not saying any of these things are easy to do…on the contrary I struggle all the time with doing these things. But just trying to live my life by the four agreements, even when I fall short, has improved my life in a profound way. and trying to live by them has eased my suffering and sensitivity to life and other people enormously.

One example: the other night my husband got out of bed and opened the window, as it was stuffy. It was a warm night so I didn’t mind that he opened the window, but he didn’t pull the curtain all the way back so that even though no one from the street could see directly into our room, if our neighbors across the way looked out their window they could see right into our bedroom from that angle. I got all upset and ready to huff and puff, because my husband has been careless about this before (he truly does not care if people see him sleeping or laying there naked) and I have spoken sharply to him about it before because I do care about people seeing me sleeping and stuff. So when he did this I immediately took it as him not caring if I was on display and completely ignoring and disrespecting my feelings.

Then I remembered the 4 agreements, and immediately relaxed. Why? because I chose not to assume my husband did it on purpose or just to mess with me or disrespect me, and I chose to not take it personally whether he did it by accident or on purpose. So I was able to calmly and nicely say Brian, would you pull the curtain across? and he said Oh man, I didn’t even realize it was open like that, I’m sorry Trula. And he jumped right up and pulled it across and we cuddled a bit and had a pleasant night sleeping.

There was a time when I would have screeched OMG! Close the damn curtain WTF is WRONG with you? How dare you put me on DISPLAY you know I’m laying here NAKED you are such an ASSHOLE! and so on. He then would have responded angrily I didn’t MEAN to do it, it’s LATE and I’m TIRED so SHUT up getting on me about the DAMN curtain! You are INSANE picking a fight with me over this! and then it would have been on, we would have argued bitterly into the night and then tossed and turned and neither of us getting a good night’s rest. Over what? a simple curtain being slightly askew.

That’s just one example of how applying the four agreements helped us. Perhaps you are nowhere near as sensitive as I am/was, but just imagine how applying the four agreements can help you with people that are important to you and major in your life such as your spouse. I have found this to be helpful in everything I do and everyone I choose to communicate with.

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You Are the Expert on Your Life, Even While Married

Trula — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:20:00 +0000

Sometimes I used to get in a mood and demand of my husband to tell me what I should do about a particular work problem or changes I should make to improve my personality. This happened when I felt stressed with work or frustrated with my writing and business. I was reading through old journals recently and was struck by how often this used to come up. Last night I was skimming through my planner and saw a quote I had taped in there:

Only You Can Be the Expert on Your Life

“A person who is alive is constantly getting lost. The big thing…is to realize that this is your own adventure, and that all the field guides and oracles and shamans…holding up the mirrors can only flash you a glimpse of your own story. It’s yours to savor. It belongs to no one else.”
-The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy by Bonnie Friedman

This is so true! In a marriage sometimes it is so easy to think in ‘we’ terms. But even within a marriage we are still individual people in charge of our own lives and destiny. Brian’s silence and puzzled expressions when I demanded solutions from him regarding what should I do with this, what should I do about that used to make me angry. Now I am glad he chose to express to me that I have to make my own decisions regarding work, writing, my life. I doubt I would have undergone the level of growth I’ve experienced in the past 11 years without his encouragement in this.

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Take the Long-range View of Marriage

Trula — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:34:00 +0000

I will share some things that helped us. When Brian and I were going to get divorced a couple of years ago but decided to stay together we got a lot of feedback from others and a lot of helpful advice. One of the best things I was told and I learned to apply to my marriage was that I should always understand that my husband’s perception is valid for him. He may be dead wrong or he may be half-right, whatever, but his feelings and his viewpoint is valid. I shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand or feel that my feelings trump his, and vice versa. I should listen to his viewpoint and ask him, what can I do to help change things? This really helps and it brought us closer together, talking and listening to each other’s viewpoint and then sitting down together to make a plan that addressed whatever the problem was.

Another thing that we learned that helped was that couples tend to mirror each other. So if I was acting funky Brian would pick up on that and start acting funky, then I would respond to that with more anger/acting out, then he would start acting out, and so on so forth. Now we try to nip this in the bud. For instance if Brian is upset I try not to take it personally even if it’s directed toward me; I smile and cuddle him up and ask him if hes ok and that usually mellows him out. Or if I’m upset at something he said or did and get to acting irate, instead of getting defensive or shutting down emotionally like he used to he pulls me close and apologizes and gets me to laugh. Frequently touching and smiling at your partner works wonders.

A friend of mine who has been married for 40 years told me this: Brian is my closest relation now under law so when I am pissed with him I should remember that. Sometimes my parents or sisters or brothers or cousins and even my kids piss me off, but I would never consider leaving them or no longer having them in my life. So when I am upset with Brian I should think about that and understand that I married him for life; divorce isn’t even an option unless it’s a dire, extreme circumstance. I was/am so glad she told me this because it really helped me to apply the long-range view to my marriage: If I get upset with him tomorrow, for example, that doesn’t mean I’ll still be mad with him the day after tomorrow. And certainly in 30, 40 years I won’t be mad at him about it. This really puts things in perspective for me and helped to let go of petty stuff and not nurse feelings of hurt and rancor towards my husband.

Marriage has it’s ups and downs. Changing your pattern of interaction with your husband is going to be very tough but you can do it! and it’s ok if you mess up. He will also mess up and he will also have a hard time changing his pattern of interaction with you…whether or not he realizes this he will be forced to change as you change; if you are no longer bossing him around that shifts the dynamic of your relationship quite a bit. Change is hard, but if you two both stay comitted and talking to each other you will make it.

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