Suffering From Pride in Your Marriage?
What is Pride in Marriage?
Pride in marriage is most often misunderstood. We are quick to see the pride of our spouse, but not our own.
Pride has many faces. We usually see it through contention, selfish acts, and holding grudges.
Pride in marriage can often be detrimental in our relationship if it creeps in, so how do we overcome pride in our marriage?
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10 Steps to Overcoming Pride in Marriage
When we are experiencing pride in our marriage we start to become closed off to our spouse. Pride is the number one killer of our marriage. So here are 10 steps to overcoming pride in marriage.
1. Recognize
The first step overcoming pride in marriage is recognizing the pride. This is not recognizing the pride of others, AKA your spouse, but your own pride.
Once you recognize pride, you are able to overcome it and strengthen your relationship.
2. Stop Looking for Faults
One of our biggest mistakes is finding fault in others. It is so easy to do, we do this when we complain about them being late or not helping with the kids.
I will be honest I struggle with finding fault in marriage all the time and when I do I force myself to think of three positive things about my spouse.
By doing this I immediately am focused back on the good so our relationship can continue to move forward.
3. Become Humble
Marriage is about compromise and working together. Sometimes we might be a little stubborn and hard-headed, I might know a thing or two about this…
When you are able to humble yourself, then we are able to become a better listener in marriage.
4. Be Open-minded
Going right along with becoming humble, we need to have an open mind. This includes listening to your spouse’s suggestions, opinions, and thoughts.
It is easy to tune them out quickly if their opinion does not match ours, but this causes even more contention when we aren’t even willing to listen to their perspective.
5. Don’t take yourself to seriously
Psychology Today explains that pride comes into our relationship when we are embarrassed or shameful.
When we understand that no one is perfect and learn to laugh at ourselves and our mistakes pride in marriage will begin to fade away, so try not to worry about making mistakes and give yourself a break now and again!
6. Don’t take all the attention
Pride is sort of like an addiction in the sense that it needs all the attention. When you need all the attention we are not able to focus on our spouse when we should. Sometimes when this occurs without even knowing it we start taking our spouse for granted, talking down to them, and making them the center of our jokes to get the attention our pride needs.
7. Listen, Like Really Listen
One of the MOST IMPORTANT ways of overcoming pride in marriage is to listen, like really listen.
Listen to their thoughts, their dreams, their opinions. Seek to understand why they feel the way they do.
In every conversation give your spouse the benefit of the doubt.
When we do this, we really do start to see our spouse with a whole new set of eyes, and the pride in marriage quickly disappears.
8. Ask
Asking for help is sometimes hard. We like things done a certain way and when we ask for help we have to accept the fact that they might do it differently than us, therefore it is really hard to ask for help, but when we do we will see our marriage relationship reach a whole new level.
9. Sacrifice
In marriage, we must make sacrifices. It is hard at times, but when we make those sacrifices we are able to overcome pride in marriage.
10. I’m Sorry
The last step to overcoming pride in marriage comes down to two words, “I’m sorry!”
By saying these two words it makes you human. It shows that you care and you recognize that you made a mistake and that you are willing to change and become better.
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There you have it! 10 Steps to Overcoming Pride in Marriage. What would you add to the list? Share in the comments!
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Michele is a Family Life Educator with her degree in marriage and family studies. She is a mom to 5 kids and loves helping others strengthen their families! When she is not blogging she is spending time with her family and running around drinking Diet Coke trying to get everything done!
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