When you get a warning light on your car’s dashboard, it means
there’s something wrong under the hood that needs immediate attention. According
to Dave Willis, “One of the biggest “warning lights”
in a marriage is a tone of constant criticism. When a husband and wife start being each other’s biggest
critics instead of the biggest encouragers and when they start focusing only on
the negative instead of the positive, it creates a downward spiral that often
leads to divorce”.
Grace and I have found ourselves sometimes focusing only on the
negative, what she didn’t do or what I always do wrong instead of focusing on
each other’s positives. Those of us who are old school are familiar with the
word “negatives”. Remember how photography was before the digital age? We used
to take pictures with a camera but you would not get the image immediately. One
had to wait for the negative to be developed. This was a film like thing that
had to be kept in the dark and developed with some chemicals in order to get
the image. Similarly in marriage, we get to the place of constant criticism
when we spend most of our time in the dark room developing negatives about each
other.
So how do we overcome this habit? We must intentionally and
deliberately catch ourselves “developing those negatives” about each other.
Instead start countering them by noting all the positive attributes of your
spouse. Of course of all those nine things that they did or are doing wrong,
there must be at least one thing that they did right or are good at. Focus a
little bit on who they are, or what attracted you to them in the first place.
If you look critically, you won’t miss something nice about them. Here is what
you can join me in doing for the next 21 days this month. Each day write down
one thing that you really appreciate about your spouse. Describe why you
appreciate them for that thing. Don’t share it with them until at the end of
the exercise.
When done present them with your findings and you will be
surprised at how happy and grateful they will be. Not just for them, but you
will be surprised at how your attitude toward them will change. And you know
what, you will have changed a bad habit, that of constantly complaining and
criticizing them to one of appreciating them. After all they say that to change
a habit you need to do something consistently for at least 21 days. When we
constantly criticize our spouse, we devalue them but when we begin to
appreciate them they do just that, they appreciate not depreciate in our eyes. Here’s
to you for a happy marriage.
