Pride

Pride is very easily manifested in marriage. It easy to notice pride in other people, but not as easy to notice in ourselves. In Ezra Taft Benson’s talk on pride, he mentioned:

“Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves …. Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. “How everything affects me” is the center of all that matters-self-conceit, self-pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking.”

Pride can be seen when you act like you are better than your spouse, you act like something is “below” you, finding faults in our spouses, withholding praise and thanks, gossiping, living more than you can afford, being jealous, and unforgiving.

I can think of examples in my marriage where I have done some of those things. It is very easy to find fault in our spouses, since we can see them so much more easily than we can see our own. Even if we were to really examine ourselves and our actions, it would still be impossible to pinpoint all of our faults. There are some faults that we are very painfully aware of, and that we are trying to work on. When we are tempted to get on our spouse about their faults, we should remember not only that we also have faults, but that our spouses might already be aware of them, and do not need the reminder of everything they are doing wrong. Instead of getting upset with them, maybe we can help our partner work on their faults (if they are wanting help).

If I asked my husband what my faults were, and what I could work on, I am pretty sure I would know what he would say. He would tell me that I am not good at picking up after myself, that I overreact, have a tendency to yell, I talk myself down a lot, and that I have a lot of trouble staying on one topic (I have ADHD and have the tendency to jump around a lot on topics). I have been trying to work on most of those things, but some things are very hard to change because we have done them for many years. That is why it is important to have patience with each other.