No matter how much you think you’re ready, marriage is hard. Talking to friends who’ve BTDT, that’s what I’ve learned. At least knowing I’m not alone in this keeps me from thinking that I’m just particularly bad at being a wife…apparently, this is quite normal.

As I attempt to be good at this whole marriage thing (or at least not horrifically bad), I’ve done what I normally do when confronted with something new: I read. My husband has been a tad mocking of my affinity for self-help books (seems that’s mostly what I’m reading lately), but hell…if they actually allow me to help myself, are they all that bad?

Today’s self-help gem comes from John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. When I first picked this one up, Mike nearly headed into a panic, thinking of Gottman’s other work on what makes marriages succeed or fail. What if I read that our marriage has the attributes of the ones that fail? Would I give up on him/us? While that might seem a bit outlandish — overreaching, even — let me remind you that marriage is hard. A marriage in which the couple have only known each other a matter of months, not years? Even harder.

Anyway, there was no need to fear. This particular book focuses not on what makes marriages fail (though it does give examples of “don’ts”), but instead on things that a couple can do to strengthen their bond. Mmmmm…bonds. Bonds could be good. *slapping self* Right. Anyway.

Principle 2 from this book: Nurture your fondness and admiration. Boy, now if that isn’t a duh-factor suggestion, I don’t know what is. But, honestly, as I’ve read this chapter, I can already see places where I can consciously make an effort to do my part at creating a happy, strong marriage. One of the exercises from this chapter includes seven weeks of five-days-per-week exercises for helping myself to nurture fondness and affection toward my spouse. To me, it looks like a good opportunity for regular blogging. Hence, my first self-assigned meme of the new blog: A Seven-Week Course in Fondness and Admiration.

This exercise is designed to get you into the habit of thinking positively about your partner when you’re apart. If you are angry, stressed, or feeling distant from your spouse, you may tend to focus on his or her negative characteristics. This leads to distress-maintaining thoughts, which in trun leave you feeling ever more distant and isolated in your marriage. This exercise counteracts that tendency by training you to focus your thoughts on your partner’s positive characteristics, even if you aren’t having such a great day together.

By the time I reached this point in the exercise description, I was energetically (and guiltily) nodding to myself. Um, oops.

For each day below there is a positive statement or thought, followed by a task. Think about each statement and say it to yourself many times throughout the day while you and your spouse are apart. In some cases, the thought may not seem to apply to your spouse or to your marriage, especially if your fondness and admiration have dimmed. Keep in mind that the statement does not have to describe the typical state of affairs between you at the present time. If you can think of a single moment or episode where the statement applied, focus on that memory. For example, if you’re not feeling overly attracted to your spouse these days, focus on one area of his or her anatomy that does appeal to you. Also, be sure to complete the simple task that follows each positive statement. Do the exercise each day, no matter how you happen to be feeling about your relationship or your spouse. Don’t stop even if you just had a major blow-up or are feeling very distant from each other.

Although this exercise may sound silly or hokey (A: may? definitely), it is based on a wide body of research into the power of rehearsing positive thoughts. This approach is one of the tenets of cognitive therapy, which has proven highly successful in helping people overcome depression. When people fall into a depression, their thinking may become disordered (A: gee, ya think?) — they see everything in an extremely negative light, which just adds to their sense of hopelessness. But if, over time, they deliberately accustom their mind to a different, positive way of thinking, the sense of hopelessness can be lifted.

I can definitely attest to the truth of this philosophy, at least based on my own experience. Reading Bill Glassman’s Choice Theory shaped my thinking in many ways — but reading his follow-up book, Warning: Psychiatry May Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health, really drove home the point that in many ways, whether consciously or not, I’m choosing to be depressed when I’m down. It’s helped me to avoid depressions since then — and to recognize them when they were getting too strong for me to overcome by positive thoughts alone.

In essence, you are what you think. Back to the exercise instructions:

This exercise is an experiment of offering the same hope to marriage. What you’re really doing is rehearsing a more positive way to think about your partner and your relationship. Like any rehearsal, if you do it often enough, the words (and more importantly, the thoughts) will become second nature.

Alrighty, then. On with the show.