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Chapter Two
Marriage made of Rocks ...or Diamonds?

Is your marriage on the rocks? Are you ready to throw it away... discard it like yesterdays garbage? Perhaps you have not correctly identified the dynamics of your problems. You probably wouldn't throw it away if it was a diamond marriage, would you? But do you know for sure it is not? Perhaps you need to reevaluate your self first to determine what new and better dynamic you could bring to your marriage to make a diamond marriage.  Perhaps you have been looking at your spouse as though they are an ordinary rock, when in fact they are a diamond... and you simply did not have the tools or methods available to you to make that determination.

Many years ago, a slave in India came into possession of a stone he thought could fetch him a fair price. It was an intriguing steel blue stone, which at first glance looked to be a very large sapphire. He looked for a naïve outsider who he could swindle into paying far too much for the beautiful stone. A French traveler happened to pass by. He approached him with the intention of swindling the man out of his money.

However, the French traveler soon discovered the slave was asking too low of price for his sapphire. You see, the stone was not a sapphire at all. The French traveler quickly purchased the stone. That very stone later became known as the Hope Diamond. It is the most treasured diamond in the entire world!

Could you imagine having a diamond of such value in your hand and not know its value? Imagine how you would feel upon learning that you sold the stone for a tiny fraction of its true value.

However, the truth is many of us have done this. We have done this repeatedly in our relationships and even in our own marriage. It may have been with others who have been the closest to us!  We mistakenly identified the other person as though they were only sapphire, (or a plain rock) when in fact, they were actually a diamond.  We merely did not have the proper tools to identify them as the diamond they really were.

In the previous chapter, we discussed identifying character strengths as a method to help solve marriage conflicts. We are going to look more at that as we go; however, we are first going to take a look at something that does not help to solve conflicts at all. It is a very common problem. We will refer to this as the identifying opposites method. The opposite of a strength is a weakness.

This method occurs when we learn that a quality in someone else is missing. We know it is missing, because we have seen exactly the opposite of what is missing. For instance, instead of finding courage, we find cowardice. Instead of finding decisiveness, we find indecisiveness. Instead of finding honesty, we find dishonesty. Okay, you get the picture!

In effect, this method is like saying, "I know you are one way, but I would like you to be the opposite of that!" Imagine how you would feel if somebody came up to you and said, "You know ...I see that you have blonde hair! I hate blonde hair! If you would die your hair black, then I would be your friend." That would not be a good way to make friends, would it?

However, in terms of how we speak to each other about character issues, that is what we tend to do. For example, we may see cowardice in someone we know. Then, it would seem logical to go up to the person to say, "I would like to see you become more courageous!" It sounds good on paper. It seems to make sense. Some Marriage books have even advocated identifying the weakness in your partner... just so you could be the opposite... seriously! I kid you not.  Yet in real life, it nearly always comes across offensively the person. It is like asking them to be the total opposite of what they truly are... or perhaps giving them solid assurance that you are completely different from them in every detail... especially the ones that you notice the most.  How could this method possibly help a relationship?  Well, simply put... it cannot help. It will only make things in your marriage worse by making them more divisive and less unified.

Now, think about it. Imagine this! Someone says this to you, "If you become completely opposite of what you are, then I will be your friend and like you." How would you respond to them? Of course, not very well. Simply put, the "identifying opposites" method does not work well at all. It nearly always causes marriage conflict to occur. It nearly always comes across to the other person as "fault-finding". It nearly always results in either hurt feelings or arguments about who is right and who is wrong.

So then, is there another, better method?
The answer is a resounding,
"Yes, there is!"

The better method is the one that we talked about in chapter one. It is the method of identifying character strengths ...not character weaknesses (both for your own self and for your marriage partner). However, character strengths come in two varieties. There are both genuine and counterfeit character strengths. The only thing you need to know for now is that counterfeit character strengths are not opposite of the genuine. A counterfeit can only be a counterfeit if there is a genuine to model it after.