Marriage

Marriage is hard work, but has eternal rewards. The Lord's plan is all about eternal increase in an eternal marriage. Talk to your kids about working on making a marriage strong. Give them examples of what you have done in your own marriage to strengthen it and prepare it for the eternities.

Love In A Covenant Marriage Blog

Quotes:

Spencer W. Kimball: “While marriage is difficult, and discordant and frustrated marriages are common, yet real, lasting happiness is possible, and marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive. This is within the reach of every couple, every person.”

Bruce C. Hafen: “When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent. But covenant companions each give 100 percent. Enough and to spare. Each gives enough to cover any shortfall by the other.”

David A. Bednar: “The Lord Jesus Christ is the focal point in a covenant marriage relationship. Please notice how the Savior is positioned at the apex of this triangle, with a woman at the base of one corner and a man at the base of the other corner. Now consider what happens in the relationship between the man and the woman as they individually and steadily ‘come unto Christ’ and strive to be ‘perfected in Him’. Because of and through the Redeemer, the man and woman come closer together."

Marital Processes that Nurture Covenant Commitment in Marriage: 

          1. Intentional personal dedication 

                              This involves a commitment to sacrifice for and organize one’s life around the companion spouse; it also means a willingness to change any and all behaviors and attitudes for the good of the relationship. This might involve learning to resolve differences in a more healthy way, overcoming tendencies toward impatient listening, moderating unrealistic expectations, spending an evening alone together each week, or resolving personal problems.

          2. Exclusive cleaving and unity 

                              Spencer W. Kimball: “The words none else eliminate everyone and everything. [D&C 42:22] The spouse then becomes preeminent in the life of the husband or wife, and neither social life nor occupational life nor political life nor any other interest nor person not thing shall ever take precedence over the companion spouse.”

                              Henry B. Eyring: “At the creation of man and woman, unity for them in marriage was not given as hope; it was a command!... Our Heavenly Father wants our hearts to be knit together. That union in love is not simply an ideal. It is a necessity.”

          3. Practice spiritual patterns 

                              Spencer W. Kimball: “When a husband and wife go together frequently to the holy temple, kneel in prayer together in their home with their family, go hand in hand to their religious meetings, keep their lives wholly chaste – mentally and physically – so that their whole thoughts and desires and loves are all centered in the one being, their companion, and both work together for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, then happiness is at its pinnacle.”

Love and Friendship:  

C.S. Lewis: “Love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit… They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other… It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it.”

Nurturing Love and Friendship: 

          1. Get in sync with your partner’s love preferences 

          2. Talk as friends 

          3. Respond to bids for connection 

          4. Set goals for couple interaction 

Love Language Quiz PDF 

Positive Interaction: 

          1. To enhance positive interaction in marriage, focus on your spouse’s positive qualities. Humorist Jay Trachman once gave some sage advice: “The formula for a happy marriage? It’s the same as the formula for living in California: when you find a fault don’t dwell there."

          2. Gordon B. Hinckley: “When we look for the worst in anyone, we will find it. But if we will concentrate on the best, that element will grow until it sparkles.”

Accepting Influence from One’s Spouse: 

          1. Share influence in all family affairs 

          2. Ways to accept influence (turn to spouse for advice, being open to his or her ideas, listening to and considering his or her opinions, learning from our spouse, showing respect during disagreements, recognizing points both agree on, compromising, showing trust in spouse, being sensitive to their feelings)

Respectfully handle differences and solve problems: 

Bruce C. Hafen: “[A] bride sighed blissfully on her wedding day, ‘Mom, I’m at the end of all my troubles!’ ‘Yes,’ replied her mother, ‘but at which end?’”

          1. Prevention

                              Robert L. Simpson: “Every couple, whether in the first or the twenty-first year of marriage, should discover the value of pillow-talk time at the end of the day – the perfect time to take inventory, to talk about tomorrow. And best of all, it’s a time when love and appreciation for one another can be reconfirmed. The end of another day is also the perfect setting to say, ‘Sweetheart, I am sorry about what happened today. Please forgive me.’ You see, we are all still imperfect, and these unresolved differences, allowed to accumulate day after day, add up to a possible breakdown in the marital relationship – all for the want of better communication, and too often because of foolish pride.” 

          2. Eliminate destructive interaction patterns 

          3. Calm yourself first 

          4. Bring up the concern softly, gently, and privately 

          5. Learn to make and receive repair attempts 

          6. Soothe yourself and each other 

         7. Reach a consensus about a solution

Continuing Courtship through the years: 

Spencer W. Kimball: “many couples permit their marriages to become stale and their love to grow cold like old bread or worn-out jokes or cold gravy.”

David O. McKay: “I should like to urge continued courtship, and apply this to grown people. Too many couples have come to the altar of marriage looking upon the marriage ceremony as the end of courtship instead of the beginning of an eternal courtship.”

          1. Attend to the little things

                              James E. Faust: “In the enriching of marriage, the big things are the little things. There must be constant appreciation for each other and a thoughtful demonstration of gratitude. A couple must encourage and help each other grow. Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine.”

          2. Be intentional about doing things every day to enrich the marriage 

          3. Spend at least five hours a week strengthening your relationship 

                       a. learn one thing that happened in your spouse’s life each day, 

                       b. have a stress-reducing conversation at the end of each day, 

                       c. do something special every day to show affection and appreciation, 

                       d. have a weekly date

F. Burton Howard: “If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by. Eternal marriage is just like that. We need to treat it just that way.”