Eternal Marriage: Week 4

After reading Elder Bruce C. Hafen’s talk on marriage, it made me realize how important our marriage covenant is.  He points out that marriage is a covenant we make with our Heavenly Father and our spouse.  Notice he said covenant and not a contract. A contract implies something that can be gotten out of or torn up.  If you have the view that marriage is just a contract, the world has made it very easy to get out of it.  A covenant we take more seriously and, in my opinion, work harder at to make it work.  It is eternal in nature.  It deserves all of our attention and effort.  Elder Hafen spoke about three "wolves" will eventually affect each marriage.  This made me think about each wolf and how we have handled them in our marriage. 

The first wolf, natural adversity, cannot be avoided by anyone.  There will always be situations that affect the marriage, either a death, a serious illness, job loss, or wishing to have a child.  This wolf will be different for everyone, but it is how we handle the adversity that matters. We have had to deal with the adversity wolf a few times, mostly in regards to job loss.  My husband has been laid off three times during our marriage.  Each time, it was not due to anything he did, but either downsizing, bad economy, or bankruptcy on the part of the company.  I have seen many marriages fail when this particular adversity hits.  If feel we handle this wolf well because we took our marriage covenants seriously and we were willing to work together to make it through those tough financial times.  Some questions we can ask each other before adversity hits are, Will we handle it together?  Will we allow the Lord in to help us through and heal us?  By preparing for adversity before it hits, the wolf will have less impact on our marriage.

The second wolf, their own imperfections, will always be a test of marriage.  No one is perfect and we will have trials related to our own imperfections.  We can work on those imperfections or not.  We can allow others to bring us down.  We can allow others to lift us up.  The more we try to work on our own imperfections and lift and support our spouses instead of bringing them down, the better our marriage will be.  My husband and I are far from perfect, but we do try to keep our imperfections in check.  We call each other out when an imperfection is getting in the way of good communication.  I get called out a lot because my style of communication is not always the best to achieve harmony.  It has taken me awhile to learn and I am getting better at communicating, but it is because my spouse had patience with me and was willing to endure some rough communication to get to the good.  

The third wolf, excessive individualism, is, in my opinion, one of the greatest issues in marriages today.  We can see in the world around us how everyone is out for themselves.  Elder Hafen notes that this attitude of society is what has made marriage seem more like a contract and easy to get out of.  There is no sense of belonging to one another.  He also points out that while we should respect each other as individuals, that does not mean we cannot belong to each other in the eternal sense. Selfishness is one example of how we are out for only ourselves. There are times when I catch myself acting very selfish.  I have had to stop and pray to help work myself out of those feelings.  This is not an easy task for me and I am sure it is difficult for a lot of people.  We want to be able to feel valued in our marriages and when we don’t, we sometimes just take what we want instead of working with our spouses to make improvements in the marriage.  After all, it takes three people to make a marriage work, husband, wife and the Lord.

Marriage requires work.  It requires sacrifice and sharing with the other person.  Keeping an eternal perspective and understanding the sacred nature of the marriage covenant will help us as we strive to work on our marriage, which, in turn, will become more satisfying. President Kimball stated, “Happiness does not come by pressing a button….It must be earned.”   

References

Hafen, B. (1996, Nov.) Covenant Marriage. Ensign.

Kimball, S. W. (1976) Marriage and Divorce. Deseret Book. Salt Lake City.