The In-Laws

Having a good relationship with my in-laws is something that is really important to me. I want to be able to feel like they are a part of my family as much as I feel like my biological family is. It is kind of interesting that this is the topic that we are talking about this week because next week I will be meeting my soon to be in-laws for the first time. My fiancé and I have skyped them a few times in the past, but I have never met them in person because of how far away they live from where we are. As I have thought about meeting them in person I have begun to get a little more nervous. For a while I did not realize why I was getting nervous, but I think it is because of the common way that in-laws are referred to by many people.

            When a lot of people talk about their in-laws they are not referring to them or their actions in a positive way. In-laws have received a bad title by many. I have been extremely blessed in the fact that my soon to be in-laws seem to be really relaxed about thing and our personalities seem to mesh well so far.

            One thing that I have tried to do in order to create a positive relationship with my soon to be in-laws is to show them respect, after all, they are the ones that were responsible for making my fiancé into the man he is today. If it was not for them and their hard work, determination, and probably some sleepless night I would not have the man that I have in my life today. Things could have been a lot different. Ultimately it is important that you both show respect towards one another and build a good relationship.

Becoming One

Unity in marriage is a detrimental part of building love for and trust in your spouse. If you are not united how are you supposed to have a solid foundation to build a family on? If a couple is not united then the foundation is unstable and it can affect more people that just the ones in the immediate family. If we want to start off our marriages on the right foot then we need to realize how important the solid foundation will be for our children.

            This is something that my fiancé and I have talked about before and we both realize that this may be hard to do at times, but we both agree that it is very important. Growing up you are constantly told by the media how important it is to be independent and to rely fully on yourself. Women are taught that they can do just fine without men and men are taught that the role of the women is unimportant, but in marriage it is the exact opposite of what they are saying. In marriage you need to fully rely on one another and you need realize that you each have different roles. Even with these different roles you are still equal to one another. You are there to work together using you specific roles to raise a family and guide them through this earthly life.

            As we are able to unite ourselves in our marriages, great blessings will come. We will be able to better guide our children through this life and keep them on the straight and narrow, and we will be able to give them that solid foundation so that they do not have to focus on that part of their lives, but they will be able to focus more on other parts of their lives.

Intimacy in Marriage

Sexual intimacy can be such a hard topic for some people to talk about, especially within the Mormon culture. Growing up my parents said that they would answer any questions that we had but they were not very open about talking about it. Because of this I have always viewed it as being something bad and something that you should not take part in. However, as I have grown up and as I have been working on preparing myself the best that I can for marriage I have come to learn that it is not something bad when used in marriage. It can bring you closer to your spouse and bring both of you a lot of joy and ultimately help you create a family. It is not inappropriate when expressed in marriage.

            I will be getting married in a few month and this has been a topic that my fiancé and I have talked about some. While I am excited to experience that part of our relationship with him, I have noticed that I am kind of nervous about it too, and I think that is because it was something that I was always taught was bad and secretive as a kid. It will probably take me some time to really feel okay with being intimate with my husband because of it. As I have thought about how I want my children to learn about sex and intimacy I know that I do not want it to be the same way that I was. While I do not want to be to open about everything and make it something that it unsacred to them, I also do not want it to be something that they won’t be comfortable talking about with me or their dad, and eventually their spouse. It can definitely be a fine line.

Charity

Charity is an essentially part of a stable marriage. Bruce R. McConkie once said that, “Above all the attributes of godliness and perfection, charity is the one most devoutly to be desired. Charity is more than love, far more; it is everlasting love, perfect love, the pure love of Christ which endureth forever. It is love so centered in righteousness that the possessor has no aim or desire except for the eternal welfare of his own soul and for the souls of those around them.” Charity is all about loving someone despite their flaws. We are each flawed in our own ways. We each have things about ourselves that we don’t like and maybe even things about other people that we don’t like. As we come across these we need to remember to show charity towards each other, especially to our spouse.

            Charity is the pure love of Christ. I know that for me personally as I have come across the flaws in my significant other, and as he has come across my flaws, I have had to learn how to show and have more charity. Charity is not something that humans naturally have. It is something that we have to learn how to show and we have to fully apply it in our lives. As I have learned how to show it more it has greatly improved our relationship. We have been able to grow closer together as a couple and have been able to help support and encourage each other better. Because we are trying to see the good in each other even when emotions may be high, we are becoming more Christ like. As we are able to show more charity, it will become more of a natural thing for us. It will no longer be a second nature. If shown, charity has the ability to bring your closer to God and his love and closer to your spouse. 

Controlling Your Emotions

Anger and frustration are things that are very hard on a relationship. They aren’t just hard on the relationship with your spouse, but your whole family and those you some in contact with. Elder L. G. Robbins once compared stirring up anger to a recipe. He said that, “The verb stir sounds like a recipe for disaster: Put tempers on medium heat, stir in a few choice words, and bring to a boil; continue stirring until thick; cool off; let feelings chill for several days; serve cold; lots of leftovers.” I never really thought of it like this but is so true! Anger is just an emotion that can cause a disaster if we let it get out of control. One of the things that Elder L. G. Robbins also pointed out was that when people say that they “lost their temper” this isn’t very true. People can have control over their emotions. Those emotions are a part of being human, but what is important is how we let those emotions out. You can either focus it into doing something that is going to hurt your family and/or your spouse, or you can channel it to something more constructive.

            Something that my dad always made sure that me and my siblings knew growing up was that we have control over our emotions. He always made sure that we realized that we can choose how we feel and how we express those feelings. Having this knowledge has greatly helped my relationship with my fiancé. There have been times that he has done something that I didn’t completely like, but ultimately I was able to choose how I felt about it and how I showed it. We are both imperfect human beings, but as we have continued to learn how to express those emotions to one another, we have grown closer together and have developed an even stronger bond than we started out with.

Overcoming Pride

Pride seems to be a recurring theme in many of my classes this week. It’s been something that I have noticed in myself lately and is something that I, like many people are trying to work on.

Some people may not truly know what pride is and just how much damage it can do to a relationship. Being prideful is like boasting about yourself. You put yourself and your accomplishments above the accomplishments and need of those around you. I have seen way to many marriages be destroyed because of the pride of one of the partners.

I think that pride can been shown in a marriage in many different ways, but I think the most common way is when one of the partners isn’t willing to share the power in the relationship with the other partner. They want to be able to feel like they are controlling everything in the relationship and have their needs met, but they aren’t really thinking about he needs and wants of the other person. It says in “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John M. Gottman that about 81% of marriages fail when one of the people in the relationship isn’t willing to share the power, and in many cases it’s the man that has a difficult time sharing it. Although men are more commonly known for it, women can still fall into is to. Everyone us susceptible to succumbing to the power of pride.

Although all of us will mess up at some point or another, we all have the ability to do the best that we can. As we work on becoming the best person we can be, the Lord will make up for what we are not able to do. Through his atonement we can become the person that our Heavenly Father wants us to be.

Staying Connected

To me, staying emotionally connected to your spouse is something that is very important. It definitely is one of the top things that I think should be a part of a strong marriage. Sister Cheryl A. Esplin said in April 2015 that, “Strong eternal families and Spirit-filled homes do not just happen. They take great effort, they take time, and they take each member of the family doing his or her part. Every home in different, but every home where even one individual seeks for truth can make a difference.” So many times couples get married feeling like they are very emotionally connected and that nothing can tear them apart, but as time goes on that bond can weaken. Even if one of the spouses puts for the effort to better the relationship and make it stronger, it will help. The effort that is put into creating the emotional bonds is well worth the work.

This week my boyfriend and I got engaged and are now in the process of trying to plan a wedding. As we have been talking about our different wants and needs, I have notices that I have begun to bond with him in a new and unfamiliar way. Planning something this big together is something that we have never done. It’s been a little stressful at time to plan together, but doing so has helped us emotionally bond in a new way.

Staying emotionally connected is something that I want to make sure is a priority in our relationship and marriage. I want him to be able to come home after a long day at work and be able to talk to me about it and have him feel like I genuinely care, and I want to be able to do the same with him. This will take work, but will definitely be worth it!

Nurturing Builds Trust

A crucial part of keeping a relationship going strong is to nurture it on a regular basis. If you get into a relationship and do not nurture it, then it’s not going to grow at all. It will just stay the same and will never grow into something bigger and better than what it started out to be. A part of nurturing the relationship is to show and build trust. If you do not trust the other person in the relationship, then how do you think the relationship will go? It will definitely not grow and will probably end up falling apart. Trust is something that needs to be worked on every single day.

With that being said, if your relationship hits a rough patch, and nurture and trust are not being show, things can always change. Just because it is this way now doesn’t mean that you can’t work on making it better tomorrow. One thing that I have noticed in my own relationship is that when it hits a rough patch, it is usually because I am not nurturing it very well. Since starting school this semester, I have noticed that my relationship with my boyfriend has changed in many different ways, some good and some not so good. It was kind of rough at the beginning of the semester trying to learn how to juggle school, work, and a relationship, but I’m finally starting to feel like I am getting the hang of it. There are still some times every once in a while that are hectic, but that’s just a part of the college life.

Nurturing a relationship is a part of building a foundation for what the eventual goal is, a family. As we nurture it, our love grows, trust develops, and patience is able to be practiced.

Behaviors in Marriage

Marriage is something that is bound to have its ups and downs. It wasn’t something that is meant to be all sunshine the whole entire time. Every person is different which means that every marriage is going to be different also. John Gottman explained that the ratio of positive to negative actions and/or words is a marriage needs to be at least 5:1 in order for a marriage to be able to function the way it should. When something negative is said or done it does a lot more damage than something nice, which is why a lot of nice things need to be done in order to “makeup” for what the person did. Negativity is a natural part of life, which means that it would only make sense that it is a natural part of marriage. If it wasn’t this way then how would you we know the good times from the bad? Everything has an opposite to it. One piece of advice that my mom gave me about getting married as I am preparing to do so is to make sure you get in a fight with your significant other before you get married. Many people may think that that’s a weird thing to do, in fact I was talking to my roommate about it and I think she thought it was a crazy idea, but the reasons behind it make more sense. My mom explained to me that the reason you want to get in an argument/conflict at some point before you get married is to see how well you guys are able to resolve the issue. Problems are bound to arise in any marriage at some point or another, but its all about how tyou handle and resolve them that makes the difference.

Contract Marriage vs. Covenant Marriage

This week I have been thinking a lot about marriage and the difference between a civil marriage and a temple marriage as I have been trying to prepare more for my own marriage. All the time I was growing up I was taught that a temple marriage is the kind of marriage that you want, but I never really understood why. In all honesty, for a long time I thought it was the only place you could get married, but I also always saw marriage as a contract. As I was reading s talk by Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the seventy titled “Covenant Marriage” it really hit me how we can make our marriage into a contract or a covenant and what the difference really is. When someone sees a marriage as a contract, they see marriage as something that should make them happy, and if their spouse doesn’t keep their end of the contract to make them happy, then they can leave. When someone sees marriage as a covenant, however, they want to work on things together. When rough times arise, they work together to overcome them and draw closer to the Lord. He also said at one point in his talk that, “Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent.”

As I have moved out on my own and have started to really become my own person, I have come to realize just important a covenant temple marriage is to me. I have watched friends and family members that have gone into contract marriages and it has helped me realize even more how important a true covenant marriage is to me.

Definition of Marriage

In all honesty, whenever the topic of marriage equality or same-sex marriage is brought up to me I usually try to avoid it. I am not one to put anyone down in any way or make them feel wrong, but I know my views are not always the same as theirs. I believe in what the church teaches and supports, that marriage should be between a man and a women. I think that many people today think that just because they love someone that they should marry them. I don’t agree with this. While I believe that you should marry someone that you love, you need to remember the reason behind marriage, to create a family. Marriage is about creating a family, and I believe that both a mother and a father are needed to do so. This topic has been one that my sister and I disagree on, but when I have had conversations with her about it, we have been able to share each of our points of view and learn different perspectives from one another, but still be able to stand up for what we truly believe in. I know this is a topic that will be an ongoing one for quite a while longer and one quote from a general authority that has really stuck out to me through it all talks about not judging others because they sin differently than you. I think when it all comes down to it, that's what we need to remember to do.


Here is President Uchtdorf's talk where he talks about not judging others, because we sin differently: https://www.lds.org/youth/video/stop-judging-others?lang=eng

What is Beyond Divorce

Who would have thought that one of the first things that you talk about in a marriage class you be divorce? Divorce has been something that has been a part of my life a lot this past year. I have had to watch as one of my family members got divorced and a close friend of mine get divorced also. I definitely has made me a lot more aware of what can happen to a marriage if its foundation isn’t stable and enough time and effort isn’t put into it. Even when the divorce was something that was necessary for the person’s well-being, it was still very hard on them. One of the things that really hit me hard was watching the videos for the class that I’m taking is when it talked about what the kids of divorced parents go through. When one of my family members got a divorce my niece was very young, but you could still see that it was affecting her in a not so great way. I remember that there was one day when she was dropped off at my parents’ house and she was screaming for her mom before she had even walked out the door. Before they had gotten divorced she had never had any sort of separation anxiety (that I’m aware of). It really made me realize at that moment that divorce doesn’t just affect the parents, it affects everyone involved. It has also been something that has been on my mind as I am preparing to get married. I never want to put anyone through the pain that divorce brings, but especially not to my future children. Even though it was difficult to watch the people that I love and care about go through that, it opened up my eyes a ton! Marriage is something that is very important to me and is something that I am thankful that I have a different view than a lot of people in the world do today! Marriage isn’t just all about love, it involves so much more.