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.