Many of us have the idea that marriage will be like a fairy tale.  You meet your special prince or princess and they sweep you off your feet.  In the emotional highs of love and passion you know that you will live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, this ideal often leads to disappointment.  Marriage is a lot of work.  It takes commitment, dedication, communication, and so much more.  As more and more marriages fail, we are seeing trends change.  The divorce rate is high, fewer people are getting married, people are getting married at older ages, and some avoid marriage altogether by cohabitating.

(Kimball, S. W. (1980). Families Can Be Eternal. Ensign (p. 4). Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1980/10/families-can-be-eternal?lang=eng)

I have a strong belief in the importance of families.  I grew up in a home where my parents stay married.  They have been married for more than 50 years.  While their marriage has not been perfect, I saw them strive to do what is best for me and my ten siblings.  They worked hard and showed me that marriage is not easy, but worth it.

I have been married to my husband for 17 years.  I started out, as many have, with the happily ever after fairy tale in my mind.  As my husband and I have worked together, I have learned some things about marriage and how to make it work.  In this blog, I want to share with you some of the things I am learning about how you can strengthen your marriage, home, and family.

I am grateful for “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” which gives a gospel structure for us to build our families upon.  It teaches us the roles and responsibilities of a family.  It talks about both the roles of mothers and of fathers.  It establishes the importance of each child growing up in a home with a mother and a father.  Children from single parent homes suffer because of a lack of resources, stability, emotional support, and other factors.  These things affect their friends, life choices, school, and connections with others.  These children are more likely to repeat the patterns set by their parents.  Their family structures throughout generations can be affected.  “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” teaches that:

(The Family: A Proclamation to the World, paragraph 7)

 

Building upon these principles will bring our families peace and happiness.  Our family can be a refuge from the storm.  We can make it a safe place for our family to gather, a place to come to for hope and comfort, a place where we can come to rejuvenate and prepare to face the world, and a place where we can feel and give love.  I love the quote above so much that we repeat it every month at our family council meetings.  We have it memorized and often quote from it.  I am hoping to teach my children what it takes to have a successful marriage and family.

This does not mean that there are never times when divorce is necessary.  When it is required, it is heartbreaking for everyone involved.  Those who go through divorce need our love and support.  Their children need to feel the love and support of other adults around them.  It is these moments where the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ can help to heal hearts, offer comfort, and ultimately give peace.  The scriptures teach us that Jesus Christ felt all our pain and suffering.  It is because of this that he knows how to heal us and to comfort us.  How blessed we are to have a Savior who suffered for us that we can be whole again.