Foundational Processes for an Enduring, Healthy Marriage

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

This statement helps couples who are surrounded by a world where marital distress and divorce are a commonplace.

Foundational Process #1: Personal Commitment to the Marriage Covenant
"The Family: A Proclamation to the World" states that "marriage between a man and a women is ordained of God" and that "husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other." Furthermore, it emphasizes that "marriage... is essential to His (God) eternal plan." These statements make it clear that marriage is purposeful, divinely created relationships, not merely a social custom, and that couples have God-given covenant obligations to one another. Successful marriages are founded on the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and tied to our discipleship.

"The Lord Jesus Christ is the focal point in the 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 another corner. Now consider what happens in the relationship between the man and the woman as the 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."
David A. Bednar

Foundational Process #2: Love and Friendship

Beyond assuming that spouses know they love each other, "husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other." The proclamation mentions the responsibility to love and care before an other marital obligation or virtue. Christlike love is the lodestar virtue in marriage-- it lights the way and draws attention to other virtues couples may wish to foster in their marriage. The Lord said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." (John 13:34) The command to love, by itself, was not the new commandment, for the commandment to "love thy neighbor" was given during Old Testament times (Leviticus 19:18) The new commandment was to love as Jesus loves, thus setting the standard for the pure love of Christ that should be sought in marriage.

Parents have not been commanded to love their children with all theirs hears though undoubtedly they do. But marital love seems to occupy a high and holy status. The love of which the Lord speaks is more than a feeling. Agency, or personal choice, is involved.

"Love is 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 love for each other given 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 stared it" (C.S. Lewis)

What can Married Couples do to Nurture Love and Friendship?

1. Get in sync with your partner's love preferences. Find out how your partner likes to receive love and then those things often. A good source for this would be The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
2. Talk as friends. Sometimes our couple conversation is all about the business of life: the job, the kids, problems. Of course these things need to be handled, but it is also important to make time to simply talk as friends.
3. Respond to bids for connection. Our best efforts to connect is marriage can be jeopardized as a result of the failure to respond to another's bids, which John Gottman calls "the fundamental unit of emotional communication." A bid can be a question, a look, a gesture, a touch -- any single expression that says, "I want to feel connected to you."
4. Set goals for couple interaction. Couples can turn toward each other in many ways every day. 
1. Respond to bids for attention, affections, humor, or support. 
2. Make an effort to do everyday activities together, such as reading the mail or making the bed.
3. Have a stress-reducing conversation at the nd of the day. this involves reuniting at the ead of a busy day to see how things went, and listing to and validating one another.
4. Do something special every day to communicate affection a appreciation.
5. Keep track of how well you are connecting emotionally with each other, and make enhancements when necessary.

Foundational Process #3: Positive Interaction

Positive emotions towards one's spouse are ital to a healthy marriage. Negative emotions, if they occur frequently and are allowed to deepen, can threaten a marriage. 

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 on it." If spouses decide that negativity is their "dwelling place" they can become experts at identifying negative traits and minimizing or ignoring the positive ones. 

Foundational Process #4: Accepting Influence from One's Spouse

In marriage, the process of sharing the decision - making power with one's spouse is referred to in some scholarly literature as accepting influence. Accepting influence refers to counseling with and listening to one's spouse, respecting and considering his or her opinions as valid as one's own, and compromising when making decisions together.

Sharing influence in all family affairs. Part of the recipe for a happy, healthy marriage (and a sturdy foundation) is for both partners to share equal ownership and influence in all family affairs. 

Ways to accept influence. 

1. We can accept influence by turning to our spouse for advice
2. Being open to his or her ideas
3. Listening to and considering his or her opinions,
4. Learning from our spouse
5. Showing respect during disagreements
6. Recognizing points we both agree on
7. Compromising
8. Showing trust in our spouse
9. Being sensitive to his or her feelings

Foundational Process #5: Respectfully Handle Differences and Solve Problems

Elder Bruce C. Hafen tells the following story: "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?'" 

Conflicts, disagreements, and challenges are a normal part of every marriage. Couples may enter marriage expecting it to be idyllic, but the experience of differences and resolving them are conditions or mortality, perhaps eternity. Disagreements crop up in even the best marriage, How difference are handled is an important key to marital success or failure. 

"Any intelligent couple will have differences of opinion. Our challenge is to be sure hat we know how to resolve them. That is part or the process of making a good marriage better." (Elder Joe J. Christensen)

Here is a cute problem solving loop that I found that might work for you. 

Foundational Process #6: Continuing Courtship through the Years

What is entropy? Yes, it is a physical science concept. So it may surprise you to learn that this concept has application in marriage, too. A good definition of entropy is "the tendency of a physical system to lose energy and coherence over time, such as a gas that expands and dissipates until there is little trace left." (Doherty, 1997, p. 9) How does this apply in marriage? Years ago, President Spencer  W. Kimball taught that "many couples permit their marriages o become stale and their love to grow cold like old bread or worn--out jokes or cold gravy." More recently. William Dohery comment about the entropic family, and by extension, the entropic couple who, through a lack of attention to their inner life, gradually drift apart because they lack infusions of bonding and intimacy, They become victims of he "cold gravy syndrome." 

What are some things couples can do to keep courtship alive through the years? 

1. Attend to the little things. Constant appreciation for each other and a thoughtful demonstration of gratitude. Encourage and help each other grow.
2. Be intentional about doing things every day to enrich the marriage. Have special activities that purposefully engage each other in to continue to build and maintain their relationship. These are sometimes called rituals and there are three kinds. 
1. Connections rituals: to maintain the bond between two people
2. Love rituals: to keep the romance alive in marriage
3. Celebrations rituals: to show honor, love, and respect for each other
3. Spend at least five hours a week strengthening your relationship. Couples that spend at least five hours a week on their relationship fared at the best over time. To succeed at this there are four things during those five hours that you must do.
1. Learn one thing that happened in your spouse's life each day.
2. Have a stress-reducing conversation at the end of each day.
3. Do something special everyday to show affection and appreciation
4. Have a weekly date.

I leave you with one last quote:

"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 times goes by. Eternal marriage is just like that. We need to treat it just that way." 

Elder F. Burton Howard