How can you have a lasting marriage?

A friend and I were discussing how marriage has changed since we were  married in the 1960's and early 1970's. There has been some good changes in marriage. On the whole, women are better educated, trained, and paid. Consequently, they have been empowered to demand to be treated with greater respect and to have more assistance from the rest of the family with house responsibilities. Another consequences of women now being able to provide adequately for themselves and their children is that many are divorcing their husbands. 

I saw this same situation several years ago when we sponsored a Cambodian refugee family who fled to the United States. Women had no rights in their country. Men owned them and could, with family assistance, drag a fleeing wife home and beat her into submission. When these wives found that they could earn a good living themselves and that the police here would protect them from their husband, many divorced their husbands.


In my mother and grandmother's era, I saw how women only felt they were "somebody" when they were married. They proudly called themselves by their husband's name and felt status in being "Mrs. John Smith".  A single woman or a widow was a "nobody". Marriage gave them security, children to raise, and a place in society. He faced the world for her, and she stayed home and cared for the home and children. 

I've talked with many college students the last few years. A great number of them expressed that they were afraid to marry since so many marriages now end in divorce. They seem to see their grandparents' marriages as idyllic. They wistfully state that their grandmother lived a happy and fulfilled life as she blissfully spent her days caring for her family. They proudly claim how loving their grandmother was and how she never wanted to do anything else besides cook and clean for her family. 

Somehow the youth seem to think that people who lived before them were more simple and had different needs than we do now, but they weren't different. Everyone needs to be treated with love and respect and desires to use their talents so they can live a fulfilling life. Many women found that they could put up with an awful lot when it was their only viable choice in life. They could either submissively endure being treated as an inferior being with few rights, or they could try to cope with being tossed out into a male dominated culture with few job options and receive low pay for the same work as a male.  Many marriages were just institutions where people lived parallel lives in the same house. Like the Cambodian women, these wives would have divorced their husbands if they had had the economic option and social support to do it.  

Marriage hasn't suddenly failed. The main difference is that unhappy wives now have the option to leave their husbands, and they do. Most women now have enough security that they voice protests about abusive behavior. Thus marriage, as a whole, may now seem not as happy. In past generations couples generally stayed together, but this does not indicate that all these marriages were joyful. The unhappy man in the past often ignored his wife and sought solace from a mistress, or from a bottle of whisky. The unhappy wife, hoping for love, often became overly enmeshed in her children's lives and in getting esteem from other women through being "the perfect homemaker".  Frequently, remaining married only hid their underlying unhappiness. 

Does this mean that I think all women should remain single and devote all their energies to "self fulfillment"? No. Women and men who focus myopically only on themselves will never be able to feel any joy or fulfillment in their lives. As a professional woman who chose to put my best energies into raising a family, I have never regretted my decision. This is the most important thing I could have done, but it does not mean that I sat home all day watching soap operas and eating bonbons as my teenage son once told me. With my husband's encouragement and support, I had many opportunities to develop and share my talents. 

Before we married, I was looking for a man who valued me not only as a full partner, but as a daughter of God. I was looking for a man who would help me to grow, and who would work with me to build an eternal family. I wasn't just looking for someone "fun" to spend my recreational moments with after I had arrived at where I wanted to be in my career, as some of the college students appeared to be. I was looking for a real partner.  I was looking for a person who would help me reach my potential; someone whose goals matched mine, and who was completely committed to making our marriage work. I wanted a person who wouldn't give up when stresses came, and they did. I wanted a person who could face their weaknesses and be willing to change if that was what was needed to improve our relationship. 

While most young men and women when I was in college were looking for the right person to marry, many of the college students I talked with a few years ago seemed fearful about marriage. They wanted a guarantee that their marriage was going to be happy and long lasting before they would be willing to make the commitment to another person. What they didn't understand is that the guarantee is within them. 

Have I never been upset with my husband? Hardly! Have I always been an angelic, loving wife? Nope. Have we had good communication, no disappointment, and lots of relaxing time together? No. Have we had financial pressures, illness, and stress from raising children? You bet, and lots of it!  Did we have good examples of marriage to follow? Not much, since both sets of parents had unhappy marriages. Then why are we still happily together after 48 years of marriage? The simple answer is because we choose to be together. We kept trying even when life seemed bleak and love seemed gone. We hung in there through our 40's when couples often realize their dreams have not happened and, filled with disillusionment, decide to end their marriage and seek their dreams elsewhere. 

So what did we do to make it? We relied on our faith and hope in God to give us the strength to face our weaknesses, to change our hearts, and to help us continue to nurture our relationship.  Notice, that I didn't say HIS weaknesses or HIS heart. All you can really change is yourself. We tried to live the Gospel and we prayed a lot, but in spite of all our efforts, it wasn't enough. This is when we learned this simple truth, marriage really is too hard for a man and woman to work out alone, but with God's help all things truly are possible. 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-04-030-lasting-marriage?lang=eng&_r=1  I love this video. It shows two qualities essential to a good marriage -- patience and humor.