Happy Marriage Happy Life

I remember when I was first married thinking that I loved my husband so much that I couldn’t possibly imagine growing apart from him or ever having a single problem. I was overwhelmed with positive feelings towards him. Marriage researcher John Gottman calls this “ positive sentiment override .” When you generally see your spouse in a positive light, any small negative interactions are easily glossed over and we can give our partner the benefit of the doubt.   I think most newlyweds feel the same. No one goes into a marriage expecting to have problems or to get divorced. But the fact is, every marriage will go through rough patches. Every marriage will have problems.     If you are not careful, positive sentiment override can turn to negative sentiment override . This means that you generally have a lot of negative feelings towards your spouse, so when something happens, you are less likely to let it go or forgive and you are more likely to be offended or hurt whe...

When two people get married, they sign a contract that binds them together in society and makes them into an official family unit. Many people recite the phrases of “in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, till death do us part.” Elder David A Bednar, however, said this, “ Faithfulness and fidelity in marriage must not simply be attractive words spoken in sermons; rather, they should be principles evident in our own covenant marriage relationships.”  What is the difference between a contractual marriage and a covenant marriage? Elder Bruce C Hafen described it this way, “Contract companions each give 50%; covenant companions each give 100%.” I think there are many people in the world who would agree that marriage takes two people each giving 100%. In our church though, we understand covenant marriage to be a marriage that is not “till death do us part” but instead “for time and all eternity.” In the temple, we are able to be sealed eternall...

This week’s readings were all about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that same sex marriage is a right protected under the constitution. Reading the ruling and the dissenting opinions was eye opening. I felt sympathy for the plight of the petitioners when I read the ruling, but I also understood where the dissent was coming from.  Those who are in favor of same sex marriage assert that the right to marry is part of a person’s individual liberty and it is not ok to deny someone of that right. They also argue that marriage is good for children, and therefore gay marriage is a good thing as well when there are children involved. Another argument for gay marriage involves the fact that marriage bestows its participants with certain governmental privileges, such as inheritance rights, being able to be listed on a spouse’s death certificate, insurance benefits, and legally sharing parenthood of a child. One of the most compelling arguments is that gay people do not want to...

Several years ago, I worked as a para-professional in a kindergarten class. Out of 28 students in the class, we rarely ever had more than about 5 students whose parents were married to each other. Another 4 or 5 had step-parents that were married and the rest lived with single parents or parents who were not married. To me, this was sad and a bit concerning.  I have many friends who have chosen to cohabitate, or to bring children into their relationships before marriage. I do not judge or look down on them for these choices, but the science shows there is some reason to be concerned.  First Comes Love, then Comes…? In the State of Our Unions document that can be downloaded in its entirety here , some statistics really stood out to me. First, “Cohabiting couples who have a child together are about twice as likely as married couples to break up before the child is 12.” To me, that says that any person who is concerned about divorce should definitely not have...