Week 4: Doctrine of Eternal Marriage

“When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through.”

(Hafen, 1996)

When my husband and I were newly engaged, my bishop gave me a set of questions that women had wished they’d had answers to before they married their husbands.  Because we were apart (he was in New Mexico and I was in Utah), we corresponded frequently via email (which was quite new in 1994).  We felt like it would be a good idea to discuss a few of the questions in our letters back and forth.  Occasionally I would print out some of the letters he sent me.  As a result, I still have some of his responses.  I thought I would compare our naive world with our current reality.

How should the couple pay bills?  

“I would think we would pay them together.  I can take are of the particulars. . . but every Sunday we could include this in our discussion.  (Once a month at least.)  We should pay bills first and then figure out what to do with what’s left - maybe go to a dollar movie or something.”

Now:  Hmmm… I would love to pay them together, but to be honest, it’s kind of divide and conquer.  He takes care of the dishes and keeping the kids out of the way, while I quickly try to reconcile everything.  We also don’t have to figure out what to do with the leftover, because there isn’t any.  Haha.  Usually we cap it all off by going grocery shopping together.  

What’s the role of the woman and the man in the home?  

“If I was a professional chef then I would do all the cooking.  Since I’m not, I would only expect to do half the cooking.”

“. . . If you work inside the home and I work outside - then I would not expect to do household chores when I return from work.  I would expect to help with the dinner dishes perhaps, but not the lunch dishes.  I’m willing to cook on some weekends. ”

Now:  While he might not do half of the cooking, he does enjoy being in the kitchen and has learned to make several things over the years.  I really do try to keep up with the dishes, but they frequently get away from me.  I can’t count the number of times he comes home to a sink full of dishes (and yes, lunch and possibly breakfast are included), rolls up his sleeves and loads the dishwasher.  

Location:

“I don’t really mind much where we end up.  The midwest is really quite. . . well. . . . boring.  So we’ll try not to move there.”

Now: We’ve lived in Wisconsin for 11 years.  That’s half of the time we’ve been married; I’ve never lived in one place for so long.  As much as I’d love to move closer to my parents, I can’t get him out of Wisconsin.

If our marriage had been a contract marriage, we could have walked away as soon as either side of the contract had been broken.  But because we want our union to be a covenant marriage, we are committed to each other and do all that we can to build our relationship into something that is eternal.  That’s why I received this promise, this covenant, in one of our last courting emails:

“Nothing that you do or say will ever make me question my commitment to you.  I am completely in love with you and want to spend the rest of the eternities together, side by side.  Master’s Degree or no Master’s Degree.  Lemonaid cuts and all.  Even if you fail all your finals for the rest of your life.  Even if you eat strawberries.  Even if you put ice down my back.  I just want to be with you… forever.”

My husband's resolve and commitment to our marriage echoes this definition of marriage (found in True to the Faith):

Determine that nothing will ever come between you and your spouse to disrupt your marriage. Resolve to make your marriage succeed, in spite of challenges that may arise.

References

Hafen, B. C. (1996, November). Covenant Marriage. Ensign.  Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/ensign/1996/11/covenant-marriage?lang=eng