Fidelity in Marriage

“Be faithful in your marriage covenants in thought, word and deed.”

-President Howard W. Hunter Conference Report Oct. 1994

Fidelity in marriage is more than simply not cheating on your spouse. President Hunter put it best when he said: “Pornography, flirtations, and unwholesome fantasies erode one’s character and strike at the foundation of a happy marriage. Unity and trust within a marriage are thereby destroyed” (1994). 

More often than not, infidelity in marriage doesn’t happen all at once. Spouse’s don’t usually get out of bed in the morning with the intention to cheat on their spouse and destroy everything they hold dear. It happens little by little. In his book: “Drawing Heaven into your Marriage,” H. Wallace Goddard shares the slow and dangerous progression of unfaithfulness:

·      “Behaviors that seem innocent (i.e., missionary work, doing good, helping in some capacity)”

·      “An affection grows that claims part of one’s heart.”

·      “Extramarital flirting. Justification-‘no harm intended’”

·      “Relationship declared as ‘special’”

·      “Opportunities created to see ‘special friends’ (one worries what others will say/think)”

As Goddard points out, the path to unfaithfulness starts out small. Then it becomes bigger and bigger causing a need for them to justify their actions as harmless when in fact they are nothing but harmful.

I believe that just because we are married does not mean we cannot be friendly. It doesn’t mean that we can coexist with members of the opposite sex and even have friends of a different gender. I don’t think that marriage means that every conversation someone starts with us of the opposite sex we have to decode if it was flirting or not. I know that once I got married, my friends became my husbands friends and vice versa. We went on several group dates with other couples and we have a shared friend group that consists of other married people. I didn’t completely hang the old guy friends I had before I was married out to dry, either though. I talked to them occasionally, just not as often and I was always comfortable telling my husband about our conversations. My husband is the single most important man in my life and so I always make sure that he is the one I turn to for advice and support. I strive to always make sure that he is the one I turn to in times of need and no one else.

So how do we know if we are just being friendly or if we are on the first step on the progression to unfaithfulness? President Ezra Taft Benson gave a good rule for us to go by: “a good question to ask ourselves is this: would my spouse be pleased if he or she knew I was doing this?” (Benson, 1987, p. 52).

I love my husband. He is my best friend and eternal companion. I do not want to ever let anyone or anything stand in the way of our progression in this life. I am thankful for the wise council of Prophets and church leaders that are divinely inspired in their guidance. I want to be better at following their prophetic wisdom and stay true to my spouse all the days of my life.

Charity

            What is charity? “Charity is “the pure love of Christ,” or “everlasting love” (Moroni 7:47;8:17) To have charity is to put off the natural man. Charity is seeing others the way Christ sees them and putting another’s needs before our own. In Moroni 7:45 it reads: “And charit suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believith all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things

So what does charity have to do with marriage? Marriage requires charity because chances are you married an imperfect person. It is also very likely that your spouse married an imperfect person as well. We all come to a marriage with flaws and character traits that may be potential irritants for our spouse. It is normal to become irritated with our spouse from time to time. As no one likes to feel annoyed how can we combat that feeling of annoyance at the one person we are supposed to love most in the world? Frist of all, Goddard warns in his book: Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, that “we will continue to be annoyed by our spouses unless we are humbled enough by our own limitations to call on heavenly grace” (121). This means that our spouse will never cease to annoy us in one way or another unless we humble ourselves and ask for Heavenly guidance to be more patient and loving to our companion. This requires an understanding that we ourselves are not perfect and also posses character traits that may bother our spouse.

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.”

-Moroni 7:48

            If we have charity towards our fellow men we are on our way towards become followers of Jesus Christ. By having charity, we think of others more than ourselves. By doing this we are broadening our horizons and following in Christ’s footsteps.  

 May we all strive to seek to have charity in our lives and in our marriages.

The Marriage Sacrifice

In the book entitled Drawing Heaven into your Marriage, by H. Wallace Goddard, it says: “Marriage provides glorious opportunities to practice consecration. Just as Isaac was willing to give his life as the ultimate expression of commitment to God, so we are invited to dedicate our lives, our talents, our weekend, and our weaknesses to the sacred enterprise of sanctifying our marriages and ultimately perfecting our souls” (Goddard, 2009, p. 103).

I love this quote because it provides an insight into marriage that I never considered before. I will admit that although I knew that marriage requires selfish sacrifices and that it is a commandment from God, I married for partially selfish reasons. I was in love with a worthy young man who also happened to love me. He was my best friend and I wanted to spend eternity with him. I don’t think that this is a bad reason to get married but the quote above helped me to understand that there is more to marriage than first meets the eye. We get married to dedicate so much of ourselves to another imperfect person so that we together can help each other become perfect. Reaching perfection won’t happen in this lifetime, but it is an ongoing process.

I would now like to point out each thing that we are invited to dedicate to our spouse in a marriage one by one and touch on each of them briefly.

“…we are invited to dedicate our lives, our talents, our weekend, and our weaknesses to the sacred enterprise of sanctifying our marriages and ultimately perfecting our souls” (Goddard, 2009, p. 103).

1.     Our Lives

When you get married your life is no longer your own. You are not just living for yourself anymore but someone else as well. There is now another person’s schedule, ideas, fears and dreams to think about. Beyond the day-to-day life you now share, you are married to this person till death or if married in the temple, for eternity. You grow up together, grow old together and deal with everything in between together. You are still two separate beings, but your union makes you one. I can think of no greater or sweeter sacrifice than dedicating your life to another person.

2.    Our Talents

Dedicating your talents to your spouse is a beautiful thing. Not only can you share your God-given talents to lift one another up, but also discover new talents together. I play the violin but I haven’t played in a long time so I do not yet feel comfortable playing in front of anyone other than my husband. I know that he enjoys hearing me play and if that talent that I have only blesses him than I am happy.

3.    Our Weekend

     Weekends have always been something to look forward too. After a long week, weekends are a chance to relax, go out and have fun and get the things done that was missed throughout the week. Spending quality time with my husband is something that I hold very near and dear to my heart. I now look forward even more to the weekend because it means that I get to spend more time with my husband.

4.     Our weakness

Sharing our weakness with someone might not seem like the ideal thing. It is human nature to want to hide our weaknesses from others. However, we can love our spouse despite their weaknesses. We can help them turn them into strengths and to love them unconditionally.

I know without a doubt, that marriage is so important. It is a commandment from God and it provides wonderful opportunities to truly and completely dedicate our lives, talents, weekends and weaknesses to our spouse.

Pride

 President Ezra Taft Benson, the thirteenth prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints once said: “The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition’” (Ensigh, Apr. 1989, p. 2).

                                         

Pride has no place in a marriage. Unfortunately, because we are not perfect, pride does enter into marriages from time to time. Elder Neal A. Maxwell has stated: “The pressures of life in a family will mean that we shall be known as we are, that our frailties will be exposed and, hopefully, we shall then work on them. … It is an encounter with raw selfishness, with the need for civility and taking turns, of being hurt and yet forgiving, of being at the mercy of others’ moods and yet understanding, in part, why we sometimes inflict pain on each other. … The home gives us a great chance to align our public and private behavior, to reduce the hypocrisy in our lives, to be more congruent with Christ.” (Ensign, Feb. 1972, p. 7.)

So how do we have a happy marriage? C. Richard Chidester said: “Humility is a major ingredient of a happy life and a happy marriage” (Ensign, Mar. 1990, p. 1). He goes on to say that: “As a marriage counselor, I believe that pride is the reason for the mass marital failure in our society. But if you look at marriage books on the world’s market today, you’ll never see humility at the top of the list of ways to improve marriage!” (Ensign, Mar. 1990, p. 3).

I believe that humility can combat our pride. I remember that I once had to take a pride test in which I had to rate myself on how prideful I was on a scale from one to ten. I felt uncomfortable taking such a test because I felt prideful if I gave myself a high score but then I felt like I was lying if I gave myself a low score. I think that we are all prideful to some degree or other. However, that does not mean that we can take each opportunity we can to diminish our pride and improve our humility. Marriage truly is a self-less sacrifice and when it is full of selfishness, it doesn’t work. It is my wish that we all try to be a little more humble and consciously work on being self-less people in every aspect of our lives.