Cleave unto one another and to none else

The merging of two families through marriage can be a very exciting time. However, it can also be one of challenges. It can be difficult for a son or daughter to leave their families as they start a new one. It can be hard for parents to give up their roles as the primary source of advice, and dominion to a role more on the sidelines in their children’s life’s. It can be hard for all family members to accept the new family member that a marriage brings. It can be frustrating for the married couple to deal with differences and to decide where to spend the holidays.

Elder J. Ashton, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, once said:

Certainly a now-married man should cleave until his wife in faithfulness, protection, comfort, and total support, but in leaving father, mother, and other family members, it was never intended that they now be ignored, abandoned, shunned, or deserted” (Harper, 2005, p. 327).

I love this quote because I think that this is so true. I think that oftentimes-young couples, out of fear they are too reliant on their family members, choose to abandon their parents. Elder Ashton makes it clear that it is possible to cleave unto our spouse and none else while also having a relationship with our family of origin.

In “Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws” by James M. Harper and Suzanne Frost Olsen, Gloria Horsely lists five things that every parent in-law should avoid:

 1. Giving advice

2. Criticizing

3. Pinning down children-in-law as to the specific reasons they are missing a family event

4. Criticizing or taking over the disciplining of grandchildren

5. Trying to control everyone and everything including children’s believes

(Harper, 2005, p. 332).

In all honesty, I think that being the fully cleaving unto your spouse and none-else, and being a good in-law and parent-in-law are things that are not always easy and take time. I don’t think anyone is the perfect husband, wife, in-law or parent-in-law. It is something that we must strive to work on daily.

As it said in the reading, a strong marriage is not found it is built ((Harper, 2005, p. 330). Not cleaving completely unto your spouse does not strengthen a marriage but weakens it. Parents who try to increase their dominion over their adult married children weaken their child’s marriage.  However much damage has been done, however much progress needs to be made it can happen. It won’t happen all at once and it will be challenging, but it is possible. Families who already succeed in all of these areas now have the challenge to maintain their strengths.

I know that I want to always be improving and strengthening my marriage any way I can, now and always.