How God Grows Our Marriage

There are lots of transitions in marriage that are hard! As if coping to living with another person who puts their toothbrush on the counter and likes to eat way more veggies than you isn’t hard enough, then you get to add other stresses. You get to decide who’s family to see when, what holiday traditions you will celebrate or let go of, what kind of parents you want to be…the list goes on and on. But one of the most crucial- and hardest- transitions in a marriage is having kids.

There are many studies that have shown martial satisfaction goes down when a couple starts having kids, and that divorce is significantly more likely to occur between years 2-5, or when people usually start having kids. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Just because your satisfaction is lower doesn’t mean you’re dissatisfied. If I had a kid taking up all my time with their laughs along with their stinky diapers, I would be less satisfied too. But not unhappy.  

So how can a couple stay close together when there is another person added into the equation? Well, I have always heard that the spousal relationship should take precedence over the children-parent relationship. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll leave my crying baby to fend for themselves because I want to have a better relationship with my husband. But, it does mean that together we can help strengthen our little family and still be close even when there is another person between us. During the pregnancy process, it is important for a bond to be created between parents. Whether that is going to birthing classes together, talking to each other about parenting styles, or even holding each other and being a support during hard times (especially delivery) will increase the dependency between spouses. This allows there to be a stronger connection between partners and the marriage will continue to be this way.

The patterns that people develop during dating, courtship, and especially the first few years of marriage are a huge indicator how the rest of your relationship is going to be. If during dating, we never communicate our feelings and bottle things up, it is likely to stay that way during a marriage as well. On the other hand, if we continually work to understand and rely on each other when things are hard, it will also continue that way in marriage.

One thing I learned this week that really touched me was about incompatibilities between couples. On average, a couple who plans on divorcing have ten areas of weakness. This could be communication, parenting styles, etc. But ten areas. On the other side, people who have good, strong relationships have, on average, ten areas of weakness. This could be communication, parenting styles, etc. Our personal weaknesses we find in marriage are not predictors of success!! It is all about our attitudes and how we approach each other and the Lord to strengthen our marriage!

All week while learning about the transitions in marriage, I was reminded of a talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, given in the LDS General Conference, April 2016. It said, “All this won’t just happen in an instant. Great marriages are built brick by brick, day after day, over a lifetime.

And that is good news.

Because no matter how flat your relationship may be at the present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.

If it appears to take forever, remember: happy marriages are meant to last forever!”

I love that! Our predictors of success are how much we are willing to put in to strengthen each other and ultimately God will help us build great marriages. It all begins with the desire to grow together, and God takes care of the rest!