The importance of being right

Before starting that argument, ask yourself one question:

Is it more important to be right, or to be married?

Fire and Ice

We studied the words from this talk before we got married. It helped us to really understand the importance of sexual purity before and within marriage.  I'll share a tiny bit of his talk. It's worth a full read or making time for the video.


Click here for full text

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice,
From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. by Robert Frost"

"Why is this matter of sexual relationships so severe that fire is almost always the metaphor, with passion pictured vividly in flames? What is there in the potentially hurtful heat of this that leaves one's soul- or perhaps the whole world, according to Frost- destroyed, if that flame is left unchecked and those passions unrestrained?"

Holland goes on to state that "God's greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it." He notes that people are generally quite responsible and cautious when it comes to the taking of life, but the same cannot be said of the giving of life.

Marriage Statistics

Homage to the Home: Why Society Needs Strong Families

The above article has great stats and an explanation of why traditional families are so important.

A couple of gems:

"While society is blessed by the contributions of virtuous citizens from all walks of life, research indicates that married people tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive, and they provide the best environment for raising children."

"Children raised by their own married biological parents experience less poverty, less drug and alcohol use and less crime and delinquency; they gain more education; they are more likely to marry; and they have better mental health compared with children from other family arrangements."

Eternal Marriage

Eternal marriage is something that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints look forward to and believe in. When we get sealed(married) in one of our temples, it is for forever. I've(Leah) watched a lot of couples who have been sealed together, for longer than I've been alive. Of the ones I am closest to, they have all stayed married to their first spouse. They are generally happy. The couples have fun together, work together, achieve goals together, raise children together, visit grandchildren together, retire together, etc. Lots of happiness and peace come from a lifestyle like this.

image credit lds.org

There are many others that I have watched, for longer than I've been alive, that were not sealed in the temple. They married elsewhere, if they married at all. Of the ones that I am closest to, that didn't marry in the temple, there have been many relationship problems. None have ended up staying with their first spouse and most have been through many divorces and remarriages. Some ended up with children they were not prepared to care for, while others lost custody of children they had hoped to raise.
If this is the difference a focus on eternal marriage makes, I choose the eternities with my husband and family.

Empathy in a marriage

Empathy---the ability to reason about how other people perceive things---plays a crucial role in both building up and destroying marriage relationships. On the building up side, my (Ryan's) ability to "read" Leah, to know how she will react to what I do, is a skill I really try to cultivate. It's not just that spoiling her becomes a lot easier if I know what she likes, though that's important. It's also about understanding and carefully avoiding the things she really dislikes, because I care about her and her feelings. Sometimes our likes and dislikes align (cinnamon rolls: yum! unflushed toilets: yuck!). Other times one of us is neutral about the other's dislike (open cupboard doors or small drips of water on the kitchen floor), and sometimes one of us actually enjoys something the other hates (computer games or dancing). Some of these likes and dislikes are a big deal, others not so much. When our likes don't align, it's a chance to empathize with my sweetheart and spoil her by doing it the way she likes, even if I'm not 100% in agreement on how important it is. We go dancing once a year for her sake and, because she likes me, the kitchen floor usually doesn't have any puddles on it. We've both adjusted our vocabularies a little, to eliminate words that have unwanted meanings for one of us. It really doesn't matter what I said, it matters what she heard, so we try to learn each others' dialects.

On the bad side, when a marriage goes bad, it usually goes really, really bad, leaving everyone involved bitter and angry. Why? The cruelest tormentor is always someone who knows, in every situation, precisely the most painful and damaging thing to say or do. This is spite, a twisted and deadly form of empathy. It is one of the fastest, most reliable, and most thorough ways to destroy a relationship. That way lies darkness, avoid it at all costs. It doesn't matter what might go wrong, acting in spite will always make the situation drastically worse.

Honoring My Veterans

My (Leah's) sweet grandparents were dating when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. Granpy signed up for the Navy---along with his brother and friends---and went off to war. "The distance that eventually separated [them] was bridged by letters they wrote to each other." He survived the Normandy invasions (writing a coded letter home to inform his family) and fought in southern France under General Patton. Granpy and Granny married during a short furlough in 1944 and enjoyed a two-day honeymoon before he had to report back to his ship, serving the remainder of the war in the Pacific Theatre. Throughout the war, Granny "wrote regularly, building his morale and encouraging him with her informative and humorous letters" (she still writes dozens of encouraging notes every year to loved ones, in his memory). ---excerpts were taken from a family history book

All four of our grandfathers were veterans, and many other ancestors have served their countries in past wars: Korean, WWII, WWI, American Civil War, etc. Below are a couple of scanned photos.

Great-grandfather (WWI) at his wedding

A great-great uncle (marked with an "x"), just a few days before he was lost at sea.

Sundays for Togetherness

Sundays have made our marriage thrive through the busy years. See Ryan was in school for about the first 10 years of our marriage. We met and married during our undergraduate studies and then survived his master's and his PhD (still happily married). The whole time I chose to be a stay-at-home Mom raising the kids. So, I got plenty of time with the kids. Ryan didn't have a lot of time for the family. Since his schooling also paid his way, it owned him. He worked and worked and worked six days a week with little time to eat or sleep or spend with family. He really took to heart: "six days shalt Thou labor and do all thy work..." Sundays were different. On Sundays he didn't touch his studies. He chose to be home with us.

 Sundays are a great time to talk with family who live far away. We never really get to live by our family, but we always like to take advantage of Sundays to talk with them.

And lastly and so important, Sundays have always been a time for Ryan and I to catch up with each other.

Full-Time Mission with an Eternal Companion

My parents just got called to serve as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for their third time. They've already served in Brazil and Australia. This time they get to serve in the United States. I'm very excited for them.

As their daughter, I've noticed that they seem much closer as a couple since serving missions together. So, I asked my Dad about it. He mentions that the missions have been good for them because they do good things together, make memories together and make a lot of good friends.  All these things have been very bonding for them as a couple. They also love watching the Gospel change peoples' lives for the better throughout the world.

All these missions together give new meaning to the phrase "eternal companion".


For a long time I've thought how cool it'd be for Ryan and I to go on a mission together one day. To me it would mean three important things:

• we'd still be married!
• we were still healthy enough to serve
• we were still faithful in the Gospel

Hopefully we'll get to serve together one day, too.

Driving a Marriage

A friend compared marriage to owning a car:
"If you don't know how to drive, getting a new car won't solve your problem. Better to take some time out and learn some new skills, then to get a new car."


Cars, like marriages, take lots of work to maintain. If you choose the right car it can last a really long time, but not if you're hard on it and skip repairs and routine maintenance.

The Senses In Your Relationship

We recently read a book about parenting children based on their dominant senses. This got us thinking about how our own dominant senses affect our relationship. I'm (Leah) a fairly visual person. I say things like: "see you later" and I memorize things easily if I can see them. I started to realize that the things that Ryan does that bug me the most are actually visually related. I really like to see all the cupboards and closet doors closed all the time. Solution: tape pictures to the inside that I enjoy seeing, just in case he forgets to close the doors. 

So, Ryan on the other hand is auditory. He notices sounds that other people don't. Also, he's always confused when he hollers something across the room to me and I don't remember it later. Solution: write things down for me if he wants me to remember later or make eye contact while we talk.

Learning about each others' senses has helped us a bit. How about you?

"Country Chiq" puts up pictures on the inside of cupboard doors too, in her kids art room.

Cute!      cupboard drawings

Togetherness Hobbies

Ever since we were dating, we have enjoyed playing piano duets together. We get to sit next to each other and enjoy time as a couple. We can make music together that we can't make with just one. Our favorites are songs out of a handful of duet books for four hands. Our best duet ever was Miaou by Gabriel Faure. We worked on it many evenings together, after the kids went to bed, in preparation for a talent show.

We also both play hymns at church. There are some 300 hymns in our hymnbook. We can play most of them. Both of us, can pretty much play whatever hymn is asked of us. Except, one... #62 "All Creatures of our God and King". It's a beast! We've both practiced it many times, trying to master it. But, when asked to play it for a group or congregation, we both know it's going to have to be a duet. I play top hand, he plays bottom hand. That's the only way, to gracefully get through that song. We both enjoy our hobby together.

Knitting your way to a happy marriage

Here's a funny video about getting through all the disagreements in marriage. This video made us chuckle.

Ryan cleans when he's upset. I go jogging when I'm upset.
Right now Ryan and I are both laughing together, because our house is a mess and I'm out of shape. Maybe we should have more fights. Not really.
What do you do when you're upset with your spouse?

Aprons and suits

Dad is in charge of food on weekends at our house, and Mom doesn't usually even go in the kitchen on Sunday. I (Dad) recently noticed a pattern on Sunday afternoons: when we get home from church, everyone is starving so I head straight into the kitchen, put on an apron over my suit, and start cooking. Usually we move on to making Sunday Treat once lunch is under control, and depending on how long that takes (the kids usually help) dinner might not be far away. The apron (and the suit) often stay with me until the kids go to bed.

At one point it occurred to me that I should feel strange wearing an apron over dress clothes, but it really doesn't bother me. Then I realized that my own Dad has been wearing an apron over his suit on Sunday afternoons for as long as I can remember, and Grandpa did the same. Rumor has it that the neighbors used to heckle Great Grandpa when he not only wore an apron but did it outdoors while hanging the laundry out to dry. "Hey Fred, you doin' woman's work again?" they'd ask. He'd just smile and shrug, then finish the job before heading back to the house, laundry basket in tow.

Looking back through our early photos, it seems I didn't start out with a proper apron.

It doesn't seem to have gotten in the way of Sunday cooking, though.

A few years after we married Leah made me an apron.

She even sewed a little heart on one corner.

I'm not sure how vital a man's apron has been to these four generations of marriages, but it definitely hasn't hurt. I'm sure Mom and two Grandmas appreciated the help just as much as my wife does. It also shows that the patterns we set can carry strongly through multiple generations and color the experience of descendants we won't even live to meet.

Our Marriage

Ryan and I(Leah) have been happily married for 11 years. We have a thing for the number 1, so 11 should be a good year for us. See, we met July 1st, went on our first date together Sept 1st, had our first kiss Dec 1st, got engaged March 1st and married June 1st. We also happened to be each others first boyfriend/girlfriend, kiss, fiancée, spouse, etc. We're happy with how that turned out.

We've been told that since our relationship and dating experience was so easy, that we'd have no advice for our children on dating. That's probably true. So, we like to watch and learn from others.

Ryan wants to add: We aren't too sad about missing out on a bunch of complicated relationships and break-ups.