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.