“Session Six: Enriching Marriage,” Strengthening Marriage: Instructor’s Guide (2006), 54–62
“Session Six,” Strengthening Marriage, 54–62
Session Six
Enriching Marriage
“In the enriching of marriage the big things are the little things. … Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine.”
President James E. Faust
Session Objectives
During this session, help participants:
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Understand that inattention and lack of constant enrichment contribute to the failure of marriages.
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Learn key principles and activities that will enrich marriage.
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Develop a plan to enrich their marriages.
To Love and Care for Each Other
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles affirmed the central importance of marriage and family life in Heavenly Father’s plan for His children. They declared: “Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other.”1 President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of Twelve taught: “No relationship has more potential to exalt a man and a woman than the marriage covenant. No obligation in society or in the Church supersedes it in importance.”2
Husbands and wives cannot afford to neglect their marriage relationship. Unfortunately, many do. As a member of the Seventy, President James E. Faust of the First Presidency discussed the causes of divorce, focusing on one in particular:
“Among them are … selfishness, immaturity, lack of commitment, inadequate communication, unfaithfulness; and all of the rest, which are obvious and well known.
“In my experience there is another reason which seems not so obvious but which precedes and laces through all of the others. It is the lack of a constant enrichment in marriage. It is an absence of that something extra which makes it precious, special, and wonderful, when it is also drudgery, difficult, and dull.”3
During courtship, couples often spend much time together. They focus on their relationship and seek to fulfill each other’s needs. They often express affection by showing kindness and respect, being generous, sharing goals and values, spending time together, giving compliments, talking and listening, giving gifts, remembering special occasions, and sending love notes, letters, and cards.
After couples marry, however, education, careers, children, and service begin to fill their lives. They have many demands on their time, including work, family, personal activities, and church and community service. As their responsibilities increase, some couples interact with each other less and less frequently. Time passes and husbands and wives get too involved in other activities; marriage ceases to be as important as it once was, and relationships suffer. Acts of kindness decrease or stop altogether, communication becomes infrequent and mundane, and expressions of affection and love diminish. Couples become careless in their conversations and behavior. Romance fades, and the marriage relationship begins to wither.
Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy warned that the devil plays a role in shifting priorities away from marriage: “Enticing voices will speak to us of worldly achievements and acquisitions that may lead us on dangerous detours from which we can return only with great effort. Small, seemingly insignificant choices along the way will have large consequences that will determine our eventual destiny.”4 Too often, men and women trade promises of peace, happiness, and eternal life for a chance at fleeting prestige, power, and pride. Small choices accumulate until some people awake to discover they have lost that which they valued most.
Making a Difference
President Spencer W. Kimball described this problem: “Many people … have permitted their marriage to grow stale and weak and cheap. … These people will do well to reevaluate, to renew their courting, to express their affection, to acknowledge kindnesses, and to increase their consideration so their marriage can again become beautiful, sweet, and growing.”5 To counter this cheapening of marriage, he counseled that couples work on developing their love: “Love … cannot be expected to last forever unless it is continually fed with portions of love, the manifestation of esteem and admiration, the expressions of gratitude, and the consideration of unselfishness.”6
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have proclaimed that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”7 The scriptures affirm, “A man [shall] leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife” (Moses 3:24). Since the family is central to the Creator’s plan, those who wish to obey Him make their marriages and families central to their own lives. While many other activities in life are worthwhile, they should not become so important that they prevent a couple from investing the necessary time and energy to enrich their relationship. When husband and wife make each other and their marriage a top priority, they experience happiness and peace and ultimately enjoy an eternal marriage relationship.
The gospel of Jesus Christ helps people make their marriages a high priority. In terms of priorities, marriage is second only to love of God. Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley recalled the priorities of the man she married: “As we got closer to marriage, I felt completely confident that Gordon loved me. But I also knew somehow that I would never come first with him. I knew I was going to be second in his life and that the Lord was going to be first. And that was okay.”8
When a husband and wife love God and keep His commandments, they also love and cherish each other and treat each other with respect. They keep the covenants they have made. Loving and serving God is their first priority; loving and serving their spouse is a close second or even a part of carrying out the first priority. Also, when they love God, their capacity to love one another increases, and their commitment to be faithful to the marriage becomes resolute.
Just as small decisions can lead individuals away from their marriages, small and seemingly insignificant acts of kindness, charity, and love can heal emotional wounds and establish a firm foundation for healthy and fulfilling relationships.
President Faust counseled: “In the enriching of marriage the big things are the little things. It is a constant appreciation for each other and a thoughtful demonstration of gratitude. It is the encouraging and the helping of each other to grow. Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine.”9
Husband and wife will enrich their marriage as they center their relationship in the gospel, take time for each other, have fun together, talk frequently and positively, and perform acts of kindness.
Center Your Marriage in the Gospel of Jesus Christ
President Faust observed, “There is one special enriching ingredient, which above all else will help join a man and a woman together in a very real, sacred, spiritual sense. It is the presence of the divine in marriage.”10
President Spencer W. Kimball taught that couples will have great happiness when they love the Lord and each other more than themselves and when they attend the temple frequently, pray together, attend their Church meetings, keep their lives wholly chaste, and work together to build up the kingdom of God.11
When wife and husband center their relationship in the gospel of Jesus Christ, their marriage and their personal lives improve. Couples should pray together morning and night, study the scriptures, and have a weekly family home evening.
The gospel teaches individuals to love and serve one another and to “bear one another’s burdens” (Mosiah 18:8). When individuals take upon themselves the name of Christ, they covenant to love others in this manner. Christlike attitudes and actions nourish and strengthen marriage relationships as couples keep their covenants.
President Faust identified one of the greatest sources of happiness as “having the companionship and enjoying the fruits of a Holy and Divine Presence. … Spiritual oneness is the anchor.” He observed: “Divorces are increasing because in many cases the union lacks that enrichment which comes from the sanctifying benediction which flows from the keeping of the commandments of God. It is a lack of spiritual nourishment.”12
Take Time for Each Other
Husbands and wives must persistently seek ways to nurture their relationship. Quite often, the activities that siphon away time and energy are good. Completing an education, succeeding in a career, raising children, fulfilling Church callings, and honoring civic and military obligations all compete with marriage and family time.
Speaking to Church leaders, President Gordon B. Hinckley warned: “It is imperative that you not neglect your families. Nothing you have is more precious. … When all is said and done, it is this family relationship which we will take with us into the life beyond.”13
Sometimes individuals have to make tough decisions. When happiness and stability in marriage are at stake, they may need to sacrifice lucrative, time-consuming jobs and delay financial and personal goals. They may even need to reduce the amount of time spent serving others to allow time for this most sacred relationship.
President Hinckley counseled: “Together with [your family], determine how much time you will spend with them and when. And then stick to it. Try not to let anything interfere. Consider it sacred. Consider it binding. Consider it an earned time of enjoyment.
“Keep Monday night sacred for family home evening. Have an evening alone with your wife. Arrange some vacation time with the entire family.”14
Have Fun Together
Church leaders have taught that recreation strengthens family life. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve included “wholesome recreational activities” as one of the principles for successful marriages and families.15
Psychologists Howard Markman, Scott Stanley, and Susan Blumberg observed that couples in troubled relationships do not just suddenly find each other unattractive. Rather, “the biggest reason attraction dies down is that couples neglect the very things that built and maintained it in the first place, friendship and fun.”16 They recommended that couples set aside time for fun and not try to solve problems during that time.17
Writer Susan Page noted that “social scientists who have studied leisure time corroborate the conclusion I reached in my interviews [with couples who thrive]: husbands and wives who spend leisure time together tend to be much more satisfied with their marriages than those who don’t.”18
Page said the couples she interviewed do many things together: “They dance; run or work out; hike; ski; play volleyball; … eat out; go to movies, theater, or concerts; entertain friends; play parlor games, and so on.” She added that “watching TV did not count for most of these couples as playtime, unless they were watching a special program together.”19
Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg mentioned activities such as exercising, swimming, hiking, doing yoga, playing tag, cooking, collecting sea shells, watching movies, having a soda, and talking (sharing goals, dreams, plans, hopes, compliments).20 The activities themselves are not as important as the attitudes of the couples doing them. Working together on household tasks can be enjoyable. Often, the most enjoyable activities cost the least.
As couples consider activities they can do together, remind them that they should not consider only the activities they both enjoy. If spouses take turns selecting activities and sharing interests, they can gain a better understanding of each other, and they will perhaps develop new interests. Their willingness to try new activities and support each other will enrich their marriage. Husbands and wives do not need to give up the good things they do; they can begin to share many of those activities and participate in them together.
President Ezra Taft Benson pointed out that family home evenings are a good time for family fun: “Family home evenings should be scheduled once a week as a time for recreation, work projects, skits, songs around the piano, games, special refreshments, and family prayers. Like iron links in a chain, this practice will bind a family together, in love, pride, tradition, strength, and loyalty.”21
Talk Frequently and Positively
Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve emphasized the importance of frequent communication: “Some couples seem not to listen to one another. Taking time to talk is essential to keep lines of communication intact. If marriage is a prime relationship in life, it deserves prime time! Yet less important appointments are often given priority, leaving only leftover moments for listening to precious partners.”22
President Faust declared: “Marriage relationships can be enriched by better communication. … We communicate in a thousand ways, such as a smile, a brush of the hair, a gentle touch, and remembering each day to say ‘I love you’ and the husband to say ‘You’re beautiful.’ Some other important words to say, when appropriate, are ‘I’m sorry.’ Listening is excellent communication.”23
Session 2 referred to the study by John Gottman, who found that successful couples interact positively by showing interest in each other, being affectionate, performing thoughtful acts, being appreciative, showing concern and empathy, accepting a spouse’s differing point of view, being playful, and sharing joy when having a good time.24
In her research on successful, happy marriages, Susan Page also found effective communication to be essential. Couples whose marriages thrived “had relatively few communication impasses; they were able to talk easily about difficult subjects; they felt they understood each other; they withheld very little from each other; and they could rely on their ability to resolve conflicts.” Page found that some couples had never been taught communication rules but seemed to follow them intuitively. Others learned skills from books, articles, workshops, talks, or counselors.25
Perform Acts of Kindness
President Gordon B. Hinckley stressed the importance of the kindness that wives and husbands can show each other: “If every husband and every wife would constantly do whatever might be possible to ensure the comfort and happiness of his or her companion, there would be very little, if any, divorce. Argument would never be heard. Accusations would never be leveled. Angry explosions would not occur. Rather, love and concern would replace abuse and meanness.”
President Hinckley encouraged men in the Church to help the women in their lives express and develop their talents and other strengths: “The women in our lives are … endowed with particular qualities, divine qualities, which cause them to reach out in kindness and with love to those about them. We can encourage that outreach if we will give them opportunity to give expression to the talents and impulses that lie within them. In our old age my beloved companion said to me quietly one evening, ‘You have always given me wings to fly, and I have loved you for it.’”26
The courtship that occurs before marriage is even more essential afterward. Husbands and wives help each other address life’s challenges when they show genuine respect, kindness, and affection for each other. Relationships suffer tremendously when these elements are missing. Continued acts of kindness and expressions of love create strong, enduring bonds between husbands and wives.
Happiness in Marriage
Marriage relationships will thrive when husband and wife show love and appreciation to each other. Acts of tenderness, consideration, and compassion are essential nutrients. When individuals receive these nutrients, they feel alive and motivated to reach their highest potential. A husband and wife should not expect that everything will always go well. But if they love and respect each other, they will find great satisfaction in marriage. As President Faust noted, “Happiness in marriage and parenthood can exceed a thousand times any other happiness.”27
Couples will find great happiness as they live the gospel, adhere to the inspired teachings of Church leaders, and apply sound relationship principles and skills. There will be challenges. However, couples can find hope in President Spencer W. Kimball’s declaration: “Where there are challenges, you fail only if you fail to keep trying!”28 Persistence will bring the promised reward of greater happiness in this life and eternal family life in the world to come.