Marriage

As a single nearly 26 year old Latter-Day Saint it should not be surprising that marriage is a topic that is regularly on my mind. This is mostly because people of the older generation will regularly ask me, "How are you doing," which is mormon for, "Why are you 26 and still single?" or possibly, "How are your dating relationships progressing towards marriage?" This is the sort of thing that has the potential to getting tedious almost instantaneously. It is for this reason that I was surprised how much I enjoyed the conversation I had recently on the subject with my mother.

The conversation revolved around the reason that some relationships last while others fail to do so. The topic was on both of our minds due in no small part to the recent marital disappointment that a friend of mine has suffered that we had both been made aware of by my rumor mongering brother and his wife (both of whom are people that I love to death). She is a smart, fun, considerate, ambitious, spiritual and gorgeous woman who had married a man who for all accounts appeared the be equally attractive, ambitious and spiritual. This is why when he suddenly dissolved their recent marriage it came as such a surprise.

That occurrence was something that caused a paradigm shift for me. Previous to that point I had never considered the possibility of marrying someone that had previously been married. I had met girls that been divorced, but there's a sort of mormon stigma that's attached to divorcees and it never even crossed my mind that I could consider them as marriageable. I think the problem is that I had never known someone well before a marriage that didn't work out. Anyone who knows my friend knows that her ex failed at life the day he walked out that door. She's certainly not perfect, no one is, but the sum of everyone of her shortcomings is so insignificant when compared to the benefit that one would gain from being married to such a intelligent, attractive, strong and righteous woman as to be entirely irrelevant. If someone could leave a woman like that, then there are no doubt several previously married women that are more than deserving of my attention.

The example of this friend's marriage stood in stark contrast to a couple that we had met only the previous evening while hosting a small Christmas Eve party in our home. The wife was very nice, but not actually attractive in any physical sense. The husband was attractive, but socially deficient in a number areas due to a fairly severe case of Aspergers syndrome. It's not the sort of marriage where you would generally put a lot of confidence in its longevity. Except that it has lasted, and has every appearance of continuing to do so. Not withstanding issues that for many couple would be insurmountable they are entirely devoted to each other.

The secret is humility. Others may call it selflessness, consideration or thoughtfulness, but the idea is the same; a lack of pride and selfishness. It's something that both of the members of that couple at our party had in abundance and something my friend's ex sadly was found greatly lacking. A marriage is something that can whether all the storms of life except the poisoning influence of pride. It's like Russel M Nelson taught, in a succesful marriage we need "to appreciate, to communicate, and to contemplate."