Week 5: Behaviors that Negatively Affect Marriage

Myth Busted: Falling Out of Love 

I believe that ‘falling out of love’ is a myth. When I was pregnant with my first child, I remember learning a profound truth. My husband and I had been married about a year and a half, and the rose colored glasses were getting a bit thin. One day while riding to work, the Spirit taught me something profound: true love isn’t about butterflies or the attraction that brought you and your spouse together. True love is staying with that person when you aren’t feeling those things. True love is made up of sacrifice and compromise and hard work. I used to look at Hollywood couples and marvel at their short shelf life. In the past, I found myself thinking, if a couple who looks like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston can ‘fall out of love’, then what hope do the rest of us ordinary folk have? But herein lies the key. Obviously these beautiful celebrities lose their rosy goggles just like the rest of us. Attraction may be the magnet that draws us together, but it certainly isn’t the glue that holds us together. So if these perfect tens can lose ‘that loving feeling’ as easily as the rest of us, then clearly the secret to a successful marriage has nothing to do with looks or twitterpation. Sorry, Bambi. 

I believe there are several factors to a maintaining a successful and fulfilling marriage. Like so many things in life, it is the Sunday school answers, the little things that we have to constantly work at, that make or break this union that is ordained of God.

First, marriage is not just a promise between two people; it is a covenant each partner makes with God. It is a commitment that we need to follow through on, not an optional situation that we can brush aside as soon as the irreconcilable differences rear their ugly heads.

Second, the way to your sweetheart’s heart is his or her love language: touch, quality time, gifts, words of affirmation, or acts of service. Learn which it is, and become fluent in it. My husband used to bring me flowers for every birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, mother’s day, etc., like clockwork. While the roses were beautiful, the gift became a bit predictable, and I also found myself fussing over the cost each time. My husband has learned that the way to my heart is much simpler and cost effective: peanut butter Snickers, Kit-Kat, and Crispy M&Ms to name a few. I still love flowers when they are unexpected or when I am feeling down about something. And I have learned that reaching out to hold his hand while we are grocery shopping, or simply scooting closer to him on the couch make him feel loved.

Third, make time for each other. Go on dates, even if it is a date to the grocery store or a trip to Lowe’s to get something for his latest project. Remember that you came together in the temple, and make the temple a regular part of your dating regimen.

Fourth, always, always put each other first. No other person (friends, siblings, parents, even your own kids) should be above your spouse in priority. Obviously when we are in the child-bearing years, the physical demands of our children tend to take up that first slot and putting each other first is more difficult, but this too shall pass! I have found that my kids love seeing their parents put each other first. After the kids go to bed on Friday nights we usually watch a movie. My middle child will often ask, ‘What are you and dad watching for movie night?’ If we say we’re not watching a movie she gets a little scowl and argues, ‘But it’s Friday, and Friday is movie night!”

Fifth, take care of each other. A few months ago I had a procedure that left me tired, weak, and stressed. At the end of the day I just broke down crying, and my sweet husband held me while I cried. That is the face of true love, in my opinion, the color of what marriage is all about. Not to mention, it brought us closer together and I felt so loved that I could have drowned in it. So, when I hear couples say ‘we just fell out of love’, what I am hearing each time is, ‘we stopped working on our relationship; we stopped communicating; we stopped putting each other first and making time for each other’.

Like our testimonies, our relationships are not self-sustaining. Remember that we aren’t in the Garden of Eden, where lush greenery and perfumed blossoms are growing wild all around us. We are in the lone and dreary world, where thistles, thorns, briars, and noxious weeds are allowed to afflict and torment us. We have to earn our bread, or in this case, our happy marriages, by the sweat of our brows.