"It is not easy, but life was never meant to be either easy or fair", are the words of President Boyd K. Packer (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/04/and-a-little-child-shall-lead-them?lang=eng), a former president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think we can easily replace life with marriage in that quote for the purpose of this post. Marriage can be wonderful, fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating and challenging. According to Dr. H. Wallace Goddard, a former Professor of Family Life for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, "Any time we feel irritated with each other it is an opportunity to grow. Irritation is an invitation to better thinking and acting" (Goddard, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, p.65). As hard as that might sound, I believe it to be true. When we find ourselves in a challenging situation we sometimes say things we don't quite mean and possibly regret saying them later. We need to take control of how we react and remember to breath deeply before expressing our feelings.
Dr. Goddard paraphrases Brigham Young's response when two sisters came to him, both wanting to divorce their husbands: "If you could only see your husband as he will be in the glorious resurrection, this very husband you now say you despise, your first impulse would be to kneel and worship him." President Young would say the same thing to husbands who felt no longer in love with their wives. Wow, how powerful are his words! This is why we need to trust the Lord and His plan for each and every one of us. We found our spouses, fell in love, and got married. We knelt down together at the altar in God's Holy Temple and made covenants with God and with each other. Those promises are meant to be lived by us every day. If we want our marriage to succeed we need to turn towards our partners. That means we connect, be involved, respond to their needs without hesitation, be slow to judge them, make their priorities ours, and so on. When our partner feels loved and appreciated he/she will most likely respond in the same way to our needs and desires.
I love feeling appreciated and needed. Being a wife and a mother brings me so much happiness and there is nothing in this world that makes me feel the same way. My husband and I try to always make time for each other, and when we don't we can both feel it. Every day we get opportunities to show appreciation and interest in our spouses. It's those little things that matter the most, such as waking up our husbands with a kiss and a tender hug, preparing one of his favorite meals, making sure he has clean clothes for work, sending a random funny/cute quote we found on social media, etc. When my husband does these things for me it sure makes me feel loved and important. Some of these small things only take a few minutes of our time, but for our spouses this means the world. Let's all make our spouses a priority and let them know how much they mean to us every day.
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