Safeguarding Your Marriage

If you are like me, then you married fully hoping to have a love and a marriage that would last forever.  A forever marriage takes a lot work and requires a constant awareness in safeguarding it.  In Doctrine and Covenants 42: 22 it states: “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.”  President Spencer W. Kimball expounded on this verse by saying, “that the words none else eliminate everyone and everything.  The spouse then becomes preeminent in the life of the husband or wife and neither social life nor occupational life nor political life nor any other interest nor person nor thing shall ever take precedence over the companion spouse.”  This statement makes it very clear that your spouse is your top priority over all others. 

Just to make it more clear, President Kimball said, “Marriage presupposes total allegiance and total fidelity.  Each spouse takes the partner with the understanding that he or she gives totally to the spouse all the heart, strength, loyalty, honor, and affection, with all dignity.  Any divergence is sin; any sharing of the heart is transgression.  As we should have ‘an eye single to the glory of God,’ so should we have an eye, an ear, a heart single to the marriage and the spouse and family.”  This is a profound statement.  We are not safeguarding our marriage if we are “sharing” our heart with another.  President Kimball even boldly referred to this as a “sin” and a “transgression.”   

In Dr. H. Wallace Goddard’s book, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, he states that “the covenant we make with God to avoid all sexual relations outside of marriage precludes not only to physical, but romantic relationships outside of marriage, even if they are only mental or emotional” (Goddard, 2009, p. 91).  It is hard not to question why so many fall into the traps of having an affair, which can only lead to heartache and devastation in a marriage.  Dr. Goddard says that “Today Satan attacks us with subtle and indirect means.  He gets us inappropriately close to someone who is not our spouse under the guise of missionary work, friendship, or helpfulness.  He subtly builds inappropriate emotional bonds while quieting our consciences with weak rationalizations.”  Most people do not wake up one day and think, “gee, I think I’ll cheat on my spouse today.”  Most affairs happen, like Dr. Goddard said, by “subtle and indirect means.”  Dr. Goddard shares the stages and progression of unfaithfulness:

• Behaviors that seem innocent (i.e., missionary work, doing good, helping in some capacity)
• An affection grows that claims part of one’s heart
• Extramarital flirting. Justification-“no harm intended”
• Relationship declared as “special”
• Opportunities created to see “special friend” (One worries what other will say/think)
• Excuses made, lies told to hide time and resources spent on other person
• Spouse is displaced.  Emotional intimacy exchanged with “special friend”
• Faultfinding with spouse
• Fantasies about other person
• Physical affection—a squeeze, a kiss, a hug
• Sexual relations

 This list can be considered a warning or a checklist to make sure you are safeguarding your marriage.  Dr. Goddard says that “at any point in the process we can repent” Goddard, 2009, p. 93).  He also says that we need to “be alert to the predictable temptations that Satan uses to break up marriages.  We should monitor our behavior and our feelings closely.  By being alert to the danger signs we can prevent the problems that begin so innocently but end so disastrously” (Goddard, 2009, p. 94).  I believe that having boundaries and a constant awareness are key.   I also believe that a marriage between two people is worth protecting and safeguarding, so give it all you got!

Goddard, H. W. (2009). Drawing heaven into your marriage: eternal doctrines that change relationships. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap Publishing. 

Kimball, Spencer W. (1973). Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, p. 141-  143

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/42?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2009/09/fidelity-in-marriage-its-more-than-you-think?lang=eng (this is an additional resource that has great questions for a “personal assessment” for safeguarding and having fidelity in marriage)