The Wolves of Marriage

This week in Elder Hafen's (1996) talk, he talked about the wolves that like to devour and destroy marriages. The first wolf that he talked about was natural adversity. There are things that happen in our lives that our completely out of our control. Such as the difficulty for some couples to be able to have kids. Some couples can't have kids at all. Or even the adversity of the husband or wife losing their job. These difficulties can only destroy a marriage if you let them. Our adversities don't define our marriage. Our responses to them however, do. During times of adversity are the times that we need to turn to and count on one another the most. Never blaming the other as that will only make it worse. Coming above those adversities helps make us and our marriage stronger. 

The second wolf is the wolf of our own imperfections. This is one that I also struggle with myself. I constantly see and point out my flaws and criticize myself for them. It drives my husband crazy that I do this. He never dwells on my imperfections. Just as I never dwell or point out his. We don't let it destroy our marriage, however, we let it destroy ourselves. We get depressed and constantly berate ourselves for our imperfections. We then turn to the other for love and encouragement. We lift each other up and we make it so that this even helps strengthen our marriage rather than destroys it. We don't let these moments weaken our marriage. 

The final wolf that he talked about was excessive individualism. This is very prominent, especially in today's society. My parents raised me to be completely independent. If I was dependent in any way, I got scolded. When my husband and I were engaged, we were visiting my parents. My husband loves to help me so I would let him help me with even the smallest of things. Even like getting up. My mother then pulled me aside and scolded me for being so ridiculously dependent. However, my husband hated the fact that I was so independent. He wanted to be able to help me and most of the time I wouldn't let him. Mainly because I didn't want anymore ridicule from my mother. This put a strain on our marriage. We finally talked it out and decided that it was best for me to not worry about my mother and let him help. So I do and our marriage has gotten a lot better. I can still do everything on my own but it makes my husband happy. We can't expect our marriage to strengthen, if we don't give our spouse the opportunity to serve us.