The happiest marriages are formed over time, with lots of intentional effort, shaping of hearts until you truly cleave unto one another, and choosing to follow the commandment to “be happy” even if you don’t feel like it at the moment. I thought the progression would be very quick, and that the effort would be very small until we would be unified and united in the blissful “mature love.” But I’ve since learned that life is long. Don’t expect to be perfect now. Don’t get too worked up when you think differently about an issue, just let it go. Don’t let negative thoughts about your spouse consume you. They are destructive. They will lead you down a path of misery. Remember your marriage isn’t simply about your happiness today, or in a month, it’s about building a relationship for eternity. In the happiest marriages, spouses “believe their relationship to be a pearl beyond price, a treasure of infinite worth…They understand that they walk a divinely ordained path. They know that no other relationship of any kind can bring as much joy, generate as much good, or produce as much personal refinement” (L. Whitney Clayton). Couples with an eternal perspective have the blessing of God and He knows how to help each marriage flourish.

         I have mentors of “mature love,” a man and a woman who really are incredibly united, who really don’t fight, who really have anxious concern their spouse’s comfort and well being. From years of observation, I’ve learned some principles that I’ll pass along.

         First, marriages can spiral upward or downward with similar effort. You can choose which spiral you would rather pursue. Rather than choosing to nurture negativity about your spouse that consumes you and eventually leads to divorce, choose to send him a simple “I’m thinking about you” text, write a short love letter, make his hobby your hobby, answer his question with a happy voice and a countenance of compassion, choose to happily serve him by doing the dishes, and choose to put destructive count-and-compare thoughts out of your head. As his wife, you are the guardian of his good name; choose to spread goodness about him.

         Second, when you have something you want your spouse to do for you or if you wish he would change something, follow the example of Tevye. Instead of running to one’s spouse and pointing out his flaw, go to the Lord in prayer. As my mentor goes to the Lord with a humble heart, she hears the Lord whisper: “you want him to be more tender with you? Be more tender with him.”  As she follows the Lord’s counsel, their relationship improves and he usually begins to exhibit the quality she had hoped.

If this change doesn’t happen immediately, be patient. My mentor explained this principle:

      "Brigham Young says that when we are resurrected, not only will we become perfect in body, but our very dispositions will become celestial.  Think of it!  If anyone is struggling with unhappiness with a spouse, they only have to live worthy of a celestial inheritance and they will inherit their eternal mate with a purified disposition who possesses celestial behaviors/traits.

It gives such hope for happiness.  It gives me hope for my own stubborn spirit.  The 'natural man' things that I possess can be changed.  Of course my efforts toward sanctification are important now on earth, but the knowledge that we can be made truly perfect upon resurrection makes me want to shout 'Hurrah for Israel!'  The sealing power continues to amaze and humble me. The blessings of a temple sealing are truly endless. 

      Joseph Smith once said that truth 'tastes good.'  This is sublimely sweet to me!"

      … “I think it has been taught by some that as we lay our bodies down, they will so rise again in the resurrection with all the impediments and imperfections that they had here; and that if a wife does not love her husband in this state she cannot love him in the next. This is not so. Those who attain to the blessing of the first or celestial resurrection will be pure and holy, and perfect in body. Every man and woman that reaches to this unspeakable attainment will be as beautiful as the angels that surround the throne of God. If you can, by faithfulness in this life, obtain the right to come up in the morning of the resurrection, you need entertain no fears that the wife will be dissatisfied with her husband, or the husband with the wife; for those of the first resurrection will be free from sin and from the consequences and power of sin” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses).

         Third, follow the principles of repentance and forgiveness. President Kimball taught, “Marriage partners must be quick to forgive. If we will sue for peace, taking the initiative in settling differences—if we forgive and forget with all our hearts … if we forgive all real or fancied offenses before we ask forgiveness for our own sins—if we pay our own debts, large or small, before we press our debtors—if we manage to clear our own eyes of the blinding beams before we magnify the motes in the eyes of others—what a glorious world this would be! Divorce would be reduced to a minimum; courts would be freed from disgusting routines; family life would be heavenly; the building of the kingdom would go forward at an accelerated pace; and the peace which passeth understanding would bring to us all a joy and happiness which has hardly ‘entered into the heart of man'” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball). Humility