The Church program for preparing individuals for marriage

[Anonymous]

If you were to articulate what the Church’s program is for preparing individuals for marriage, what would it be? And do you think it’s effective?

No surprise — I think the Church does an awful job of helping individuals prepare for marriage. Most of it is idealistic talk over the pulpit that raises the expectations of what a good partner is beyond what is reasonable, rather than identifying key variables or the questions a person should ask themself. The focus is on external trappings of our culture such as RM, righteous priesthood holder, and in the temple, rather than on the true, inner dynamics of what makes a marriage successful. The only criterion I heard for my wife was strong in the church and good with children.

We were lucky in that she is also focused on financial success and therefore believes working outside the home is OK — something that contributed to saving my marriage.

There are times when I think the church should consider adopting a professional program for couples, based on research AND inspiration. One that helps couples understand what makes successful marriages, what their personal needs are. And how to determine if a person is suitable for marriage given the commandments of chastity, not living together, etcetera. The focus is on helping individuals develop self-awareness of what is important to them so they have the capacity to make better decisions — not to tell them who to marry.

I routinely share my insights with my daughter about marriage. I help her realize what her emotional needs are given what I’ve learned….she has a strong need for domestic support, for conversation and for family commitment. Some needs for recreational companionship.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

If you were to articulate what the Church’s program is for preparing individuals for marriage, what would it be? And do you think it’s effective?…No surprise — I think the Church does an awful job of helping individuals prepare for marriage. Most of it is idealistic talk over the pulpit that raises the expectations of what a good partner is beyond what is reasonable, rather than identifying key variables or the questions a person should ask themself. The focus is on external trappings of our culture such as RM, righteous priesthood holder, and in the temple, rather than on the true, inner dynamics of what makes a marriage successful.

There are times when I think the church should consider adopting a professional program for couples, based on research AND inspiration. One that helps couples understand what makes successful marriages, what their personal needs are. And how to determine if a person is suitable for marriage given the commandments of chastity, not living together, etcetera. The focus is on helping individuals develop self-awareness of what is important to them so they have the capacity to make better decisions…

To me the Church’s program to prepare members for marriage sounds like a fairytale. The main thing they focus on is marrying another “worthy” Mormon in the temple and then you are done and ready to live happily ever after with your princess or prince charming. There is also significant pressure to rush into marriage long before most Church members really should in my opinion mostly because of the idea that any sexual experiences outside of marriage are extremely serious sins and fear that members will eventually fall away from the “one true path” permanently if they remain single too long. Marriage is already a crap-shoot to some extent but it will depend even more on pure luck if you have people that hardly know each other getting married mostly because they think that’s what they are supposed to do as soon as possible.

I think part of the problem is that top Church leaders don’t necessarily have an obvious way to know any better. How many of them have ever been divorced? None that I know of. If they’ve basically been with one woman their entire lives then they don’t really have much to compare it against. If they see others get divorced they can always make excuses why this same magic formula for success failed in these cases (I.E. maybe they didn’t try hard enough to make it work, are weak, sinful, etc.) because if this worked alright for them then why wouldn’t it work the same way for everyone else? One problem with this general approach is that you can be a decent temple worthy RM and do everything the Church directly recommends and still end up with a horrible and unsatisfying marriage whether it is bad luck, your own fault, your spouse’s fault, or (more likely) both partners’ fault.

Also, I think the Church encourages and conditions members to put up with things they really shouldn’t because there is added fear and shame attached to divorce or even unresolved disagreements. It seems like there is a strong tendency in the Church to just put on a happy face and pretend everything is alright when it really isn’t to try to keep up appearances. That’s why I think Church leaders should definitely pay more attention to actual long-term results and all the cases where their current teachings about marriage didn’t work out as expected as well as the research findings and ideas of psychologists like John Gottman that specifically study what the differences are between marriages that eventually fail and marriages where both partners honestly feel happy with the relationship. Until then I would ignore most of their advice about marriage because it generally seems to be based on a very limited perspective.

[Anonymous]

I compare it to preparing to serve a mission. The church has tried to prepare youth earlier in life to prepare with scripture study and seminary and FSOY. But do they really prepare the youth for the emotional and spiritual stress the mission will require? Not sure they do that well, because the emphasis is on obedience and spirituality, then if you get on your mission you work it out as you go along (no one really properly prepares you for the mission experience). They like to hoist up the ideal, then just deal with the fallout.

It seems similar with marriage. It is a righteous desire, but so different from individual to individual…you have to experience it and figure it out as you go along.

I think more could be done to prepare people for it. And perhaps mission prep is stressed so much for YM, that marriage prep is unfairly stressed more to YW than to YM…which is a bad plan.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

If you were to articulate what the Church’s program is for preparing individuals for marriage, what would it be?

Responding to the word “program”, I would answer:

Almost non-existent – except the emphasis on not having sex prior to marriage.

There are two areas where I think we fail miserably as a church – speaking generally and not about all members:

1) Letting young men and women actually have the responsibilities they are supposed to have in the youth programs;

2) Preparing our youth and young adults for marriage.

Is it effective?

Yes, at getting some people married in the temple – and, generally, at keeping that group married.

No, at actually preparing them properly for marriage – especially outside the temple and as they advance past their mid-20’s.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote

Quote:

I compare it to preparing to serve a mission. The church has tried to prepare youth earlier in life to prepare with scripture study and seminary and FSOY. But do they really prepare the youth for the emotional and spiritual stress the mission will require? Not sure they do that well, because the emphasis is on obedience and spirituality, then if you get on your mission you work it out as you go along (no one really properly prepares you for the mission experience).

I agree with Heber13. On my mission even though I though my spiritually was strong. I had difficult situations arise with the opposite sex where I wish I could have done more to avoid it or actually indulge in such “impure” impulses. Having 19-21 year-old men live together like monks isn’t ideal, especially when women were ready to throw themselves at you and even some members encouraged their daughters to flirt with you wasn’t helpful also. I remember one Elder returning after his mission to marry a Branch President’s daughter a month after he got home from his mission.

Sometimes a wonder how my life would be if I didn’t go on a mission. It seemed like I missed out on great job opportunities because of how the computer age just went off. I’m still behind. I guess sacrifice mean sacrificing my future. I would have never had to worry about the crazy transition back to normalcy afterward where I screwed up.

Additionally, I think the Church does a horrible job with RMs as well. You either strive to be peter-priesthood-like, or go off the deep end. It is really hard to keep it even keel. I remember jumping on my old-mission bike to see who was at the park to engage in a gospel discussion within the first 6 months of being home. I remember how difficult a re-transition was to normal life. I was almost placed on anti-depressants because in the mission I was somebody special, but when I got home I was a has-been-nobody, just like everyone else, without the apostolic commission of power. It felt like superman with kryptonite. I didn’t even recognize my friends anymore or think they were cool. They didn’t want to be friends they just wanted to move on and get married. I got paired-off and married because everyone else was doing it to, all my friends became RMs who had changed. For me it would have been nice if I could have taught early morning seminary or something while I was going to college, because then I could have at least satisfied the craving for teaching the gospel and helping others.

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