My
marriage means so much to me. I have been married to my sweet heart for 4
years. I am taking a marriage class
through BYU-Idaho and each week I will be posting what I have learned for that
week. This week I read a lot of material on divorce and how it affects the
family and our society. This post will be about what stood out to me this
week. Enjoy!
In
the “State of the Union 2012” it states that the highest percentage of
marriages that are failing are in the “Middle America,” or the middle class. It
stated that the gap between the wealthy and poor is widening and with that
middle America is decreasing. It also talks about how there aren’t as many
people with middle incomes any more and that the values that used to be so
strong with that group of people are also decreasing. The paper speaks out how
this is a huge part of way we see marriages failing around us and that the
strong values are being lost, and new beliefs are surfacing that hurt
marriages. I have never thought that there was a connection between the two before.
In
the “State of the Union” they still gave hope and ways for families to become
stronger. They said that 40-50% of
marriages will fail, but that there are some that have a higher or lower risk
than others. They then gave a chart that stated different things that can lower
your chance of divorce. It mentions a higher income than $50,000 each year,
having a getting pregnant within the first year of getting married, marrying
when you are 25 or older, if your family of origin is intact, if you are religious
and if you have a college degree. All of
those help your marriage and contribute to a lower likelihood of divorce.
President Kimball taught, "Two individuals approaching the
marriage altar must realize that to attain the happy marriage which they hope
for, they must know that marriage means sacrifice, sharing, and even a
reduction of some personal liberties. It means long, hard economizing. It means
children who bring with them financial burdens, service burdens, care and worry
burden; but also it means the deepest and sweetest emotions of all."
(Ensign May 2007, p.6) from personal experience that
Carlfred
Broderick stated that there are transitional characters and so many times “the
sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children to the third and
fourth generation.” But when you see someone that “somehow find a way to
metabolize the poison and refuse to pass it on to their children. They break
the mold.” You are so proud of that person and for overcoming the trails and
sins of the past. Everyone has an opportunity to choose what life they want to
live. No matter what circumstance we are in or forced to be in we are still
accountable for the actions that we can control. We can still choose to rely on
God and overcome the trails in our lives.
I’m
so grateful for the “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It gives us
guidelines to follow to have strong and healthy marriages and families. The
Lord has provided us a way to make sure that “we don’t fall out of love,” like
so many of the surveys said in the documents we read this week.
At
the end of the Proclamation it states, “We call
upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote
those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the
fundamental unit of society." There is
so much that we can do. We can make sure our marriages are strong and set an
example with those around us. We can also start programs or join existing ones
that help families that are struggling. There are so many families that just
need an extra push in the right direction and a guide to follow to be able to
become stronger. If we also start focus on the importance of education in lower
income areas and somehow find something that will motivate the families to want
to take their kids to school and then have the kids get excited about school.
People that have strong families and values need to get involved with the
community and run for offices. We need people that understand the importance of
the family to lead our communities and country. There so many times people try
to fix problems by just throwing money at the problem when really they need to
fix the deeper problem within the family that will have a lasting effect.
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