Marriage Trends- Divorce 

I wanted my first post of my blog to have a really catchy and fun hook for readers.  I wanted followers to be excited about reading my thoughts and ideas that I am learning about in my Marriage class.  So I was quite disappointed when I logged into the reading materials to see that we would be diving right into divorce- on week two- of a marriage class.   I am going to try and keep this upbeat, and not focus on the disparaging statistics of the unlikelihood that a marriage will survive.  Marriage is hard and I don't think there is one couple out there that hasn't thought at one time or another about throwing in the towel.  We may feel we have been tricked into this institution.  As young adults we look at what appear to be happy marriages all around us and then when real life sets in after the honeymoon we might feel like we are missing something.  Everyone else is living in marital bliss, why aren't we?  This may be the point where doubts start creeping in as to if we made a mistake by choosing the one we did.   

President Hinckley said, "Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed... most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration."  He knew what so many of us are still learning and what I think many who eventually divorce never learn, that we marry imperfect people.  Our challenge in marriage, is to make the most of those imperfections.  Instead of giving up on marriage I think that struggling married couples should ponder the words of Elder Eyring:

   If all married couples kept this as their mantra during trying times, maybe some of the depressing figures about divorce wouldn't be so disparaging and we would see more marriages being successful.