Covenant vs Contract Marriage

Elder Bruce C. Hafen gave a great talk about covenant marriage at the October 1996 general conference. This was one year after my husband and I were sealed in the Seattle Temple and the year after The First Presidency came out with The Family: A Proclamation to the World. These two inspired documents have helped me immensely and were perfectly timed to help me in my marriage. In Elder Haven’s talk he shared some very important messages about the difference between contract and covenant marriages. He said that in a contract marriage each partner gives 50% but in a covenant marriage each couple needs to give 100%. When my husband and I made our covenants with Heavenly Father in 1995 we were very clueless as to how difficult marriage actually is and what it would take to keep our temple covenants. Like most brides, I was looking forward to the wonderful wedding day, the honeymoon, and moving in together in Provo, Utah. I don’t think we could have been prepared for what would come. Elder Haven shares that in marriage there are three kinds of wolves that come to test the relationship. The first is natural adversity, like health issues. The second is our own imperfections. Maybe we are too critical or negative. The third kind of wolf is excessive individualism, or selfishness. These three have definitely been a part of my marriage and have been difficult to handle. A mother once said as she was lamenting about her unruly son, “The Lord gave us that child to make Christians out of us”. This is the same way I feel about covenant marriage. We are literally children of God and to learn to love His children is how we become more like Him. I have been married for almost 23 years and it never really gets easier until we turn to the Lord and have His help through our trials.