Marriage

This week we started discussing marriage and marital intimacy. I didn't know much about this prior to this week but now I feel like I have a better understanding of what a healthy, successful marriage should be like. I obviously don't know for sure, but I have a better understanding anyway. We learned that the main thing that lowers marital satisfaction is the birth of the first and successive children. The couple becomes less satisfied with marriage when they start having children. This is a natural thing due to many factors. The couple has to deal with new challenges that involve more than just themselves. A couple is most dissatisfied with their marriage when their children are in their teens. After the first child leaves the nest, things get a little better. Their marital satisfaction increases successively as each child leaves the nest until they are all gone and the marriage is back to where it was before they had children. This is a generalized situation of course but a trend none the less. I think it is interesting how stresses make a marriage less satisfying but stress is good for us as humans. I also think it is interesting that the purpose of marriage is technically to have children and to raise them, but that is when it is the least satisfying to be married. Brother Williams made a list of the stresses that come with marriage and having the first child. He said that stress is natural and people naturally feel like pulling away from each other when stress arises. In fact, people are more likely to divorce in the 2nd to 5th years of marriage, usually after one or two children are born. Also, when children start leaving home. He went on to say that we don't want to do what is natural, we want to do what is divine. I know that God would not want us to pull away from each other when times get tough, but rather we should come closer together and learn together. If we can avoid those natural inclinations to pull away from one another in those stressful times then we have a better chance at a happy and successful marriage. I am obviously not an expert on this but what I learned this week makes sense to me and I would be willing to give it a shot when I get married.