From Richard G. Scott’s book 21 Principles, This is Principle 14: A happy marriage results from making correct choices prayerfully, it can transform a house into a place of heaven on earth.
Our Heavenly Father endowed His sons and daughters with unique traits especially fitted for their individual responsibilities as they fulfill His plan. In the Lord’s plan, it takes two—a man and a woman—to form a whole. Indeed, a husband and wife are not two identical halves, but a wondrous, divinely determined combination of complementary capacities and characteristics. Marriage allows these different characteristics to come together in oneness—in unity—to bless husband and wife, their children and their grandchildren. For the greatest happiness and productivity in life, both husband and wife are needed. Their efforts interlock and are complementary. Each has individual traits that best fit the role the Lord has for happiness as a man or woman. When used as the Lord intends, those capacities allow a married couple to think, act, and rejoice as one, to face challenges together and overcome them as one, to grow in love and understanding, and through temple ordinances to be bound together as one whole, eternally. That is the plan.
With that in mind, I wish to discuss some things that you might do to bring oneness into your marriage. One is to recognize that spouses need each other. Marriage isn’t a one way street. The daughters of Heavenly Father are particularly giving. They are so giving that they don’t know how good they are. Some men take that as a matter of course, as the way it is supposed to be: a husband being totally supported by his wife by the way she makes sacrifices. At night, when the children are supposed to be asleep, for example, she gets up time and time again, when the husband hears that baby cry just as much as she does. Or maybe he works hard and comes home feeling he has had an exhausting day and needs to relax. She has probably had a more exhausting day, and he needs to be compensating in the way he supports her. I don’t mean just physical help in the home, as important as that is. She needs to continue to develop her interests and her talents in appropriate ways. In order to do that she needs time for it, and the husband can provide that time by the support he gives.
[To men within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . Some brethren don’t recognize that there is a difference in how the priesthood is used in the home and how it is used in the Church. Because the Church is an organization where there are different levels, a hierarchical structure, we sometimes need to make decisions for those who are serving under us. In the home, the priesthood is not used that way. It is a patriarchal order.]
Who should make decisions in the home? The way of the Lord is that you make every decision together—period. And if you can’t do that, you work until you do.You pray about it.
You will find the greatest happiness if you will base every decision on the question, “What does the Lord want us to do?” Seek together the will of the Lord. That, I believe, is the way to keep the balance we should.
Throughout your life on earth, seek diligently to fulfill the fundamental purposes of this life through the ideal family. While you may not have yet reached that ideal, do all you can through obedience and faith in the Lord to consistently draw as close to it as you are able. Don’t become overanxious. Do the best you can. Living a pattern of life as close as possible to the ideal will provide much happiness, great satisfaction, and impressive growth here on earth. (Elder Richard G. Scott, deceased, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He passed away September 22, 2015).
