(Encouragement from married family members on keys to having a happy marriage. Todd R. Britsh in an Ensign article shared:
Don’t try to make him into what you want him to be. You fell in love with what he is. He will still grow. But you’ll learn from experience to trust what he does rather than jumping to negative conclusions when you don’t understand something.
I don’t agree with whoever said ‘don’t go to sleep when you’re upset’. Most things that have me upset by bedtime aren’t really a problem by morning. We all have moods; we all get tired. A good night’s sleep really helps.
I agree with Sister Marjorie Hinckley: Someone asked her the secret of their happy marriage, and she said, “I lowered my expectations.”
I have found that, as a mother, my spiritual mood really does set the tone for my home. If I’m stressed, my kids are stressed, my husband is stressed. So I try to control myself more than I try to control others.
Communicate. Say why you’re thinking, in a kind way. Don’t make the other person read your mind and don’t let unspoken things build up until some event triggers a reaction that’s out of proportion.
Up to now, your first question has naturally been “what is best for me”:—how to use your time, money, school, work, whatever. But after your wedding, your biggest question is, “What is best for our marriage, our family?” And that is a very hard thing to learn.
As you hear all this advice, remember that each couple is unique, so different things work for different people, But whatever you do, show in every action that your spouse has the highest priority in your life. If one of you does things that suggest you give higher priority to other things or other people, that undercuts the confidence your marriage has to have.
For us, being married to each other has often been very hard. Yet I’ve learned that our relationship is still the best thing for us, because our particular match pushes both of us to develop in the ways we need most.
Don’t expect immediate perfection—in him, in marriage, in the relationship. You’re entering a big transition, and it takes time to grow into a whole new way of living. .
I read somewhere that loyalty is greater than love—and now I know it is, hard as that can be. Your loyalty to each other is what gives power to your covenants—and you have to learn how to do that. It will take time. Marriage will show you more about your weaknesses than his / hers; but it’s worth it.
The experiences of these couples, with fresh thoughts from lives still very much in process, showed me how much marriage does help us learn, just as Adam and Eve did.~~~From Stephen A. Cramer and his book “Covenant Hearts — “Marriage and the Joy of Human Hearts” Todd A. Britsch, Ensign, April 1986, 13.) p. 89-90
