Contract or Covenant Marriage

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Is your marriage based on a contract or a covenant?

This is the question I found asking myself after reading the talk by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, “Covenant Marriage.” He states, “when troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when trouble comes to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent.”

Am I completely unselfish and give 100 percent to my marriage? I would like to say with out a doubt yes but at times I don’t give 100 percent and I find myself thinking only about myself. I was married in the temple and made a covenant with my husband and Heavenly Father, but I think I times I forget just how important that covenant is. Although, I have been married for almost 15 years and we have stuck together and worked through many struggles together. We have learned to work and grow together. So even if I don’t give 100 percent all the time I feel like I am doing my best to have a covenant marriage.  

In the same talk Elder Hafen talks about 3 kinds of wolves that every marriage is tested by. One of the three wolves is the “excessive individualism that has spawned today’s contractual attitudes.” I feel like this is a real problem in our society we sometimes become so worried about ourselves and what is in it for us that we forget about others around us. This is a real problem when it comes to marriage. In marriage you must think about your companion and not just yourself. Elder Hafen states, “surely marriage partners must respect one another’s individual identity, and family members are neither slaves nor inanimate objects.” I really like the point that he made that we can still have our own individual identity in a marriage relationship without being selfish. Marriage is not bondage but a partnership.

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