Keeping The Covenant Strong

Keeping the Covenant Strong

Guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.

Malachi 2:16

Like most couples deeply in love, we longed to find ways to make our love endure even before we were married. Part of the impetus for our vision came from reading A Severe Mercy, the real-life love story of Sheldon and Davy Vanauken, two people who not only dreamed about building a soulful union but actually devised a concrete strategy for doing so called their “Shining Barrier.” Its goal: to make their love invulnerable. Its plan: to share everything. Everything! If one of them liked something, they decided, there must be something to like in it—and the other must find it. Whether it be poetry, strawberries, or an interest in ships, Sheldon and Davy committed to share everything. That way they would create a thousand strands, great and small, that would link them together. They reasoned that by sharing everything they would create a glue to hold their covenant of marriage together forever.

Well, as romantic and noble as this goal seems, it became impractical for us. Like most other couples moving at the speed of life, we soon struggled to just keep abreast of one another’s days. And if you know the story of Sheldon and Davy, you know it didn’t exactly work for them either. To keep our covenant strong, we realized eventually that we would need something far more practical to serve as the superglue of our connection. That’s when we asked a simple question: what makes a marriage endure?

Ask most people this question and you’ll undoubtedly hear something about love. Ask people who have given serious thought to the subject, dedicating themselves to study and research on it, and you will probably hear a different answer. Better yet, ask this question of couples who have a long-lasting and good marriage in spite of the bad things they’ve encountered, and you’ll hear the answer that matters most. That’s what we did, and here’s what they told us: a good, enduring marriage is built by two people’s capacity to adjust to things beyond their control, even bad things. Couples who hone this ability through the inevitable jolts of life develop what has been called “the habit of happiness,” which is simply the capacity to choose the right attitude in spite of the circumstances.

What areas of life require resilience from one or both of you to protect your marriage? Today’s verse is set in the context of a warning against divorce, but guarding your heart against other calamities is just as important to your marriage. How can you cultivate the habit of happiness in your own heart in a way that strengthens your marriage?

A covenant made with God is not restrictive, but protective.

—Russell M. Nelson