The Right Person

"Marriage... is ordained of God."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

When I was a teenager, I made lists of the qualities I wanted in a husband. My lists were a little biased since I always aligned them with the specific person I had in mind (usually Scotty). My lists included some noble qualities, like "must be honest," and "must treat me with respect," but they also included some pretty stupid qualities like, "must like roller coasters," and "must drink blue Gatorade."

 

I don't know where the whole "make a list" trend began, but such lists were pretty common among teenage girls "back in the day" (raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about... c'mon... don't be ashamed...)

In an interview for the Mormon Channel, Sheri Dew asked Elder David A. Bednar what advice he would give to young adults seeking a marriage partner. His response was straight-forward. He said:

As we visit with young adults all over the church often they will ask, ‘What are the characteristics I should look for in a future spouse?' as though they have some checklist of 'I need to find someone who has these three or four or five things.' And I rather forcefully say to them, ‘You are so arrogant to think that you are some catch and that you want someone else who has these five things for you. If you found somebody who had these three or four or five characteristics you are looking for, what makes you think they’d want to marry you?' The "list" is not for evaluating someone else - the list is for you and what you need to become. And so if there are three primary characteristics that [you] hope to find in an eternal companion than those are the three things [you] ought to be working to become. Then [you] will be attractive to someone who has those things... you’re not on a shopping spree looking for the greatest value with a series of characteristics. You become what you hope your spouse will be and you’ll have a greater likelihood of finding that person.

Quick! Hide your lists, and we'll pretend they never happened!

What Elder Bednar was getting at is that we put a lot of focus on finding the "right person," and we neglect the opportunity to become the "right person." Perhaps instead of making lists of the type of spouse we want to find, we should be making lists of the type of spouse we want to become. 

Finding the right person is still an important part of forming a loving and lasting marriage, but a "becoming-based" approach puts the main emphasis on "becoming ready for marriage and then committing to that relationship when you have made the decision to marry" (Carroll, 2012).

Part of becoming the right person includes expanding your perspective of the marriage relationship from simply a couple relationship to a divine institution (Carroll, 2012). 

When we view marriage as a couple relationship, it's seen as an expression of love between two people who want to share their lives together. This view emphasizes:

• personal happiness
• emotional gratification
• physical attraction
• good communication
• pleasurable intimacy
• couple compatibility

Those are all great things that most of us hope for in marriage, but if those are the only elements of marriage we desire, we miss out on some of the more sacred aspects of marriage such as:

• covenant making
• cleaving
• equal partnership
• the sacred responsibilities of husband and wife
• the eternal purposes of marriage

Think of the couple relationship as the "fruits" or marriage while the divine institution is the "roots." When we focus on just the "fruits," our marriage is incomplete. When we focus on the "roots," we begin to understand that one of the keys to a successful marriage is not only to be compatible as spouses but to be aligned with God (Carroll, 2012).

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland suggested that one of the greatest ways to increase readiness for marriage is to "Be a true disciple of Jesus. Be a genuine, committed, word-and-deed Latter-Day Saint. Believe that your faith has everything to do with your romance because it does" (2003).

I think all of this advice is just as relevant during marriage as it is prior to marriage. We need to always work on improving ourselves and becoming "the right person." This expounds on my previous post, in which I wrote about the importance of being willing to adapt our behaviors and attitudes for the good of the relationship. It needs to be an ongoing process, and I like the idea of simultaneously becoming a better disciple of Christ.

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This post was inspired by "Young Adulthood and Pathways to Eternal Marriage" by Jason S. Carroll, published in Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives, 2012. This piece of writing is part of my Family Proclamation project for FAML 100 at Brigham Young University Idaho.