Lucky in Love

I have thought a lot about choosing an eternal companion.  Someone whom you can Love for eternity.  Especially when we, as Latter Day Saints, tend to marry so young, with very little life experience. I was married at the ripe old age of 18 to a man who I had know for less than 6 months.  I don't recommend this for everyone, but for me it worked out perfectly, because here we are 18 years later still happily married.  If I could go back and do it again I would pick Charles every time.  

Why did we get so Lucky, or is it luck? Only a few months before we were married my parents officially divorced. I thought I knew where their marriage went wrong, and was set on not making the same mistakes in my own marriage.  So, I went about talking to Charles about his dreams and aspirations.  His hobbies and thoughts of all sorts of different things.  I was learning as much about him as possible to ensure he was the kind of man I could love forever.  He in turn was learning about me.  We were following Elder Dallin H.Oaks advice without even knowing it.  Elder Oaks said,in his talk title Divorce, "The best way to avoid divorce from an unfaithful, abusive, or unsupportive spouse is to avoid marriage to such a person. If you wish to marry well, inquire well. There should be dating, followed by careful and thoughtful courtship. There should be ample opportunities to experience the prospective spouse's behavior in a variety of circumstances.  Fiances should learn everything they can about the families with whom they will soon be joined in marriage."

Charles and I really did seek to know as much about each other and our families as possible, once married we had relatively few surprises.  He already knew I was bossy um...assertive, and he likes it that was. I knew he is clean and organized and I like it that way.  I knew he searching for a job, he knew I worked at WalMart, there were no questions about where we would stand financially when we joined as a union.  We both knew we were willing to sacrifice anything for families.  We both have a deep love and respect for our mothers and for each others mother. Yet, we were both willing to leave our mothers and cleave to one another and choose our spouse first. We both had a strong and firm devotion to our beliefs in the Savior Jesus Christ. To this day none of those things have changed, we inquired well and in the end married well.

I recognize good people can change, bad habits can form at any time if we aren't careful.  From my experience, the best start to a happy successful marriage is to follow Elder Oaks' advice and inquire well to marry well.