As I've said before, I'm not an expert on marriage. But I have found a lot of resources through the years about how to keep a marriage happy and strong. Some of my favorite resources are from my religion - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have a long history of emphasizing the importance of marriage and family as the central and standard unit of all healthy societies. Family structures where a a man and woman work together in unity and harmony to build a happy, balanced, and thriving life for themselves and their children, teaching them principles of love, hard work, and a reliance on Jesus Christ as our Savior.
In a recent General Conference - April 2020 - Sister Jean Bingham gave this talk about how husbands and wives should work together with a united vision. I appreciate this quote from her talk:
"Unity is essential to the divine work we are privileged and called to do, but it doesn’t just happen. It takes effort and time to really counsel together—to listen to one another, understand others’ viewpoints, and share experiences—but the process results in more inspired decisions. Whether at home or in our Church responsibilities, the most effective way to fulfill our divine potential is to work together, blessed by the power and authority of the priesthood in our differing yet complementary roles."
Lots of people reject the notion of complementary roles, thinking of it as a method of excusing the subjugation of females, but I disagree with that analysis. To read the rest of Sister Bingham's talk you can visit here.
Another resource I use for reminding myself about keeping my marriage balanced and centered in my life is from Waldorf Essentials. I've written about them before, but they have truly been a wonderful resource in many ways - from helping me figure out a home rhythm to providing curriculum and resources for our homeschooling they are pretty much my first stop for almost every question that I seem to have. On their resources page they offer a wonderful PDF download titled "Marriage and Waldorf Homeschooling". Melisa has a way of cutting straight to the heart of an issue, and her counsel has never failed to open my eyes to my own short comings. Her constant advice to anyone using their program is to face the difficult situations we are experiencing and tackle them head on. This is invaluable for me since I tend to either avoid facing the issues that I have or wallow too much in my misery without doing anything to change it or move forward. Melisa offers many wonderful resources, I'd encourage you to check out her page here. I am a member of her Thinking Feeling Willing program (TFW) and I just love it. I yet to finish all the Mom Lessons, though I may focus on those this summer and do a blog series on them! If you'd like to purchase some curriculum you can sign up for it here. She has monthly and yearly subscription options, which come with coaching, and curriculum bundles as well. I love her program even if I don't follow her curriculum completely!
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