“The greatest
guardians of any and all virtues are marriage and family. This is
particularly the case with the virtues of chastity and fidelity in
marriage, both of which are required to create enduring and fully
rewarding marriage partnerships and family relationships.”
This was probably my most favorite phrase out of Elder Nelson’s address that we read this week. We talked a lot about divorce last week, and I can see how closely that ties in with this phrase as well. He mentions “chastity” and “fidelity” in this talk and, in my mind, I always just used to think of both of those things as a simple way to say, “not cheating on your spouse sexually, physically, etc.” I wanted to see what exactly Elder Nelson meant by this, so I looked up the word “fidelity” online and according to the dictionary, “fidelity” is:
“Faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.”
In my mind, this means so much more than just remaining sexually singular to your spouse. It mentions the importance of loyalty and support to your spouse and, at times, those can be hard things to always keep up on every day. In life, there are so many distractions that take us away from our spousal relationship and the vital “organs” within that relationship like good communication, simple compliments, etc. For my husband and I, we do as a lot of young people at BYU-I do and do summer sales every summer. We are currently living in Houston where it is humid, hot, buggy (which is great for his job {pest control sales}, but not too fun for me), far away from friends and family, and kind of lonely at times as he works from 9am-9pm every day. I can look in the mirror and tell myself, “I’m very supportive, just look at where I am! He should be happy that I moved all the way out to Houston just for his job!” and sometimes, I do just that! (Isn’t that ridiculous of me?) However, being supportive does not mean just grouchily moving somewhere for five months while my husband makes a living for us and provides us with the funds necessary for us to live, go to school, etc. Being supportive means telling him how proud I am of him at the end of, very clearly, long days, doing what I can to make his life easier, and giving him words of affirmation and appreciation. This is something that I need to work on every day. I am guilty of complaining and sounding ungrateful at times the same as every human is, but it is something that I know I need to continue to work on to assure that I am living up to what Elder Nelson said as showing fidelity to my spouse. This works both ways in a relationship and my situation is unique to my marriage as other situations are unique to other marriages, but I just found it to be so interesting how support and loyalty are just as important in a marriage as living a chaste life outside of your marriage.
This was probably my most favorite phrase out of Elder Nelson’s address that we read this week. We talked a lot about divorce last week, and I can see how closely that ties in with this phrase as well. He mentions “chastity” and “fidelity” in this talk and, in my mind, I always just used to think of both of those things as a simple way to say, “not cheating on your spouse sexually, physically, etc.” I wanted to see what exactly Elder Nelson meant by this, so I looked up the word “fidelity” online and according to the dictionary, “fidelity” is:
“Faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.”
In my mind, this means so much more than just remaining sexually singular to your spouse. It mentions the importance of loyalty and support to your spouse and, at times, those can be hard things to always keep up on every day. In life, there are so many distractions that take us away from our spousal relationship and the vital “organs” within that relationship like good communication, simple compliments, etc. For my husband and I, we do as a lot of young people at BYU-I do and do summer sales every summer. We are currently living in Houston where it is humid, hot, buggy (which is great for his job {pest control sales}, but not too fun for me), far away from friends and family, and kind of lonely at times as he works from 9am-9pm every day. I can look in the mirror and tell myself, “I’m very supportive, just look at where I am! He should be happy that I moved all the way out to Houston just for his job!” and sometimes, I do just that! (Isn’t that ridiculous of me?) However, being supportive does not mean just grouchily moving somewhere for five months while my husband makes a living for us and provides us with the funds necessary for us to live, go to school, etc. Being supportive means telling him how proud I am of him at the end of, very clearly, long days, doing what I can to make his life easier, and giving him words of affirmation and appreciation. This is something that I need to work on every day. I am guilty of complaining and sounding ungrateful at times the same as every human is, but it is something that I know I need to continue to work on to assure that I am living up to what Elder Nelson said as showing fidelity to my spouse. This works both ways in a relationship and my situation is unique to my marriage as other situations are unique to other marriages, but I just found it to be so interesting how support and loyalty are just as important in a marriage as living a chaste life outside of your marriage.
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