Two Years And Counting

Two years ago today Gretch and I were married according to the laws of man and sealed to one other for time and all eternity according to the laws of God. The decision to marry Gretchen ranks as the best decision I have ever made.

In the couple of weeks before our anniversary, Gretch and I had the honour to be present for both of our sisters' weddings. Amanda and Cameron got married on the 5th. Erin and Sam just got married yesterday (the 19th). All of these weddings have had my thoughts focused on what marriage means to me. I spent some time recently tweeting a few of those thoughts. This was by no means an exhaustive list of what I believe about marriage. Rather, it was just a few of the thoughts that came to me. Seeing as so many of you don't use Twitter, I thought I'd share them here, in no particular order:

"If a man cannot tell his wife about his hopes, his dreams, his worries, and his frustrations, then who can he tell?"

Although some of my friends jokingly responded to this thought by saying that a guy can turn to his therapist, his facebook friends, and his buddies, the reality is that if I can't tell my spouse, I can't tell anyone. Gretch and I are not able to read minds, so there are surely things that I think that she doesn't know, and there are things she thinks that I don't know, but we do not actively try to keep secrets from one another.

"'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it.' Ephesians 5:25"

Many years ago, I saw an LDS-made video about families. In it, there was a brief clip about a young missionary who received a letter from his parents for a family he was teaching. They had been going through a rough time, and the missionaries' dad wanted to share some insights. The father wrote about a night he had a fight with his wife, "a real doozy" he calls it in the video, and ended up sleeping on the couch. He goes on to describe facing an old cross-stitch on the wall that had this scripture from Ephesians on it. I have loved this scripture ever since. To me, it perfectly embodies the type of relationship a man should have with his wife: complete and utter devotion, built on a foundation of love, with a willingness to do whatever is needed to support her.

"Marriage is like a corporation in which husband and wife are both the board of directors and the only shareholders. In this family corporation, each spouse has 50% of the shares, so that neither may act on behalf of the family without the other."

Years ago, I probably would not have understood this concept. But, having run a business for a year and a half, I have learned a lot about business structures. One of the things I find most interesting is that, in a corporation, the shareholders have a say in how the company is run. We have to be in agreement before decisions are made. We try to model our activities after those of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the LDS church. They do not move forward until they are in complete agreement. If Gretch and I do not agree, we have to work on a compromise. Of course, there are all sorts of holes in the analogy. No analogy is perfect, but this one at least makes sense to us.

So here's to the future, whatever it may bring!

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