Marriage Loyalty

This week I read an article for class about preventing affairs in marriage. It really helped me understand that even after a temple marriage, a husband and wife must be extremely careful and continue faithful to each other, because a celestial marriage doesn't come until this life is over and both have been faithful to the end. The adversary works so hard so separate families, and infidelity in a marriage is one of the leading causes of divorce. It is sadly amazing how the adversary can even take down bishops and relief society presidents in the church for falling into infidelity. Infidelity is such a sad thing to me and it makes me want even more to strengthen my love and affection for my soon to be wife, Janelle. This article gave some great advice on how we can prevent even getting close to the edge, because even though we never even think of the idea of being unfaithful to our spouses, the adversary is still working very keenly. This story about a college student after she just got married really helped me realize the amount of effort we need to put into being faithful to the end.                            
One female married college student reported this tender and powerful story:
One principle that really pricked my mind was the idea of being emotionally unfaithful. This really hit home to me. I have a certain guy friend, Jake, who has been a big influence in my life and will always be important to me. I could have married him, but chose not to. I love and cherish my husband, Chad, and don’t doubt that I made the right decision in marrying him, but I have found myself still wanting that friendship with Jake from my past. I felt myself having the thoughts described in our text of, “Why can’t Chad be more like Jake?” I looked forward to running into Jake on campus. I spoke to him occasionally on the computer. As I read the chapter on purity in our text, I was horrified, and tears filled my eyes when I realized that I was in those beginning stages of an emotional affair. The thought of being unfaithful to my sweetheart is disgusting to me, and yet in a way I was playing with emotional infidelity. I really loved the quote, “The grass is greener … on the side of the fence you water!” (Marshall, 2007). It is so true! My friendship was not bad, but what was bad was that I was putting energy into it
which should have been put into my marriage.
I made a strict commitment to myself and the Lord that I would not share my heart with anyone but my husband. I had been thinking about Jake, worrying a lot about him and I decided this was the end and I cut it out of my mind. Jake had other people and the Lord to take care of him.
I changed my usual route walking to class because I knew that sometimes walking that way I would run into Jake. I stopped talking to him on the computer. All that energy, the thoughts, the time on the computer, everything, I turned over to my husband plus more. I am again looking for little acts of service I can do to show Chad how much I do totally adore him. I am doing the things to build our relationship spiritually and to give God his place in our marriage. I want to have the greenest, most beautiful grass on the side of the fence where my husband is, and I will not let anything in to harm that.

Along with this story there is a great quote from President Hinckley, which says,

“Determine that there will never be anything that will come between you that will disrupt your marriage. Make it work. Resolve to make it work. There is far too much of divorce, wherein hearts are broken and sometimes lives are destroyed. Be fiercely loyal one to another.” (Hinckley, 1999, p. 4, emphasis added).

A celestail marriage requires a heroic effort from both parts of a marriage, the husband and the wife. It is such a reward to be able to obtain a celestial marriage, which means that there should be nothing that stands between a husband and wife.