By Katie Parker
There was something about the phrase “marriage for time and all eternity” that sounded incredibly blissful to me when I was a starry-eyed teenager. Surely when the magical day of my temple marriage arrived, my husband and I would be whisked into a peaceful future in our little cottage in the clouds. What else could marriage for time and all eternity involve?

Well. . . a lot. To begin with, our first home wasn’t a glowing little cottage in the clouds, it was an apartment with secondhand furniture and avocado appliances. And the realities of mortality were around us everywhere: bills to pay, not enough money to pay them, demanding schedules, our little blue car that always needed fixing. And we had to learn to relate to each other as husband and wife and forge our own little family.

Slowly it dawned on me that marriage for time and all eternity wasn’t a prize we won simply because we were married in the temple. Marriage for time and all eternity—a real marriage that we both cherished and wanted to last forever—was something we had to invest in and earn. Seventeen years later, I’m still working on it.

What advice would I give myself if I could travel back in time to our first year of marriage and pry my younger self away from the many other activities that held my attention at that time?
First off, I’d sit that younger self down and explain how vitally important this marriage relationship was to her and would be to her in the future. I’d tell her to treat it carefully, and invest her time and best efforts in it.

I’d tell her to never let her husband feel unloved or unimportant to her. Yes, she had many demands on her time and responsibilities to fill, but her relationships with the Lord and with her husband should be first, not last.

I’d tell her to keep a little spark of adventure alive in their relationship. Dating and courtship is an adventure. Trying to make it through real life in marriage can be a constant challenge, but there still needs to be that element of fun and excitement that drew a couple together in the first place.

I’d suggest she run her fingers through his lush dark hair and enjoy every minute of it, because in a few years much of it would be gone as his hairline receded.

I’d encourage her to keep up with her responsibilities in the home, and work with her husband to ensure that it’s a house of order. The Spirit can dwell more freely in clean and orderly places, and the companionship of the Spirit is something she and her husband absolutely need throughout their marriage.

I’d remind her about the importance of praying together as a couple, attending the temple together, studying the scriptures together, and doing all those things that invite the Spirit into their marriage. And I’d remind her that negative influences such as movies with “only a few bad parts” in them drive the Spirit away. Selling the companionship of the Spirit for a couple of hours of entertainment is not worth it.

I’d ask her to smile. Yes, there would be difficult times when she wouldn’t feel like smiling, but there would also be plenty of times that could be made that much better if she remembered to smile and be cheerful.

I’d explain to her that her precious husband will at times say or do things she doesn’t agree with. She will do the same to him. I’d encourage her—even exhort her—to mend hurt feelings quickly and concentrate on how she and her husband can work together, rather than develop rifts between them that are hard to bridge later.

Above all, I’d give her a big hug and tell her there are so many good things that can come from
her marriage if she will put in the effort it will take. I’d remind her that it’s not the glamour surrounding the wedding that’s important, and even the temple ceremony is over in a few minutes. The rest of time and eternity is what she and her husband will make it.