The first home Mr. Ferrero Rocher and I lived in (not counting the apartment we had while in college) was an old 800 sq foot, non-insulated wood clapboard house. It was actually three office buildings from an old ghost town called Wonder here in Nevada. The buildings were brought down by horse and buggy in the 1920’s and slapped together for a family of 9 that were living in a one room house. That one room house was still in our yard and full of antique things like a cast iron wood burning cookstove. It was a dumpy little place compared to today’s standards. There was only one bedroom, a small bathroom, a living room and a kitchen. We had four children before we moved. It was a tight squeeze, a lot of work in the winter to keep it heated, and a lot of work in the summer to keep it cool.  But we loved living there. The struggles we experienced brought Mr. FR and I closer together.

A favorite movie of ours is McLintock starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.  One of the most memorable quotes is when GW (John Wayne) tells his daughter Becky what she’ll get when she is married. The most important part I italicized.

“Becky! Come here. Somethin’ I ought to tell you. Guess now’s as good a time as any. You’re going to have every young buck west of the Missouri around here tryin’ to marry you – mostly because you’re a handsome filly, but partly because I own everything in this country from here to there. They’ll think you’re going to inherit it. Well, you’re not. I’m going to leave most of it to, well, to the nation really, for a park where no lumbermen’ll cut down all the trees for houses with leaky roofs. Nobody’ll kill all the beaver for hats for dudes nor murder the buffalo for robes. What I’m going to give you is a 500 cow spread on the Upper Green River. Now that may not seem like much, but it’s more than we had, your mother and I. Some folks are gonna say I’m doin’ all this so I can sit up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me, or that I was disappointed in you – didn’t want you to get all that money. But the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some young man to have what I had, because all the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can’t equal what happens between a man and a woman with all that growin’ together. I can’t explain it any better than that. 

That’s what happened to us while living in our first home, and all the subsequent homes since. Oh, and working on a farm helped too. ☺ We learned what the Lord meant when he said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) or stated a little differently in modern day scripture “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.” (D&C 42:22)  If a couple is not careful there can be other ‘cleavings’ in their marriage: work, sports, friends, hobbies, even parents.

We must not let little distractions become big distractions, tearing our focus away from our marriages. Unity in marriage requires work, sacrifice, sharing, and unselfishness. The words “I,” “me,” and “my” need to be replaced with “we”, “us,” and “our.”  As stated in The Family Proclamation, “family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”  From the beginning God meant for His children to live in families and placed in men and women the desire to be joined together as man and wife. And because there is opposition in all things Satan in there trying to destroy, divide, and separate families. He is subtle and crafty and starts with petty little things. All he has to do is create feelings of anger so that contention can creep in. We MUST not allow that! Though at times it may be hard, following Paul’s teachings on charity, the pure love of Christ,  in 1 Corinthians 13 can help keep that anger from even taking root.

We have been lucky in our marriage to have open communication so we can discuss problems as they arise rather than letting them fester. We’ve never raised our voices with each other, except for once, when I burned my hand and I did the yelling. We also have common goals, the most important being to raise our children unto the Lord. We firmly believe the best way to care for our family is to follow the teachings laid out in the Family Proclamation:

“By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”

I choose to stay home with my children so that Mr. FR can go to work to fulfill his duties as provider for our family. Our duties are different but we are united in our goal to have a successful marriage and a happy family.

 Articles I recommend reading for more on this topic:
Oneness in Marriage by Spencer W. Kimball
That We May Be One  by Henry B. Eyring

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Join us for Wordfull Wednesday! The topic is “Unity in Marriage.” There are several different angles you can take when writing about this. How do you/ did you decide who does what at your house? What are the most important areas a couple should be united in? How do you ensure that other commitments of church, work, or social do not interfere with your loyalty to one another? Write a post then come and sign the Mr. Linky leaving a link to your post. I’m looking forward to see what you write!