What Kind of Marriage Do You Want?

Marriages and families are stronger with a certain kind of marriages. There is a statistic that says that “there is a 50% divorce rate in our society,” but that statistic does not mean that marriage is a “50-50-coin toss.” Jason Carroll, a prominent marriage counselor and researcher with more than 30 years of experience in studying marriage and family life, says that it depends on the type of marriage that you are discussing. 

What I have learned from over 30 years of researching marriages is that different kinds of marriages have different profiles of strengths and risk factors, and because of this, the divorce rate varies greatly across couples with different types of marriages.

We don’t always explicitly distinguish between different types of marriages….

But the truth is that different couples marry for different reasons, have different priorities and have different patterns of interaction. Spouses also enter marriage with different values, virtues and communication skills.

In my marriage preparation course, I encourage my students to deeply consider the question, “What kind of marriage are you going to strive to have?”

While high divorce rates in our society often get the headlines, the truth is that many marriages have strong foundations that make them incredibly resilient and enduring.

Strong and beautiful marriages are found in every faith tradition and in many different life philosophies.

For Latter-day Saints, their aspiration for loving and lasting marriages center around covenants a couple makes with God and with each other. We teach our young people to aspire to and seek after a “temple marriage” – reflecting our aspiration for them to marry in a temple, which is a holy sanctuary where we enter into sacred covenants with God.

Unfortunately, for some, the term “a temple marriage” has become simply a way to describe where they were married. But, a true temple marriage is meant to be a kind of marriage, not simply the location of a marriage. Such a marriage reflects a pattern or a design for creating a particular type or kind of marriage. To borrow President Russell M. Nelson’s phrase, a true temple marriage is a “higher and holier way” to be married.

Happily, the most important factors that contribute to an enduring and flourishing marriage are controllable and fall within the scope of our personal agency. As Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught a few years back: “A fulfilling and happy marriage is not found; rather, it is created by a covenant-keeping man and woman…. You can do it with the Lord’s help.”

A true temple marriage is a different kind of marriage because it has unique preparations, unique patterns, unique priorities, and unique promises.

Unique preparation

The foundation of lasting marriage begins long before a couple is married. It begins with personal preparation by both spouses well before they have even met one another and continues throughout their dating and courtship.

For Latter-day Saints, this unique preparation involves each of us coming closer to Christ in our own lives by faithfully keeping our baptismal covenants and deepens as each of us expands our covenant relationship with God by making and honoring the covenants of the temple endowment.

Now, does this type of spiritual preparation really make a difference in everyday marriages? The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes! ….

Unique patterns

Another way that a temple marriage is different is that it involves unique patterns of daily living. A covenant marriage relationship invites spouses to love, serve, interact and communicate with one another differently than most other marriages in our culture today.

The Proclamation on the Family teaches that “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

Of course, the defining feature of temple marriage is that it involves each spouse entering “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage” with God and with each other.

The Proclamation on the Family also states that husbands and wives “are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” …

The Family Proclamation also teaches that marriage covenants involve spouses honoring their marital vows with complete fidelity, and spouses faithfully fulfilling family responsibilities.

Again, do these patterns really make a difference in everyday marriages? There are literally hundreds of studies that confirm that flourishing marriages are indeed founded on patterns of shared decision making, devoted commitment, patterns of mature love, sincere forgiveness and the shared religious devotion of spouses….

Unique priorities

Compared with other types of marriage, a temple marriage involves unique priorities – centering around the formation of an eternal family, which gives marriage a deep and sacred purpose that transcends personal or worldly pursuits….

Research from the social sciences also strongly supports the ways that prioritizing having children and forming a family promotes personal and collective wellbeing. This is important to point out, because the findings from the relationship sciences about the joys and benefits of parenting are not typically shared in the media and online discussions.

As Jenet Erickson, a Wheatley Fellow, has beautifully stated, “We are not designed for isolation and pleasure-seeking autonomy. We are deeply relational beings, designed not for independence but for radical dependence and connection…. We are designed for family. We are family. The eternal family.”

Unique promises

… In a recent general conference leadership training session, President Nelson said: “It is incumbent upon us that we do much more to help our people understand the power of covenants. The moral and spiritual power that our people need right now and for the days ahead is the power of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.”

I am in awe of the promises connected to a true temple marriage that allow us to access the power of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is very different from a fifty-fifty coin toss! The promises of the temple are indeed awesome – in the truest root meaning of that word.

Adapted from a talk, “A True Temple Marriage” given Sept. 25, 2025, at the BYU Conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Family Proclamation, “Experiencing Jesus Christ Through the Family Proclamation.”