What, if anything, does Church do to improve marriage?
 

Do you believe the Church improves marriage? If so why?

If your reason is limited to the prospects of a marriage in the hereafter, how and why does that help you here?

If not, why?

Is it the Church's role to benefit our marriages, or is the Church solely in the position of promoting the message of repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and salvation?

Is the Church's role in helping marriage solely limited to its foundation during adolescence?

I actually think attitudes towards marriage in the church can be destructive at times.

If there is a strong cultural inhibition against divorce, then one is less concerned about one's behavior leading to divorce.

In other words, there is the potential that some marriages may be more unhappy than they otherwise would be.

Avg. secular marriage: wife refuses to have sex for 2 years. Counsel: divorce

Avg. mormon marriage: same situation. Counsel: stick it out

There may also be less willingness to admit that ones' marriage is suffering, less likely to seek out support, because the cultural expectation is that marriages should be happy.

There is also a lot of condemnation about mens' behavior in marriage, but seemingly little towards women in the church.

Hence we probably need good Family relations classes, sensitive Bishops, and somewhat relaxed cultural expectations that allow for more honesty.

Sounds like some people's glasses are more than half empty.

You can make it half full. I'm wondering what the different perspectives are. Mike gave some insightful thoughts, what are yours?

In a very quick nutshell...

The church gives a basic understanding of who we are, why we are here and about how families are central to that plan and that they can last forever.

That understanding can then be used to help prioritize our lives (eg. putting our family first over work and church), give us a reason to try to work on our relationships even when times get hard.

It gives us a greater understanding of the importance of our children and why we need to teach and prepare themselves to face life's trials.

IMO, I would be divorced right now if it hadn't been for the perspective that the Gospel gives my wife and I.

Maybe if one is a complete jerk. Otherwise, it seems like one would try to create a relationship that would be enjoyable.

Are women that have extremely low sex drives "jerks"?

Is this what you meant? Becasue that is not what you said. If you inetend to be this specific, then say so.

You said:

Which suggests that one has chosen behavior based upon the the fact that divocre is an unlikely consequence. Now if you MEANT that women with low sex drives may not worry about it so much, then you should have said so, although this is obviously a very limited subset of your original contention.

In fact, I think this flips, becasue the biological condition of a low sex drive (whatever that means) should not justify divorce under most circumstances, and can be worked out and is frequently an excuse by the MAN to seek a divorce if divorce is too easy.

So what is the point you are trying to make?

How I interpreted his comment was completely differently.

If you know that your spouse will stay with you no matter what, then some will get lazy. That is Mike's point. The issue of low libido was merely illustrative, not exhaustive.

And to some extent his argument sounds plausible. A counter could be, if one knows there's not getting out of it, because culturally couples don't divorce, one might suspect couples will be more determined to make it work.

What actually happens is unknown to me.

I am pretty sure that both happen. Prehpas I misunderstood his point.