My marriage experience

I met my now wife when I was 23 and preparing for a mission, she was 21, studying in university and preparing to go serve as a missionary as well, we shared the same group of friends and as time passed, we started talking more and more, we would get together to do mission-related stuff just to spend more time with each other, we would go together to institute and mission preparation classes. One day It hit me, that I was starting to like this university girl, so we talked about it and we decided we wanted to wait to come back from our missions to have a better relationship, since we wanted to be focused on serving the Lord. By that time, I already knew I wanted to marry her. She was my best friend, I felt I could be myself when I was with her, I felt we complemented each other, she has attributes that I needed in my life and even when we are so opposites in many things, we felt we would make a good team. I left to go on my mission and 3 months after she left, we made an effort to not be romantic and to focus our time on serving the Lord, I got to know her a lot by reading at her emails during those two years, and it just made me be a better missionary and husband to her. Once we got back from our missions we started dating again and we got married 3 months after I came back from my mission.

I felt I knew a lot about her and that she also knew me very well even when we had really got to know each other for 9 months total not counting our time as missionaries. After we got married, our feelings grew stronger, and I was sure we made the right decision. During our time married we have moved together to live in 2 different countries, we have faced tons of different challenges in many areas of life, but these experiences have made us grow closer, to know ourselves and each other better, and to realize better the full potential we have as a couple and the variety of goals we can achieve together.

My advice to young people that want to get married would be simple, for me it was not like I was actively looking for someone to get married, I was just being myself, and I found someone that loved me the way I am. I did not have the urge to impress her to the point of not being myself, please do not misinterpret this: being myself simply means, that it was not hard to love her and to show her my love, it did not feel forced or pushy, I could love her naturally. Also, she was my best friend, I could talk about my insecurities and the thing I struggled with and so could she, we trusted each other, and we knew that we would be there to support us and to help us, we felt like a team.

Get to know yourself, know what things you don’t like and why, what makes you get in a bad mood, or what things make you anxious, for For example, when I'm hungry or too sleepy I get in a bad mood, like a 28-year-old baby. Also doing new things makes me anxious, but I’ve come to the realization that most of the times, after I start, those feelings go away, and my anxiety turns into feelings of being capable of doing and achieving new things or goals

Also, something that really made me like her more and that cemented my wish to marry her was when I visited her and her family, they lived 4 hours away from the city where I lived, like going from Rexburg to Utah, and watching the way she dealt with her brothers and family, in general, made me realize she was mature and made me feel like I’d like to form a family together, she was not a spoiled brat and it might sound funny, but I loved that.

another very good thing to use when getting to know each other is to follow the guides on the Relationship Attachment Model (picture below), from the book” How to avoid marrying a Jerk”:

It encourages you to always keep the level on the left higher than those in the right, meaning you should know the other person more then you trust him or her, that you should trust them more than you rely on them, and so on. Do you think it would be a good idea to commit to someone you don’t really know or trust? Would it be wise to touch a lot, meaning intimacy, kissing, etc., with someone that is not really committed to you?

I wish you my best in this area of life, being married has been an awesome experience for me and for my partner, and would love for everyone to know how amazing it is to be with someone that loves you and to love them back.