How to have a successful marriage?

[Crypto]

 Are you citing this article as your evidence that the human brain is fully developed at 25? Because I personally don't really find it all that compelling.

First thing is first... What would you and others consider fully developed, or do you think something more similar to always developing and changing?

[The Folk Prophet]

Why can't the brain develop within the bonds of marriage?

[Vort]

 

First thing is first... What would you and others consider fully developed, or do you think something more similar to always developing and changing?

I personally think our brains, and our minds, are always growing and changing. But if someone wants to make the argument that there is a threshold of development that is not reached until the mid-20s and that is important in a strong marriage, I welcome the chance to read their reasoning. So far, I haven't seen any argument to that effect, just what looked to me like an assertion. To me, that's not very convincing.

 

Why can't the brain develop within the bonds of marriage?

Great point.

[NightSG]

Why can't the brain develop within the bonds of marriage?

 

Ask all the women who think they can't finish a degree, settle into a career, etc. unless they do it before getting married.

[The Folk Prophet]

Ask all the women who think they can't finish a degree, settle into a career, etc. unless they do it before getting married.

 

The implication is invalid -- that a degree or career is the only, or even the best, way for the brain to develop. In point of fact, the Lord has specified that the best way for us to develop, including our brains, is in families. The best course for a woman's brain to develop is as a wife and mother, just as the best course for a man's brain to develop is as a husband and father. This development is much more important than any academic based schooling we'll ever have.

 

Moreover, the church has always recommended that women marry soon, become mothers, and then do not work out of the home. Of course this thinking has primarily become passe. That's the nature of agency. People are free to disregard whatever advice they want, and the Lord lets us.

[Guest]

Ask all the women who think they can't finish a degree, settle into a career, etc. unless they do it before getting married.

 

That's not related to brain development.  It's related to prioritization of responsibilities.  Brain development continues even while trying to figure out why the baby's poop is yellow.

[Traveler]

My input into a great or poor marriage.

 

I have discovered and believe that individual attitude is the single most important element.  And the best attitude for a successful marriage is the attitude that you married up and must make up in some way that your spouse got the short end of the deal.  The more that ether or both believe this to be the case and work to even the score - the better off and successful - I believe the marriage will be.  And the more ether or both think they married down and that their spouse owes them to make the marriage fair the worse off and successful the marriage will be.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Traveler

[Traveler]

The implication is invalid -- that a degree or career is the only, or even the best, way for the brain to develop. In point of fact, the Lord has specified that the best way for us to develop, including our brains, is in families. The best course for a woman's brain to develop is as a wife and mother, just as the best course for a man's brain to develop is as a husband and father. This development is much more important than any academic based schooling we'll ever have.

 

Moreover, the church has always recommended that women marry soon, become mothers, and then do not work out of the home. Of course this thinking has primarily become passe. That's the nature of agency. People are free to disregard whatever advice they want, and the Lord lets us.

 

 

Hmmmmmmmm - do you think visiting teaching, Relief Society President or Young Woman's camp director is an example of working outside the home?  Or do you think it is all about money and nothing else?

[Guest]

My input into a great or poor marriage.

 

I have discovered and believe that individual attitude is the single most important element.  And the best attitude for a successful marriage is the attitude that you married up and must make up in some way that your spouse got the short end of the deal.  The more that ether or both believe this to be the case and work to even the score - the better off and successful - I believe the marriage will be.  And the more ether or both think they married down and that their spouse owes them to make the marriage fair the worse off and successful the marriage will be.

 

This doesn't make sense to me.

 

It's neither marrying up nor marrying down.  The fixed point is Christ's perfection.  That's the measure.  Your marital covenant is a promise to help each other get closer to that perfection from whatever point your are in that journey... not trying to be equal among yourselves and evening scores.

[Vort]

And the best attitude for a successful marriage is the attitude that you married up and must make up in some way that your spouse got the short end of the deal.

This is perhaps a matter of personality type. Just as I do not want to have married too much "down" and have to drag my partner along, trying constantly to make up for her utter lack of spiritual desire (or whatever), so I don't want to have married too much "up" and know that it is I who am constantly at fault, holding her back in her progression, sensing that she really would have done much better to have married the short, friendly German-speaking guy who serenaded her on his guitar and who today is worth about $10 million and is a mission president. I want us to walk beside each other, each helping fill in the other's lack, as we progress together.

 

I'm okay with having married slightly up. That's a bridgeable gap.