To Elle, On Marriage, Because She's Getting Married, and That's a Big Deal

Dear Elle-girl,

Dad says to always ask for marriage advice, because the advice is inevitably about the advice giver’s marriage, and in our family we’re too into ethnography to not take advantage of that. Austin says no one should offer marriage advice, because even if you have a good marriage, doing something well once is not evidence of expertise.

In addition to all of these warnings, I shouldn’t give you marriage advice because I’ve been married for hardly any time at all, and I’m your big sister, and sometimes being a big sister can get in the way of just being a good sister. So I’ll try to limit the advice and stick to theology. I’ll end up giving advice anyway, because I’m bad at not giving advice, but here’s my theology: marriage is practice building Zion.

It’s amazing for a lot of the same reasons. It’s hard for a lot of the same reasons. It’s important for the same reason: God tells us, “For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect” (D&C 128:18), and He’s talking about ancestors and progeny, but He’s also just singing the song that resonates across scripture. We can’t be saved without other people.

Almost as an opening act to scripture, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This is one of those things that we hear so much, the absolutely-crazy-how-what-huh? of this tends not to sink in. In marriage, two people become one, and one plus one doesn’t equal one. That is not mortal math—it’s some sort of Godly arithmetic.

Similarly, “The Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18). In this scripture, Zion is an entire city of people. Women, men, children, young, old, soft-spoken, loud, joyous, a bit gloomy. Zion was an entire city of people, hundreds or thousands of people, and they were one. Godly arithmetic.

The question, of course, is what it means to be one. The answer, of course, is I don’t know.

I don’t know what it means to be one, but I have strong feelings about what it isn’t—I don’t think it’s agreeing all the time. I can’t imagine that, in the City of Enoch, everyone sat around nodding whenever anyone else spoke. I don’t think it’s never being in conflict. I don’t think it means being the same as each other.

I think it might be choosing to be known, even when that is absolutely terrifying. I think it’s choosing to be with each other, even when that’s hard; I think it’s pulling together and being a team. I think it’s hearing each other to speech, loving each other to wholeness.

In our Church, the Lord commands us to be Zion, and we have to practice in small ways before we get to large scale Zion, because large scale Zion is very, very hard. Moses got so frustrated in its construction that he literally went to God and said, “I cannot take the children of Israel anymore. Kill me now.” (To which God said, “Have you heard of delegation?”) (Numbers 11:15-17). Enoch’s city went through hundreds of years of war before they were lifted up to heaven. In 3 Nephi, Zion is proceeded by decades of spiritual confusion and political turmoil, and then three days of a full-on apocalypse. Every place Zion is enacted in the scriptures, it comes after long, difficult, tedious work.

God Appears to Moses in the Burning Bush, Eugene Pluchart

So we have to practice, and one of the ways to practice is being married. We see if we can love like God when it’s just one person. We see if we can be united, be a team, learn to forgive and consecrate, learn to work out of love rather than for it in just one relationship. We see if we can do this with one person who is fundamentally, drastically different than us. We figure out how to be one with one other person, just one, before we take on city-sized Zion.

In doing so, we change. We become better, sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. When I realized I was probably going to marry Austin, I signed up for therapy. I probably should have gone to therapy years before, but I hadn’t, because trying to find a therapist was overwhelming, I wasn’t hurting anyone (I was, but that’s such an easy lie to tell yourself), and I was getting by.

I didn’t want to just get by with Austin. I wanted to do better than getting by. If I was going to invite him into my life, then I wanted my life to be tidier than it was. I had to start cleaning up my messes.

Austin and I the night we got engaged.

I tell this story not as a veiled way of telling you to get therapy (you already know I think everyone should go to therapy), but because I think it illustrates a point: I wouldn’t change for me, even though it would have made things better, even though it would have made me happier, but I’d change for someone I loved. I’d do everything I could to get better for Austin, so I could be one with him.

Because I didn’t marry Austin until I was twenty-seven, I watched dozens of roommates and friends get married, and I developed very definitive opinions. Like, in order to not be incredibly stressed while you’re engaged, you should make decisions only once. Like, when you’re mad at your person, you should tell them, and you should tell them why.

I also decided that every time two people get married, it’s a miracle. Even though it’s impossible to know what we’re committing to, choosing to commit to someone, to wrap your identity with theirs, to intertwine your lives, to be one—it’s a miracle. Just the decision to do something that absolutely-crazy-how-what-huh? is a miracle. Much less the actual process of becoming one.

Marriage is a miracle, every inch as much as the wine and water, and miracles are breathtaking and wonderful, but they are also messy and confusing. I suspect that Lazarus found rising from the grave a bit jarring and that the man who Jesus blessed with sight must have been both overjoyed and overwhelmed. You’re living a miracle, and that doesn’t mean it has to feel good every minute of every day. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong if things aren’t perfect.

Marriage isn’t the only place to practice being one, but it is one of the places you kind of have to. You’re building the skills you need to build Zion, to become like Gods. It is crazy cool. It is crazy confusing. It does not come all at once.

You’ll do great.

Love,

Marissa