Preparation for marriage

This last week I learned alot about preparing for marriage and the first few years of marriage. We talked about marriage and planning a wedding and how often times people put so much emphasis on the wedding instead of the marriage. I think its important to remember that and not allow myself to get stressed when i will plan my own wedding and to remember that its really about the covenants I will make and the fact that i am starting a eternal family with my future husband. I liked how we talked about the first few years of marriage and something that stood out to me was the Lord command to cleave unto your spouse and none else. We talked about how its important to create boundaries between our families and the our new family of our own. That we need to redefine thsoe relationships and boundaries and instead of turing to our family for support and guidance and allowing them to meddle in our marriage we need to be doing that with our spouse not our born family. I have a very close relationship with my family and alot of times they are very involved in my life and almost to much. They dont always know their boundaries and it has made it difficult for me in my past relationships so talking about this has rteally helped me realize how it is important for the health of our relationships to establish those boundaries from our families because it can affect it and really it goes against Heavenly Fathers guidance for our marriages to cleave unto eachother and none else. I also loved how we talked about children and how they can affect our marriage at first and often creates a decline in satisfaction right after chidlren are introduced into the family. We talked about ways we can prevent taht decline and ways we can boost our marriages during that time. Some of the things it made think of things Im going to do for example instead of doing things seperate intaking care of children i want to strive to do them together as a couple. I think finding every way you can do still do things together will help you to bond and mantian your relationship and itimacy as a couple. Im really grateful for those things im learning because as i do not yet have a marriage or family of my own i feel I will be better prepared and more aware of the things i will have to face so that I can prevent the common things that lead to lack of satisfaction in marriage and be better prepared to create a foundation for a more happy and satisfying marriage and family.