“One of my favorite newspaper columnists is Jenkin Lloyd Jones. In a recent article published in the News, he commented: ‘There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks, to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and ravishing wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear, the divorce courts are jammed. Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just ordinary people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. …Life is like an old-time rail journey — delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.’”

Gordon B. Hinckley | God Shall Give unto You Knowledge by His Holy Spirit

Topics: Dating & Courtship, Divorce, Marriage, Work

“The crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | (2012, November). The first great commandment. Ensign, 42(11), 83–85.

Topics: Divorce, Love

“Divorce can never really be final. How can mothers and fathers really divorce themselves from their own flesh and blood children, or from the memories of days and years of shared experiences which have become part of their very lives.”

David B. Haight | Marriage and Divorce

Topics: Adversity, Divorce, Family

There is no shame in being a victim of abuse or oppression. The shame belongs solely to the perpetrator.

Patrick Kearon | He Is Risen with Healing in His Wings:

Topics: Abuse, Divorce

We do not need to carry the burden of the choices of others. We can choose to forgive and move forward with our lives.

Patrick Kearon | He Is Risen with Healing in His Wings:

Topics: Abuse, Divorce, Forgiveness

I think it has been taught by some . . . that if a wife does not love her husband in this state she cannot love him in the next. This is not so. Those who attain to the blessing of the first resurrection will be pure and holy, and perfect in body. Every man and woman that reaches to this unspeakable attainment will be as beautiful as the angels that surround the throne of God. If you can, by faithfulness in this life, obtain the right to come up in the morning of the resurrection, you need entertain no fears that the wife will be dissatisfied with her husband, or the husband with the wife; for those of the first resurrection will be free from sin and from the consequences and power of sin.

Gordon B. Hinckley | (1862). Future state of existence. In Journal of Discourses, 10, 24.

Topics: Divorce, Eternal Life, Marriage, Resurrection

“It would seem that a major underlying cause of divorce is in not understanding that marriage and families are God-given and God-ordained. If we understood the full meaning we would have less divorce and its attendant unhappiness…The current philosophy—get a divorce if it doesn’t work out—handicaps a marriage from the beginning.”

David B. Haight | Marriage and Divorce

Topics: Divorce, Purity, Secularism (Worldliness)

“For those couples who would rate themselves as happily married, the positivity to negativity ratio is 5:1. Although this standard of five instances of positivity for each instance of negativity may appear daunting, there is good news here—couples are not expected to be perfect in their relationships in order to feel happy, satisfied, or fulfilled with each other.”

Gottman, J. M | (1994). What predicts divorce: The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Topics: Dating & Courtship, Divorce, Marriage

“The kind of marriage required for exaltation—eternal in duration and godlike in quality—does not contemplate divorce”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks | (2007, May). Divorce. Ensign, 37(5), 70–73.

Topics: Becoming like God, Divorce, Eternal Life

“I am satisfied that if we would look for the virtues in one another and not the vices, there would be much more of happiness in the homes of our people. There would be far less of divorce, much less of infidelity, much less of anger and rancor and quarreling. There would be more of forgiveness, more of love, more of peace, more of happiness. This is as the Lord would have it.”

Gordon B. Hinckley | Living Worthy of the Girl You Will Someday Marry

Topics: Attitude, Divorce, Happiness, Marriage, Virtue

“Too many who come to marriage have been coddled and spoiled and somehow led to feel that everything must be precisely right at all times, that life is a series of entertainments, that appetites are to be satisfied without regard to principle. How tragic the consequences of such hollow and unreasonable thinking! …”

Gordon B. Hinckley

Topics: Attitude, Dating & Courtship, Divorce

“Willingness to experience difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences is put in the service of our values. This is what makes willingness different from wallowing”

Luoma, J. B., Hayes | S. C., & Walser, R. D. (2007). Learning ACT: An acceptance & commitment therapy skills-training manual for therapists. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Topics: Attitude, Divorce, Trials, Work

“No matter what the reason for divorce, those usually hurt most are the children. Too often the children are robbed of the basic needs to prepare them for life.”

James A. Cullimore | Marriage Is Intended to Be Forever

Topics: Divorce, Family

“Those in happy marriages noticed almost all of the positive things their partners did for them, while those in unhappy marriages failed to recognize 50% of the positive acts their spouses performed.”

Gottman, J. M | (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Topics: Attitude, Divorce, Marriage

“Under the law of the Lord, a marriage, like a human life, is a precious, living thing. If our bodies are sick, we seek to heal them. We do not give up. While there is any prospect of life, we seek healing again and again. The same should be true of our marriages, and if we seek Him, the Lord will help us and heal us”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks | (2007, May). Divorce. Ensign, 37(5), 70–73.

Topics: Change, Divorce, Marriage

“a good marriage does not require a perfect man or a perfect woman. It only requires a man and a woman committed to strive together toward perfection.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks | Divorce. Ensign, 37(5), 70–73.

Topics: Divorce, Marriage

“For most marriage problems, the remedy is not divorce but repentance. . . . The first step is not separation but reformation.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks | Divorce. Ensign, 37(5), 70–73.

Topics: Divorce, Marriage, Repentance

“The [current] American story about marriage, as told in the law and in much popular literature, goes something like this: marriage is a relationship that exists primarily for the fulfillment of the individual spouses. If it ceases to perform this function, no one is to blame and either spouse may terminate it at will”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks | Protect the children. Ensign, 42(11), 43–46.

Topics: Divorce, Marriage, Secularism (Worldliness)

“Christ’s ideal pertaining to marriage is the unbroken home, and conditions that cause divorce are violations of his divine teachings. Except in cases of infidelity or other extreme conditions, the Church frowns upon divorce”

David O. McKay | (IE 72 [June 1969]:2-5)

Topics: Divorce, Marriage

“Of course, all in marriage is not bliss. . . . The remedy for most marriage stress is not in divorce. It is in repentance. It is not in separation. It is in simple integrity that leads a man to square up his shoulders and meet his obligations. It is found in the Golden Rule. . . .There must be a willingness to overlook small faults, to forgive, and then to forget. There must be a holding of one’s tongue. Temper is a vicious and corrosive thing that destroys affection and casts out love. . . . There may be now and again a legitimate cause for divorce. I am not one to say that it is never justified. But I say without hesitation that this plague among us, which seems to be growing everywhere, is not of God, but rather is the work of the adversary of righteousness and peace and truth.”

Gordon B. Hinckley | What God hath joined together. Ensign, 21(5), 72–74.

Topics: Divorce, Marriage

“There may be now and again a legitimate cause for divorce. I am not one to say that it is never justified. But I say without hesitation that this plague among us, which seems to be growing everywhere, is not of God, but rather is the work of the adversary of righteousness and peace and truth”

Gordon B. Hinckley | in Conference Report, Apr. 1991, 96–98; or Ensign, May 1991, 73–74

Topics: Divorce, Satan

“I pity the man who at one time looked into the eyes of a beautiful young woman and held her hand across the altar in the house of the Lord as they made sacred and everlasting promises one to another, but who, lacking in self-discipline, fails to cultivate his better nature, sinks to coarseness and evil, and destroys the relationship which the Lord has provided for him”

Gordon B. Hinckley | “Walking in the Light of the Lord,” Ensign, Nov. 1998, 99)

Topics: Covenants, Divorce, Natural Man

“The more uncertain people are that any partnership will last, the more they act as individuals and the less they act as permanent partners. But the more spouses act as separate individuals, the less they get from the marriage partnership, and the more likely the marriage will fail”

Waite, L. J., & Gallagher, M | The case for marriage. New York: Doubleday.

Topics: Divorce, Marriage

“Thanks to no-fault, the marriage contract is no longer enforceable. It takes two to marry but only one to divorce at any time, for any reason, as fast as the courts can sort out property and custody issues”

Waite, L. J., & Gallagher, M | The case for marriage. New York: Doubleday.

Topics: Divorce