Marriage

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I have often witnessed a haunting scene.  A man comes into the room looking broken.  His gaze is downward.  Soon he begins to sob. He tells a familiar story.  He has been unfaithful and now he is in danger of losing his wife, his children, his friends, his church membership, and possibly his eternal life.  The scene becomes even more tragic when his wife joins him. She also cries uncontrollably. All that was good and beautiful in her life is gone.  It has been replaced with lies and darkness.  There is pain and anger and betrayal and mistrust.  There is a loss of confidence, safety and security.  Their lives seem ruined.  There is a very long and painful road ahead.

Often this man is a good brother in the gospel. I have heard him preach the good word of God.  He and his wife are our neighbors, friends, share callings with us in the kingdom, and they have a beautiful and model family.  How did things ever come to this?

The answer almost always involves an erosion of marital boundaries.

What is a marital boundary?  It is the line we draw that keeps sacred and private things inour marriages and keeps threats out.  Think for a moment what would happen to our country if we had no boundaries at all.  What would we lose?  What would come in to threaten our way of life?  Boundaries exist to safely preserve what we value.

I have found there are certain key rules to follow to have clear marital boundaries.  Think of them as the “10 commandments” of marital fidelity.

1. Do not let prayer and scripture reading lapse.
2. Do not stop communicating and resolving conflict.
3. Do not try and “help” someone of the opposite gender (with personal or marital problems outside the boundary of a formal role and relationship).
4. Do not share personal nor marital concerns with friends of the opposite gender.
5. Do not be alone with the opposite gender. (in a casual setting outside a protective formal role)
6. Keep sexual boundaries rigidly within the bounds of the commandments, both letter and spirit.
7. Do not entertain fantasies.
8. Do not view pornography.
9. Do not sext.
10. Do not social media stalk.

How do marital boundaries erode?  They erode predictably.

Many years ago, Carlfred Broderick, a church leader and prominent marital and family relations professor and therapist, coined the phrase “out of the blue like a scheduled airline”.¹ His point was that couples often felt shock at infidelity they thought “came out of the blue” when the path that lead them there was as predictable as a scheduled airliner.  The path started with a small boundary crossed, then another, then a slightly larger boundary and so on, one step at a time, until the last small step was to cross the line to adultery.

In my roles as a marital therapist, bishop, and high councilor I have seen this path often enough that it has grown familiar. Private and couple prayers and scripture reading slips, the marriage is allowed to get flat, couples stop talking, there is a buildup of hard feelings, hearts harden, someone else offers a sympathetic ear or requires one for their own marital problems, sexual and romantic boundaries are blurred, fantasies are entertained, small infidelities become gradually larger.  Then “out of the blue like a scheduled airline” comes the adultery.

In contrast to the blurring of marital boundaries above is this clear boundary set by the prophets and apostles of our day: “Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other.  Husbands and wives will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.  We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity or who abuse their spouse, will one day stand accountable before God.” ²

One classic boundary issue comes up regularly in a church where we all have callings.   Help giving, and receiving, complicate boundaries.

Over the years I have heard variations of essentially the same story.  A church leader tells me that he has “hit it off” with a female member of his ward.

Blurred boundary.

He feels he has a special relationship with her (blurred boundary) and can uniquely help her with her marital problems (blurred boundary). She continues to do so after he is released from his calling.

Crossed boundary.
They start meeting outside of the church office.

Crossed boundary.
Their spouses do not know of these meetings.

Crossed boundary.
They discuss marital and sexual problems.

Huge boundary crossed.

They hold hands. They flirt. They meet at home when a spouse is out of town.  They dress without garments.  They began giving massages.  Some clothing is removed.  They end up in bed together.

Certainly, we can all see that last step coming.  This story has happened before and it will happen again.  These faithful members of the church would never have considered committing adultery at the beginning of this path.  The adversary of their souls (and marriages) did not need them to.  He only needed them to blur one boundary at a time.

As Nephi explained;

“And there shall also be many . . . (who) will justify in committing a little sin; And others will (the adversary) pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well  . . . and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.”³

Blurring a boundary is something akin to justifying a little sin.  Those first steps are usually into a moral grey area that is neither black nor white.  It is justifiable partly because it is so normal and even sometimes unavoidable. Life just does not always allow black and white response.  However, anytime we find ourselves in the grey we must be careful to shore up the weakened boundary.   -To get back into the white.

Let me tell a story on myself.  When I was serving as a missionary zone leader my companion and I had some copies of Books of Mormon to deliver to the sisters in our district.  I was the senior zone leader and I was probably the one to rationalize that we could go after proselytizing hours to drop them off.  As long as we didn’t go into the apartment it wouldn’t really violate any rules.  While this was true it did blur a boundary.  We waited for the sisters to arrive and it got later and later, and I got more and more uncomfortable.  Finally, I couldn’t resist the spirit any longer and we left.  What would have happened if we stayed?  I do not believe anything sinfulwould have happened but there would have been a weakening of the boundary.  The relationship would have felt more casual and it would have been harder to be quite as strict with the rules the next time around. At first, boundaries are not so much about sin as they are about safety.  The distance between where we are and sin is shrinking as boundaries dissolve.

I once had someone come to me with doctrinal questions about “the holy spirit of promise”.  The person described a loveless marriage and told me they didn’t feel their marriage would be sealed by that spirit in the next life. This discussion could have been productive if the person was motivated to resolve marital problems to the best of their control.   However, instead of trying to improve the marriage, the person began to feel ‘not really married’.

A boundary crossed.

A little sin justified.

Remember the words of the family proclamation; “Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other.  Husbands and wives will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.”  In elder Packer’s last general conference address before he passed away he clarified the gospel boundary; “(Marital Love) is not an incidental part of the plan, it is the plan of happiness.”⁴   The person in the story above failed to see romantic fidelity as essential to their membership in the church and their relationship to God.  This doctrinal blurring created, and enhanced, a mindset that led to more serious behavioral boundary blurring. The person then began looking for solace and support by discussing marital problems with an old romantic friend.

A boundary crossed.

A little sin justified.

Discussing marital problems with a person of the opposite gender is a violation of a cardinal marital boundary which results in almost inevitable tragedy.  The tragedy for this family was desertion of spouse and children that devastated both. The likelihood that this person’s subsequent remarriage to their old flame will be sealed by the holy spirit of promise (or of being solemnized with a binding ordinance) is suspect at best.  They may have forfeited their chance at a celestial marriage because of an indulgence in doctrinal and behavioral boundary blurring.

Over the last 10-15 years a new kind of boundary blurring has emerged: Electronic.  This may be one of the most difficult areas in which to shore up boundaries because electronic media has blurred a privacy boundary just by its existence. You can now see instantly into a person’s life.  Sometimes without any invitation.  Personal information is now often available to acquaintances and occasionally to strangers. Intimacy can occur in an instant.

Here is a story I hear more and more frequently:

John grew up with a pornography addiction.  It may have started with movies or magazines but as soon as the internet was available it moved online.  He got it in check before his mission and it wasn’t a huge issue during the mission. Then it started back up.  Maybe it was a swimsuit or lingerie spread that started it back up.  Maybe it was just opportunity.  John meets his wife and gets his problem under control.  After the marriage gets routine the habit returns.

Marital conflict increases.  Shame and guilt produce secrecy and isolation.  John gets interested in a woman at school, or work.  Or maybe he just gets interested in an old flame.  He starts looking at her pictures on social media.  A comment on a post creates a friend request which becomes texting. A picture is sent.  One is received.  The texting becomes flirtatious.  The pictures get racy.  Often by this time John is participating in this interaction with several women. John starts browsing Craig’s List, “just to see”.  Eventually an invitation to meet is followed by a “hook-up”. John has committed adultery.

His wife Jane meets a guy at work.  He is attractive and has something going for him her husband does not.  He smiles at her and makes time to talk to her. They start hanging out with the lunch bunch from work.  Then they “do-lunch” together without the others. Then one of them gets a text or a comment on a post.  The things they say electronically are more intimate.  They commiserate about their marriages.   A picture is sent.  One is received.  The texting becomes flirtatious.  The pictures get racy.  They begin to say and do things online that are overtly sexual.  When they see each other in person their relationship is now much more charged and intimate. In person they may touch casually and covertly at first, but usually that boundary was crossed electronically.   It is not long before sexual interaction shifts to in-person. Jane is unfaithful to her husband.

Boundary issues are so easily ignored but so very hard to correct.  Uncorrected they are a slippery path.  Imagine boundaries not just as straight lines between you and sin but more like concentric circles that represent the current of a whirlpool.  Swimming out of the current is easy in the very beginning.  However, if you go far enough in, you find yourselves overwhelmed by a current you underestimated.

How do we keep our marital boundaries intact?

1. Do not let prayer and scripture reading lapse.
2. Do not stop communicating and resolving conflict.
3. Do not try and “help” someone of the opposite gender (with personal or marital problems outside the boundary of a formal role and relationship).
4. Do not share personal nor marital concerns with friends of the opposite gender.
5. Do not be alone with the opposite gender.(in a casual setting outside a protective formal role)
6. Keep sexual boundaries rigidly within the bounds of the commandments, both letter and spirit.
7. Do not entertain fantasies.
8. Do not view pornography.
9. Do not sext.
10. Do not social media stalk.

Notes:

1. See Carlfred B. Broderick, “It Came Out of the Blue, like a Scheduled Airline: Guarding against Adultery and Weathering Tribulation” (audio recording, 1983).  Also; “Carlfred Broderick” in Wikipedia.
2. See “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2010, 129.
3. 2 Nephi 28: 8 & 21.
4. Boyd K. Packer; The Plan of Happiness, Ensign, April 2015.