Essay

The Risk in Marriage

Maybe you want to get married and have a family, but you also know how much can go wrong. What if I choose the wrong person? What if marriage changes plans I have worked hard for? What if I give someone my heart and get hurt? What if I want marriage, but it simply is not happening for me?

Those are great questions, so let’s take a look at what God has revealed about marriage, why committing your life to another person can understandably feel risky, and how faith in Jesus Christ can help you move forward with both wisdom and courage.

Why Is Marriage So Important to God?

The restored gospel gives us an important place to begin: marriage between a man and a woman is not simply one possible way to build a happy life. It is part of God’s eternal plan for His sons and daughters. Marriage and family are deeply connected to why we came to earth, what God wants us to learn here, and what He is preparing us to become.

After Adam and Eve were brought together, the Lord taught that a husband should “cleave unto his wife” and that they should become “one flesh” (Moses 3:24). To cleave is to hold fast and remain united. That kind of unity is not created simply by strong romantic feelings. It grows as two people make covenants and learn over time to love, forgive, sacrifice, repent, serve, and remain faithful to one another.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World places marriage within an even larger eternal perspective. It teaches that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

You are also central to His plan: you are a son or daughter of Heavenly Parents. You lived before this life, came to earth to receive a body and exercise agency, and are here to make covenants and become more like Them through Jesus Christ. Marriage belongs within that purpose.

Giving Your Heart Away Involves Risk

Arthur Brooks describes falling in love, getting married, and building a family as some of the best risks we take because these commitments place us in relationships that give life its deepest meaning:22

The gospel does not ask you to approach marriage recklessly. You should take time to know someone, seek revelation, listen to wise counsel, and pay attention to genuine concerns.

But even after doing those things, you will not know everything about the future.

Nephi once described being led by the Spirit “not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). His circumstances were obviously very different from choosing a spouse, but the principle teaches something useful about revelation: the Lord often gives enough light to move faithfully forward without showing us every detail that comes afterward.

Marriage requires choosing wisely but it also requires faith.

Kristen Oaks Understands the Uncertainty of Dating

Sister Kristen M. Oaks understands what it means to want marriage while waiting much longer than expected. She remained single until age 53 before marrying President Dallin H. Oaks, and she has spoken openly to young adults about dating, singleness, faith, and preparing for marriage.

In this short clip, she brings some humor to how intimidating dating itself can sometimes become:

Her perspective is helpful because she knows what it is like to build a meaningful life while still hoping for marriage. She pursued education, work, friendships, Church service, and opportunities to grow during her single years. At the same time, she did not decide that because marriage had not happened yet, it no longer mattered.

In her devotional To the Singles of the Church, Sister Oaks encouraged single adults to depend on the Lord, make good use of the opportunities already before them, and continue preparing faithfully for promised blessings.

That is a helpful way to think about this season of life. Wanting marriage does not require you to be dissatisfied with your life now. And building a good life while single does not require you to stop preparing for marriage.

The Lord’s counsel is to “look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36). You can keep moving toward Him while trusting Him with the parts of your future you cannot control.

What Should I Actually Be Looking for in Marriage?

Speaking directly to young adults, President Dallin H. Oaks taught that “marriage is central to the purpose of mortal life and what follows” in “Stand for Truth.”

That teaching can help clarify what you are looking for when you date.

Of course attraction matters. Friendship matters. You want someone you can talk with, laugh with, trust, and genuinely love. But covenant marriage invites you to consider something more: Can we build a life with God together?

Can you pray together? Can you repent and forgive? Can you work through disagreements respectfully? Can you sacrifice for each other? Can you keep covenants together and create a home where faith in Jesus Christ can grow?

A strong marriage is not built by finding two perfect people. It is built as two disciples keep learning how to love more like Jesus Christ.

When Being Careful Becomes Being Afraid

There are good reasons to be thoughtful about marriage. Maybe you watched your parents divorce. You may know people whose marriages have been painful. You may worry about finances, compatibility, children, careers, or whether you will recognize someone with whom you could build a strong marriage.

Those concerns can help you make wise decisions.

The difficulty comes when caution gradually becomes a requirement for complete certainty. You may start thinking you should not move forward until you feel completely sure about another person, completely established financially, completely ready emotionally, and completely confident about how your future will unfold.

Marriage cannot provide that kind of guarantee.

The Lord instead invites you to seek His guidance and then use your agency. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,” Proverbs teaches, and “in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Trusting God does not mean ignoring judgment or warning signs. It means making thoughtful decisions without believing you must control everything that happens afterward.

One idea that can quietly shape the way we think about commitment is that freedom means keeping as many options open as possible. That sounds appealing because agency really does matter. But Lehi taught that we are “free to choose” (2 Nephi 2:27).

God gives us agency so we can make meaningful choices. Covenants are one of the highest uses of that agency because we freely choose to bind ourselves to God and then learn to become faithful to what we have chosen.

Satan can distort our desire for freedom by making commitment look mainly like the loss of options. But the gospel helps us see that some choices actually enlarge our lives. When you choose covenants, you are choosing what kind of person you want to become and what kind of life you want to build.

What Does Research Tell Us About Marriage and Happiness?

Research can help us examine the common assumption that marriage and children usually stand in the way of happiness or fulfillment.

Using data from the General Social Survey, W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang found a strong association between marriage, parenthood, and reported happiness. Married men ages 18–55 were about twice as likely as unmarried men to report being “very happy,” and married mothers and fathers were among the groups reporting some of the highest levels of happiness. You can read their analysis here.

This clip explores that same question—what marriage and family makes people happier:

That does not mean every married person is happy or that marriage automatically creates a perfect life, but these findings suggest that being married and having children doesn’t keep people from having great lives like our social media teaches.

Jesus taught something even deeper about the relationship between sacrifice and a meaningful life. He said, “whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25).

What If I Want Marriage and It Has Not Happened?

If you are single and would like to marry, the importance of marriage does not mean you have somehow fallen behind.

God knows the difference between the choices you make and the circumstances you cannot control. You can fully live your covenants right now—strengthening friendships, serving others, developing your gifts, learning to communicate well, becoming responsible with money, attending the temple, dating when opportunities arise, and deepening your relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Savior’s invitation to “seek ye first the kingdom of God” applies in every season of life (Matthew 6:33).

And if marriage does not come according to the timetable you hoped for, you can trust the Lord with blessings that are beyond your control. Faithful sons and daughters of God will never lose eternal blessings because of circumstances they could not change.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• Am I expecting more certainty about marriage than is realistic?
• Who or what is shaping my expectations about marriage, freedom, happiness, and success?
• What am I becoming now that would help me build a loving, faithful, Christ-centered marriage?

Three Things You Can Do This Week

Study what God says marriage is for. Read Matthew 19:4–6 alongside The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Ask Heavenly Father to help you understand not only whom you might someday marry, but what He intends marriage to help His children become.

Look at the kind of spouse you are becoming. Choose one quality you would want to bring into a marriage—patience, honesty, spiritual consistency, communication, financial responsibility, forgiveness, or the willingness to apologize—and practice it deliberately now.

Take the next faithful step available to you. Maybe that means asking someone on a date, being more open to meeting people, having an important conversation in a serious relationship, or taking a concern to the temple and seeking revelation. If marriage is not currently an option, keep building a meaningful covenant life rather than postponing your growth until your circumstances change.

Jesus Christ can help you become capable of the kind of love covenant marriage requires. As you follow Him, He can help you choose wisely, keep commitments, repent when you are wrong, forgive when another person falls short, and learn to care about another person’s good alongside your own. Marriage will not remove uncertainty or require perfection from either person. But with Christ at the center, a husband and wife can grow together, keep sacred covenants, create a loving home, and build the kind of family life Heavenly Father has prepared His children to inherit eternally.