Essay

When Your Life and the Ideal Do Not Match

Maybe you believe The Family: A Proclamation to the World, but your own life does not look much like the family it describes. Maybe you want to marry and it has not happened. Maybe you have been through a divorce, long for children you cannot have, grew up with divorced parents, or are trying to build something healthier than what you experienced growing up.

Those circumstances do not change what God has taught about marriage and family, but they also do not mean you have failed at His plan. The family proclamation gives us Heavenly Father’s pattern and points toward the eternal relationships He wants for His children, and every faithful person will receive every family blessing.

President Russell M. Nelson has given this reassuring promise: “In the Lord’s own way and time, no blessings will be withheld from His faithful Saints.”

So if your life looks different from what you once pictured, you can keep believing in what God has revealed without concluding that His promises are meant for someone else. A helpful question is not simply Why hasn’t my life worked out yet? It is also: Who is Jesus Christ helping me become right now?

How Does Jesus Christ Help When Life Hasn’t Gone as Planned?

In Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus invited people who were weary and burdened to come to Him. He did not promise that every burden would immediately disappear. He told them to take His yoke upon them and “learn of me.”

A yoke was used to bear or pull a load. Christ’s invitation therefore connects His promised rest with learning to live with Him and become like Him. He offers more than temporary relief from something difficult; He teaches you how to carry mortality in a different way.

That matters with family circumstances because some of them cannot simply be fixed by trying harder. You cannot make marriage happen on a preferred timetable, undo your parents’ divorce, change infertility by willpower, bring back a spouse who has died, or rewrite the family you grew up in. But those circumstances cannot prevent Jesus Christ from teaching you, strengthening you, helping you form good relationships, and preparing you for eternal blessings.

What Is the Family Proclamation Supposed to Do for Me?

The family proclamation teaches Heavenly Father’s pattern for marriage and family. These teachings give you something good to build toward. They can shape how you date, what you look for in a spouse, how you treat parents and siblings, how you think about children, and what kind of husband, wife, mother, or father you are becoming.

They can also give you something you may not have received growing up: a trustworthy pattern.

If your parents had a difficult marriage, you can learn another way. If your father was absent, you can learn what loving, righteous fatherhood looks like. If your mother carried family responsibilities largely alone, you can learn that God intends husbands and wives to work together. The mistakes or limitations in the family you came from do not have to become the pattern for the family relationships you build.

The Proclamation itself makes room for real mortal circumstances. After teaching the responsibilities of fathers and mothers, it acknowledges that “disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.” The eternal pattern remains, but God knows that mortality does not place every person in the same circumstances.

Andrea’s Story: When the Family You Want Is Not Yet Possible

Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus has spoken openly about a family circumstance she could not change. After ovarian cancer when she was twelve, she learned that she would not be able to become pregnant. Years later she married, and she and her husband began trying to adopt.

The process lasted four years and included significant disappointments. At one point they were preparing to board a plane to receive a child when the adoption suddenly fell through. Sister Spannaus has described moments during those years when she wondered where the Savior was and did not clearly feel that He was near.

Looking back, she came to understand something gradually: Christ had not been absent from those years. She could see that He had been working with her even when the family she hoped for had not yet come together. In her first-person message “Infertility … and Other Opportunities,” from the 2024 BYU Women’s Conference she explains how those experiences changed her relationship with Jesus Christ and taught her to trust Him through disappointed expectations.

Watch or read her full message — 24 minutes, with a transcript.

Her story matters here because faithful discipleship did not mean pretending infertility was unimportant. She wanted a family. The disappointment was real. But the years that did not look like the future she had hoped for were still years in which Christ could teach, guide, and prepare her.

Your Present Circumstances Are Not Your Eternal Limit

Elder D. Todd Christofferson addressed this directly in “Why Marriage, Why Family.” After teaching clearly about God’s pattern for marriage and family, he acknowledged that many faithful people live in circumstances that fall short of the ideal.

He taught that “much that is good, much that is essential—even sometimes all that is necessary for now—can be achieved in less than ideal circumstances.”

The words for now matter. Elder Christofferson was not lowering the doctrine of eternal marriage or suggesting that family relationships are optional. He was teaching that God can accomplish important things in you before every promised blessing arrives.

He then gave an even larger promise: “The Atonement of Jesus Christ has anticipated and, in the end, will compensate all deprivation and loss for those who turn to Him. No one is predestined to receive less than all that the Father has for His children.”

That helps you hold the eternal ideal and your present reality together. You can want marriage without treating singleness as a wasted life. You can grieve infertility without assuming motherhood or fatherhood has disappeared from your eternal future. You can mourn a divorce and still believe in eternal marriage.

What If My Family Was the Place Where I Was Hurt?

For some people, a family that does not match the Proclamation means more than singleness or waiting. It may include neglect, abandonment, manipulation, violence, or abuse.

God’s teaching about family does not excuse those choices. In fact, the Proclamation specifically warns that those who abuse a spouse or child will be accountable before God.

Elder Richard G. Scott taught in “To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse” that painful experiences may affect trust and relationships, but “they do not define the real you.”

You remain a son or daughter of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother with divine worth and an eternal future. With Christ’s help, wise support, healthy relationships, and professional care when needed, the patterns that hurt you do not have to be the patterns you repeat.

When Difference Starts to Feel Like Failure

There is a conclusion that can quietly enter your thinking: If the Family Proclamation describes God’s pattern and my life does not look like that pattern, perhaps there is something wrong with me—or perhaps the pattern no longer applies.

You can understand why that conclusion may feel convincing. When a blessing matters deeply, its absence can become the thing you notice most.

But it leaves something important out. The Proclamation describes eternal identity, purposes, relationships, and responsibilities. It was never a promise that every righteous person’s mortal circumstances would look identical.

This is where disappointment can become spiritually dangerous. The adversary can use a good desire—for marriage, children, or belonging—to turn disappointment into distance from God. You may begin to resent a doctrine because you have not yet received the blessing the doctrine teaches you to value.

Jesus Christ offers a better way. You can keep the righteous desire, acknowledge the disappointment, and continue trusting Him.

Research Shows That Family Patterns Can Change

Research gives us another practical reason for hope. BYU’s Forever Families discussion of becoming a “transitional character” describes people who recognize unhealthy patterns in their families and deliberately begin changing them.

That may involve learning healthier communication, changing the way conflict is handled, becoming more dependable, setting appropriate boundaries, or receiving help from a spouse, mentor, counselor, or other trustworthy person.

You are influenced by the family you came from, but you are not required to repeat everything you learned there. With awareness, good relationships, better skills, agency, and the help of Jesus Christ, you can build something healthier.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• What did my family teach me about marriage and family that I want to carry forward?
• What patterns would I like to change rather than assume they are inevitable?
• If my life does not currently look like the family proclamation, have I started interpreting that as evidence that I do not belong in God’s plan?
• What is Jesus Christ helping me become during this part of my life?
• What is one relationship skill I can begin practicing before my circumstances change?

What Can You Do This Week?

Read Matthew 11:28–30 and then read The Family: A Proclamation to the World. As you read, notice the difference between the eternal pattern God teaches and the timing of when particular blessings come.

Then choose one relationship pattern you can strengthen now. You might practice apologizing more quickly, listening better, keeping commitments, setting a needed boundary, forgiving where appropriate, or spending more intentional time with someone you love.

If you did not grow up with healthy examples, find people who can teach you. That might be a married couple you respect, a parent or mentor, Church leaders, or a wise professional counselor when the patterns you are trying to change are serious. If you can worship in the temple, pay attention to how the Lord teaches about covenants, family, and the future He is preparing for His children.

Most of all, keep building your life with Jesus Christ now. You do not need to wait until every family circumstance is resolved before you can become more faithful, loving, dependable, forgiving, and prepared for eternal relationships. He can help you receive what was good from the family you came from, change what needs to change, and continue becoming the kind of person who can build the family relationships Heavenly Father intends His children eventually to enjoy.