A lesson

My Old White Dress

   A week before I was to be married my uncle visited me. He handed me a bag and told me this was my Aunt’s and that he would like me to have it, if I wanted to use it. It was a white dress that was usually worn in a temple dedicated as a house of God. I thanked my uncle for the gift.

Twenty years later I still hold the dress with remembrance of the importance of being true and faithful in marriage.

 My Aunt was only 35 when she left. She left her husband, her home, and her three boys. She was fun to visit with fun to talk with and was a great listener, and then she left. She had met my uncle at BYU as an aspiring musician, my uncle was a singer she was a pianist. They were married in the Hawaii temple and had three boys. Around the time I was 16 she started spending all her time on the internet. When we came to visit we rarely saw her. She had many friends across the country even the globe all online. What surprised us the most was that they were all men. One day one of them visited and then she went with him. Her boys were heart broken and her husband was devastated. It was the first time I realized even good marriages were susceptible to infidelity. A few years later I was given her temple dress. I decided that I should start early to safe guard my feelings, emotions, and marriage from the small and simple intrusions that can come into our relationships.

Warning

 

"There are those married people who permit their eyes to wander and their hearts to become vagrant, who thinks it is not improper to flirt a little, to share their hearts and have desire for someone other than the wife or the husband. The Lord says in no uncertain terms: “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else” (D&C 42:22).(Matheson)

 And, when the Lord says all thy heart, it allows for no sharing nor dividing nor depriving. And, to the woman it is paraphrased: “Thou shalt love thy husband with all thy heart and shalt cleave unto him and none else.” ”( Matheson, 2009)
 With these cautions in mind I have made rules for myself that help me to “abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)”.

 

A few of the rules I have set for myself are:

1.Internet chat is not a viable place for making good friends.

2.If I am doing anything online my children should be able to look over my shoulder and read what I am doing.

3.Any conversations carried out online should be things I would say in front of my family.

4.I don’t friend anyone on social media that I haven’t met in person.

5.I don’t friend males that I am not related to on social media.

6.I only use the computer out in the open at family gathering areas such as family room and kitchen.

 

Resources:

Matheson, K.W. "Fidelity in marriage: It's more than you think." Ensign, Sept. 2009, 13-16.