Covenant Marriages, a thing of the past?

Are we living in a world where we give up on things when they get hard? Divorces in the world are common, and children are used to living in two different places because their families are separated. This not only breaks my heart, but I am sure that it breaks Heavenly Fathers heart to see so many of His beloved children hurting.

As I was doing my genogram, I was so surprised by how many divorces have been in my family. On my mother side, they don't have the gospel or don't follow the gospel standards ( except one brother), so I was expecting the number of divorces that were on her side but what surprised me was on my father side of the family. All of them grew up with the Gospel, so it surprised me that there were several divorces not only with my cousins but also my aunts. You would think growing up with the gospel and always learning about temple marriages and covenants that divorces would be less often. What made all of these marriages fail? What made all of the other marriages work?

As I was reading Elder Bruce C. Hafen gave a talk on Covenant marriage, some of my questions were answered. One story that helped me understand maybe why some of these marriages failed was the story he shared about three kinds of wolves that test marriages. The first wolf is natural adversity, things like your car tires go flat on you, or you break your leg. The next wolf is the imperfections of people.  In short, this wolf is in imperfections that we don't grow out of. If we are quick to anger or quick to judge these type of things cannot only test a marriage but could destroy them altogether. The third wolf is excessive individualism. The Idea of what is in it for me? Or how can I get what I want? 

One wolf that I have seen from a couple that has lived in my ward boundaries that were affected by the last wolf. This couple had been married for several years kids moved out grandkids and the whole shebang but, there was a disconnect in the marriage. The husband started getting caught up in the world and looking at different people and slowly they got a divorce because of his own selfish desires. All three of these wolfs can hurt or destroy our marriages if we are not careful

Now, how important is a covenant marriage to you? How are you going to keep your marriage sacred?