We have those same expectations when starting a new job, or going to school. Unfortunately, too many people today don't have that goal when planning their families. A growing number of couples are choosing to skip the wedding and simply live together. They live in fear of a bad marriage or a divorce, so they never get married in the first place. And who can blame them when we all know that the divorce rate for first marriages is between 40% and 50%. And, the divorce rate for remarriages is even higher!* Another group of people will enter into their marriage with the thought of divorce as an escape plan if things don't work out they way they hope.

As a society we need to get back to the days of weddings and marriages leading to our own Happily Ever Afters. Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle in the LDS church, gave great advice to those who are delaying marriage due to their fear of divorce. He said, "The best way to avoid divorce from an unfaithful, abusive, or unsupportive spouse is to avoid marriage to such a person. If you wish to marry well, inquire well. Associations through “hanging out” or exchanging information on the Internet are not a sufficient basis for marriage. There should be dating, followed by careful and thoughtful and thorough courtship."** Don't avoid marriage in fear of divorce, just date and spend some time getting to know potential spouses before rushing into anything. With a bit of work, and a lot of good communication, you can have a wonderful marriage. 

My husband and I met in middle school, and dated all through high school. We continued to date through our first years of college. We spent a long time getting to know each other and getting to know each other's families. We talked about things like our plans for the future- did we both want kids? How many? When should we start having kids? What about traveling? Career goals? We also talked about hose keeping things- do you know how to iron your own clothes? Who is going to be in charge of mowing the lawn? Once we have kids, how will our roles change? How are we going to handle our finances? And, of course, we talked about our childhoods and how our parents raised us. We talked about all of these things over years of dating and courtship. We knew that we wanted our marriage to last forever, and the only way to do that was to be sure we were marrying someone we wanted to be with forever.

Every marriage takes work; no one is perfect, but if we want to end up with a "Happily Ever After", we need to begin with that goal in mind. 

*State of Our Unions 2012; The National Marriage Project.