Sanctification and Cooperation: How Prayer helps Strengthen Relationships in Good Times and Heal Relationships in Bad Times

Successful marriages...are established and maintained on principles of...prayer.

Drawing on the powers of heaven through prayer is a powerful resource available to couples that can make a good relationship better and can heal a faltering marriage.

Prayer and Sanctification of Marriage

When people perceive something as sacred, it changes the way they treat it. For example, workers who defined their work as a "calling" reported missing fewer days than those who defined it as a "job" or a "career." It is also reported that those who viewed their bodies as sacred placed a higher priority on daily physical exercise. What about the idea of "sanctification of marriage" as perceiving one's marriage as being holy and sacred? Sanctification of marriage can be defined as a process by which secular aspects of one's relationship are perceived as having spiritual significance.


Prayer and Restoring Cooperative Goals

Conflict is a universal part of marriage. For many, unresolved contention eventually leads to the dissolution of the marriage. Prayer, however, can help protect couples from divorce by healing the relationship and restoring harmony to the marriage. Elder Dallin H. Oaks advised:

If you are already descending into the low state of marriage-in-name-only, please join hands, kneel together, and prayerfully plead for help and the healing power of the Atonement. Your humble and united pleadings will bring you closer to the Lord and to each other and will help you in the hard climb back to marital harmony. 

According to Goal Theory, two primary goals exist in any relationship: cooperative goals and emergent goals. Cooperative goals reflect a win-win mentality in which couples are actively helping each other to succeed. Conversely, emergent goals reflect a win-lose mentality and commonly surface during times of conflict.

Prayer and de-escalation during conflict-A qualitative study found that religious practices such as prayer helped couples to manage their anger during marital conflict. Couples in another study reported that prayer alleviated tension and facilitated open communication during conflict situations.

Partner-focused prayer, cooperative goals, and forgiveness-Praying specifically for a partner's well-being is especially good for communication. Given that feelings are often hurt during conflict, necessitating forgiveness, assumes that praying for a partner would increase forgiveness. This is an impact of praying for a partner's well-being. Partner-focused prayer transformed relationship goals, even in the hear of an insult or conflict and that this transformation of goals facilitated forgiveness.




From the textbook, Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Alan J., Dollahite, David C., & Draper, Thomas W., 2012.