Holy, then happy.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying studying Sacred Marriage, by Gary Thomas. He asks, as the theme of his book, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” Such a different perspective on marriage than our society holds today, and sadly, than many of us expected when we exchanged vows.

Gary Thomas says, “The real transforming work of marriage is the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment. This is the crucible that grinds and shapes us into the character of Jesus Christ. […] Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.”

He continues, “The first purpose of marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God. The challenge, of course, is that it is utterly selfless living; rather than asking, “What will make me happy?” we are told that we must ask, “What will make God happy?”

The simple truth is no marriage, or any relationship, can always make us happy. We are imperfect people who make mistakes and those mistakes often wound the people closest to us. When our loved ones hurt us, we must learn to forgive in order for the relationship to survive. When we hurt our beloved, we must learn to ask forgiveness. In this give and take, marriage stretches us and teaches us to be better people. If we do our work well, holier
people.

As the author says, “Marriage virtually forces us into the intense act of reconciliation.” And so we become examples, though imperfect, of God’s constant forgiveness and effort at reconciliation.

A few points about reconciliation from the book:

• “Husbands, you are married to a fallen woman in a broken world. Wives, you are married to a sinful man in a sinful world. It is guaranteed that your spouse will sin against you, disappoint you, and have physical limitations that will frustrate and sadden you. […] If we view the marriage relationship as an opportunity to excel in love, it doesn’t matter how difficult the person is whom we are called to love; it doesn’t matter if that love is ever returned. We can still excel at love. We can still say, ‘Like it or not, I’m going to love you like nobody ever has.’”
• “Whenever marital dissatisfaction rears its head in my marriage—as it does in virtually every marriage—I simply check my focus. The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from  emanding a “better” wife. […] Yes we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it’s us!”
• “I don’t know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more than satisfied with the same spouse. I don’t know why this works, only that it does work.”
• “Use the revelation of your sin as a means to grow in the foundational Christian virtue of humility, leading you to confession and renouncement. Then go the next step and adopt the positive virtue that corresponds to the sin you are renouncing. If you’ve used women in the past, practice serving your wife. If you’ve been quick to ridicule your husband, practice giving him encouragement and  praise.”
• “Marriage is a long walk. We can start out a little slowly, even occasionally lose our way, and still salvage a most meaningful journey.”

The author talks about once backpacking with friends and coming to a swift creek they needed to cross. One friend gave him advice: “Whatever you do, if you fall, fall forward.” He believes the same advice applies wisely to our marriages. Yes, we’ll inevitably make mistakes and fall. Let’s just be sure we fall forward, toward our spouse.

We all know those moments when we would feel justified to cross our arms, stomp, and turn our backs on our spouse. Or angry in bed, we want to roll over and face away. Those are the most important (and hardest) times to turn towards our spouse with love. We must make our challenges draw us closer together rather than tear us apart. We must fall forward into each other’s arms. Forward into each others’ hearts.

Gary writes:

• “Falls are inevitable. We can’t control that, but we can control the direction in which we fall—toward or away from our spouse.”
• “I believe one of marriage’s primary purposes is to teach us how to forgive. This spiritual discipline provides us with the power we need to keep falling forward in the context of a sinful world.”
• “It took years for me to understand I have a Christian obligation to continually move toward my wife. I thought that as long as I didn’t attack my wife or say cruel things to her, I was a “nice” husband, but the opposite of biblical live isn’t hate, it’s apathy. To stop moving toward our spouse is to stop loving him or her. It’s holding back from the very purpose of marriage.”
• “What do we do when our spouse doesn’t want us to fall forward—when in fact, our spouse is pushing us away? The Bible provides clear guidance. The father let the prodigal son go, but love demanded that the father always be ready with open arms to “fall forward” should the son ever return (see Luke 15:11-32).”

I pray for blessings on your week. May you show your love for God by loving your spouse well. One last piece of advice from the book before I end:

• “But if you truly want to love God, look right now at the ring on your left hand, commit yourself to exploring anew what that ring represents, and love passionately, crazily, enduringly the fleshly person who put it there. It just may be one of the most spiritual things you can do.”

Welcome back to 4 Minutes 4 Marriage!

Welcome to newcomers, and welcome back to those of you who’ve followed previous Lenten posts for growth.

I’ll share wisdom over the next 6 weeks about relationships from professional counselors and authors. I’m in the process of culling information from several well-regarded relationship books. In years past we’ve reviewed such authors as John Gottman (Why Marriages Succeed or Fail), David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage), Gary Chapman (5 Love Languages), Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn (For Men/Women Only), and even Dr. Phil McGraw (Relationship Rescue). For a refresher, or if you want to see previous posts, choose the “Marriage” link under 4 Minutes 4 Growth in the right hand column.

But I also believe some of our greatest wisdom comes from our elders. In “Ask Amy” on Valentine’s Day in The Oregonian, Amy Dickinson quotes Cornell University’s Legacy Project, which collected advice from over 1200 Americans, most 70 or older.

Here are the top 5 tips these “Wisest Americans” offer for a long and happy marriage:

1. Similarity in core values is the key to a happy marriage.
2. Friendship is as important as romantic love: Heart-thumping passion has to undergo a metamorphosis in lifelong relationships.
3. Don’t keep score: Don’t take the attitude that marriage must always be a 50-50 proposition; you can’t get out exactly what you put in. The key to success is having both partners try to give more than they get out of the relationship.
4. Talk to each other: Marriage to the strong, silent type can be deadly to a relationship. Long-term married partners are talkers (at least to one another, and about things that count). (Betty here: In a future post we’ll talk about dealing with partners who don’t want to talk about the relationship.)
5. Commit to marriage itself, not just to your partner. Make a commitment to the institution of marriage and take it seriously. Seeing the marriage as bigger than the immediate needs of each partner helps people work together to overcome inevitable rough patches.

Though my grandmother wasn’t part of the Legacy Project, her counsel still echoes in my mind. She used to say about children—but the words hold true about spouses—“When they are the hardest to love is when they need your love the most.”

Valentine’s Day made me particularly grateful to be married to a kind and considerate man who continues to earn the title of best friend. He will joke about “I suppose I have to buy you a gift and write something on a card,” but what I especially appreciate is not what he gets me, but that he “gets me,” at least most of the time. We’ve grown through almost 34 years of marriage, and we still have moments when we misunderstand, miscommunicate, and just plain mistake what the other wants/says/means. But we keep trying and learning and growing, because we are committed to marriage in general and our marriage in particular.

One of my unpublished novels, called “When the Vow Breaks,” tells of wounds that are inflicted on the innocent when people don’t honor and keep the vows they proclaimed on their wedding day. It exemplifies in story form what I firmly believe: Our marriage vows need tending every single day. It’s in the small acts of love and respect that we strengthen our commitment, and sadly, in the small acts of disrespect and selfishness that we chip away at our relationship. Those times we fail to honor our spouses we inflict harm, not only on each other, but on our children, our extended families, our friends, and anyone who is looking for examples of strong, loving commitment.

Conversely, we may never know the positive influence we have on people as we demonstrate our love and respect for our partner in what may seem to us like insignificant ways. Each marriage is important to countless people. We have a responsibility—not only to our spouse but to society—to make our marriage as strong and healthy and happy as we can.

On our wedding day, we promised to continue to love, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” We may have romantically imagined ourselves nursing a loved one back to health or accepting lean financial times. But that worse/poorer/sickness challenge also applies when our spouses irritate us, continue to be messy, act unreasonable, wallow in a rotten mood, or simply make mistakes.

Let’s recommit to our wedding vows, and our spouse, today and every day.

To whet your appetite for a future post, here are a few quotes from Judith Viorst’s book, Grown-Up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married. She has more to say about our marriage promise, and the  commitment to that promise that we need to honor daily:

• Eternal vigilance is the price of a good marriage. Pay attention. Never stop paying attention. Take care of your marriage.
• Quoting Mrs. Antrobus in Thorton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, “I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage…. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them—it was that promise.”
• The promise we make to each other is that we’ll protect and preserve our marriage, that we’ll feed and watch over our marriage, that we’ll defend it against attacks—even our own. The promise we make to each other, and to ourselves,
  is that our marriage will endure.
• Quoting Michael Vincent Miller in Intimate Terrorism, “After all, don’t husbands and wives have to go to heroic lengths to make a marriage work these days? Perhaps marriage in the modern world, with all its restless energy, its labyrinths of complex meanings to negotiate, its ordeals and setback to overcome, could be our next arena for heroic deeds.”

Didn’t you want to be a hero or heroine when you were little? We can be—to our spouse and all the people who see us as examples.

Consider yourself sent forth on a quest!

4 Minutes 4 Marriage – Freely, Fully, Faithfully, Fruitfully

Good Friday has arrived, which means I’ve written 5 premarriage posts and 6 marriage posts during Lent. Yet, when Fr. Mike asked on Sunday at Mass what marriage advice my spouse and I had to offer as we celebrated 30 years, I went completely blank. (Husband came up with, “Don’t go to bed angry,” and saved the moment.)

So, to redeem myself, I’m going to offer some of my favorite tidbits:

• Like the song says, Turn Back to Me, with All Your Heart. When I most want to turn away is when it’s the hardest but most important to turn toward my husband and reconnect.
• That goes along with what someone said who shared our anniversary date. He and his wife promised to, Love each other when most unlovable.
• Always treat your spouse with respect, whether in person or when talking about him or her.
• Express gratitude for every service your spouse does for you, from a meal made to a day spent at work.
• In general, put your spouse first, ahead of any other person. Though occasionally your children’s needs must come first, a strong marriage is one of your greatest gifts to them. Set aside time alone together—a few (4?) minutes each day, one evening a week, and a weekend a couple of times each year.
• Pray together. Studies show couples who regularly pray and attend Church together have a much lower rate of divorce. Inviting the Holy Spirit into your marriage brings graces that reinforce your commitment to everlasting love.
• Play together. Find ways to keep laughter in your relationship. Not by teasing, of course.

I’ve been thinking about the Church’s view on marriage as it is illuminated by annulment (Decree of Nullity) proceedings. In order to determine whether a marriage was, in fact, a sacramental covenant that is indissoluble, the Church looks for four elements to be present at the time of the wedding. The Church asks whether both parties promised themselves:

• Freely – Were both members of the couple free to make a lifetime vow? Were they mature enough, mentally stable enough, and not encumbered by any situation that made marriage seem to be the only option?
• Fully – Was either party holding back some truth from the other? Were they ready and willing to accept each other as they were, without any conditions?
• Faithfully – Did they intend to remain faithful to each other alone, for life?
• Fruitfully – Was their love open to sharing with others, particularly children?

If these four elements were not present, the Church may find that a marriage, though legal (and thus recognizing any children as legitimate) may not have been a valid sacramental marriage.

It stands to reason that if we want our marriages to be lifelong, indissoluble, we should work to turn to each other every day and offer our love:

• Freely – Do I work to keep other commitments from coming between me and my spouse? Do I attempt to grow in my maturity and emotional strength in order to bring my best to my marriage?
• Fully – Do I keep part of myself protected from my spouse, or do I make an effort to grow in intimacy and trust?
• Faithfully – Do I guard myself from temptation? Do I keep our marital challenges private and discuss them only with my spouse or with a trained professional? Do my actions assure my spouse that he or she is now and will always be my one and only?
• Fruitfully – We recognize love by the fruit that it bears. What sacrifices can I make to show my love? How can I turn away from selfishness and be open to the good of others? Am I parenting my children as fully as I can, teaching them spiritually, morally, and intellectually?

This post is our final one for this Lent. Like last year, I am making it shorter than usual in order to give you time to write a short note to your spouse that begins, “I love you because…” Then slip it inside an Easter card or Easter basket.

No groaning allowed. We all need to count our blessings from time to time, and your spouse is one of your best!

 I’d love to hear from you about how you’ve applied any of the ideas, or how I could improve these posts for next year (even if you say you hate homework).

 May your Easter Season and your relationship be blessed!

 Betty Arrigotti