National Marriage Week: Marriage is wonderful and hard!
By Lori Fontana
Do you know that every marriage has an unsolvable problem? It’s that I’m not my spouse, and my spouse is not me! I like Scrabble; he likes Risk. I like the crossword puzzle; he goes right to the sports page. He likes surfing through all the channels with the remote; I like to find one program and watch it through. A perfect Saturday morning for him is a 20-mile bike ride followed by college football on TV; I like staying in my PJ’s, reading a good book, and sipping a mug of tea. I go around turning off lights; he likes them all on. I like hazelnut; he can’t stand it!
These are not moral differences. We’re not tussling over huge philosophical or spiritual issues. But we have preferences, and we bump into our differences daily. These differences are not good or bad; they’re just different. We have to work at negotiating them and accepting each other as we are. Our marriage covenant means we are committed to sticking with the give-and-take of a successful marriage. And it is precisely in navigating our differences with good communication and patience and LOVE that each of us grows in wisdom and grace, and our marriage bond is strengthened.
It’s also true that we grow through conflict. When we’re in agreement, we can be on auto-pilot, just sailing along in our busy lives. But when we disagree, when we don’t see eye to eye – that’s when we have to grow in awareness, expand our hearts, and temper our tendencies toward selfishness. We can learn and mature; and our marriage grows stronger and more rewarding. A peace-filled marriage (and it will never be a perfect marriage) is the pearl of great price, well worth the price!
February 7th – 14th is National Marriage Week. With your spouse, decide on one thing to do together to help nurture and strengthen your marriage.
Please see the marriage exercise on the below. It will give you a chance for meaningful conversation with your spouse.
VALUES & SPIRITUALITY IN MARRIAGE by Susan Vogt (author/speaker), used with permission
The following is an exercise to help you identify your most deeply held values and to check how closely they match up with your daily life. Sometimes we believe we believe something, but how we spend our time and money puts a lie to it. To have a happy marriage, couples need not share every interest, BUT it is crucial that they are in sync with their most deeply held values. If these values are generous, loving, and life-giving, a spiritual bonding will grow.
Directions: Each partner takes time to reflect on the following questions and writes his/her answers on paper. Read each other’s thoughts, then discuss. Since this is a heavy topic, you might not want to do this exercise all in one sitting, but rather take a question a day, a week, or a month.
1-What’s most important in life to you? (This question is open ended to let your mind roam over all the possibilities.)
A.
B.
C.
What kind of time and money do you put toward these priorities?
2-Covenant – Describe a time(s) when your marriage made demands on you that forced you to stand on your vows in order to survive. For example, when has one of you been called to give more than your fair share? (For example: unequal schooling, incomes, illness…)
3-Unconditional – Is there any way that one or both of you have changed since your wedding day that’s been hard to accept? Is there any change that would jeopardize your love? (for example: a change in appearance, personality, or mental health, infertility, loss of a job, infidelity…)
4-Fidelity/Permanence – Fidelity is more than just sexual; permanence is more than just not getting a divorce. What daily or frequent habits have you developed to nurture your relationship? (For example: eating together, a daily walk, checking in by phone or e-mail, praying together…) Has there ever been a crisis in your relationship when you have been tempted to give up on it? What helped you through it?
5- Fruitfulness – Has your love stretched you beyond yourselves? How? (For example: volunteer work, service projects, helping out in your neighborhood and community…) For those who have a child(ren) – How has your child stretched you to go beyond yourselves?
6- Forgiveness – Do you generally find it easy or difficult to forgive your spouse or yourself for shortcomings and mistakes? What has been a hard thing for you to forgive so far in your marriage? What does forgiveness look like in your marriage? For example: Do you say, “Please forgive me.” and “I forgive you.”? Do you make amends? Do a favor? Hug? Give flowers? Make a bowl of popcorn?…
7-Prayer – How do you involve God in your marriage? What does prayer mean to you? If you pray with your spouse, what’s that experience like? If not, why not, and what would it take to begin praying together?
Identify what prayer form most appeals to you:
____ memorized prayers ____ reading inspirational books ____ silent meditation
____ prayer services/rituals ____ guided meditation ____ rosary
____ scripture reading ____ inspiration from nature ____ I’m a crisis pray-er
____ other _____________________
