Christian Marriage is Beautiful…and Hard
By Robert Fontana
My mother tells the story that after 20 years of marriage, she and Dad could agree on only three things.
They were married.
They had seven sons. And…
Divorce was not an option (murder…maybe, but not divorce!).
Yes, Mom and Dad had a Christian courtship. They were married after the early morning Mass at Assumption Catholic Church, in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, settling there near Dad’s family. And, following the Catholic method of family planning, their son, the first of seven sons, was born 11 months later.
All was not roses. I have a letter from early in their marriage. Dad wrote to Mom, begging her to come back home. Apparently, she had left in a huff to live with her mother, a three-hour drive away. Mom and Dad were experiencing conflict based on what marriage educators call the “unsolvable problem” in every marriage: Mom was not Dad; Dad was not Mom. Living together, they bumped into their differences; and they had not yet learned to resolve them peacefully. Their marriage, at times, was a tug-of-war. They pulled in opposite directions until somebody finally gave in, or they had a fight.
This wasn’t the whole story. They both loved listening to and playing music, enjoyed musical theater, played tennis, gathered with extended family on weekends, and went to church on Sundays. Knowing Mom, she probably said the rosary every day and went to Mass during the week. But their Catholic Christian faith did not teach them how to manage their differences peacefully, differences in temperament, personality, and expectations, such as how they were going to support a family, parent children, and deal with each other’s families. The tug-of-war continued off and on and, at times, escalated into fighting.
When spouses fight, neither is listening to the other. All couples have a “demon dance,” a negative pattern of interaction with each other when the gloves come off, and each spouse is trying to win the argument or, worse, get revenge and hurt their spouse who may have just hurt them. The “demon dance” develops slowly over time when spouses don’t effectively address differences. Rather, they react to each other in ways that reinforce hurt, resentment, distance, and loneliness. These reactions become a pattern, a “demon dance,” into which warring spouses easily step.
Spouse A makes a critical comment about Spouse B who responds with a smirk. Spouse A does some eye-rolling, and Spouse B speaks the “truth” with a certain tone, and Spouse A says, “Don’t give me that tone!” Spouse B withdraws to silence, and Spouse A gets loud and…
I don’t know what Mom’s and Dad’s demon dance was but, after 20 years, it must have been bad. Remember the only things they could agree on? They were not alone. They were part of the post-war generation of marriages in a rapidly changing America in which the rules that governed conventional marriage – husband as head of the house – were changing. Women were demanding to be treated as equals. In 1946, 1 in 4 marriages ended in divorce. By the late 70’s / early 80’s, the divorce rate jumped to half of all marriages.
What guides today’s marriages? Today’s marriages are no longer governed by roles in which men work and take care of all things outside the house (car, lawn, etc.), and women, who may also work, take care of the small children and everything inside the house. For many people, what shapes their marriage is their careers and ambitions for material success. Some people have “political marriages,” marriages for the sake of gaining access to power in society. Celebrities may use marriage to further their fan base with no intention of longevity or fidelity. Other people, coming from trauma, may use marriage to run away from a difficult childhood home life.
Couples not guided by vows shaped by Christian faith easily place careers, kids’ commitments, pet care, hobbies, or their car upkeep ahead of their marriage. They focus on what social commentators call the “Poison P’s” – Power, Position, Possessions, and Privilege – all made possible by money. When the marriage is second-place, behind every other good commitment, spouses become strangers to one another.
Christian marriage is also hard because life is hard. Many of us didn’t grow up in a family that could give us the consistency of love and healthy examples of working through conflict without yelling and screaming. For many reasons – poverty, sickness, tragedy, sexual and physical abuse, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, angry parents, bullying siblings, emotional neglect – individuals, though married in church, bring to their marriages the unresolved pain and hurt from childhood. When emotional needs are not met in marriage, faith notwithstanding, people can react to each other with survival skills learned in childhood. They might yell or withdraw into silence, avoid conflict by joking, become overly critical or logical, analyze for motives, lecture, threaten with consequences, and even boss their spouses around.
They never learned how to listen to each other for understanding, show compassion or validate one another’s emotions, or work together for a solution to the problem that both spouses could live with without resentment.
This was Mom’s and Dad’s challenge. 20 years of marriage, and they were strangers to one another. So guided by their vows and their faith, rather than going to divorce court, they went to a prayer meeting, where they experienced God’s love which turned their lives upside down.
In welcoming God into their marriage, they learned to make their relationship their primary commitment, even over parenting their seven sons. They developed a truly Christian view for married love. They worked to replace their tug-of-war marriage with one focused on seeking the good of the other and finding unity, friendship, and understanding. With God’s help and the help of a prayer community, they began pulling together rather than against each other. And their marriage became the love story that inspired my marriage.
Christian marriage is beautiful and HARD!
