Actual effects of marriage?

[Michael19682]

We say that a person grows in faith through the sacraments. Faith says to be self sacrificing and giving, to love your neighbor as yourself. Based on the observation that so many Catholics find themselves in relationship jams, it looks like marriage is practically utilized as a means of circumventing one’s call to observe the command of love of neighbor: Increasingly, one simply devotes oneself to family and becomes communally selfish: Divorce rates go up because this selfishness does not sit right with the individual conscience. One throws out the baby with the bath water in divorce, so to speak.

I would love to hear from a competant expert both sides of the issue. That could be someone divorced for years, married for years, or someone who has special knowledge based on education and/or theoretical insight. I suspect that my observations are simplifications of a complex issue. But you know, once adolescence is past–where kids are co-mingled because they are still young adults and our church holds them as models of dependency upon and acceptance of God–what does the laity do to help people find the sacrament of marriage?

 

[Michael_Allen]

Hi Michael

My expertise extends only as far as being married for 23 years. It seems to me though that marriage challenges our selfishness. To live with a spouse is not always going to be easy and we need to learn to be patient and selfless at times. Most of all we learn stability - a commitment to work through issues without running away. To end on a positive note we also learn to open ourselves, our vulnerable selves, up to be loved. This should all, IMO, help build community as love, patience and stability spreads outwards.

 

[Michael19682]

Hi Michael

My expertise extends only as far as being married for 23 years. It seems to me though that marriage challenges our selfishness. To live with a spouse is not always going to be easy and we need to learn to be patient and selfless at times. Most of all we learn stability - a commitment to work through issues without running away. To end on a positive note we also learn to open ourselves, our vulnerable selves, up to be loved. This should all, IMO, help build community as love, patience and stability spreads outwards.

Thank You Michael,

I respect your expertise. I agree with your responsive positivity as regards the potential upside of marriage for the married person. In fact, you advocate well for marriage and there certainly has to be a reason for its popularity beyond instinct. I’m a little confused though, as to the flow beyond, or ‘spread outward’ as you call it of the love, patience, and stability of self that are admittedly gained through marriage. From what I’ve seen in my limited observations of the married, they do nothing for anyone beyond their family unless that someone has an interest in building up their family through enhancing the future of their children. Once the empowerment sought after is obtained – a successful mentorship, information valuable to the child’s career aspirations, encouragement of the child, even counseling of a child – an ulterior motive is quickly ascribed and benefits to the helper popularly deemed intrinsic to the activity (a single person being allowed to relate to a child or young adult) replace practical acts of gratitude.
I’ve heard it said that before I was born single people used to sit in the front
of the church and married people sat in the back. My grandmother used to frequently take me to church when I was a child and I remember all the ladies in church who sat alone were the happiest and always smiled at me.
Granted the demands of raising a family in a difficult economy and the stress of demanding, cruel bosses and supervisors must strain the family leader’s ability to be communally social. We all know that the Church suffers.

It seems that we have lost our way organizationally and that attitudes towards the sacrament of marriage’s function, i.e., for purposes beyond the married persons and their childrens instantaneous survival, might be to blame for the mailaise and might if put in proper perspective revive not only failing marriages but lead to the formation of cooperative and sustainable Catholic communuties that care for all their numbers, despite the stressful burden of what their woes seen superficially as dumped on us does to our tenuous oneness of faith.​

MOST IMPORTANTLY, THANK YOU FOR THE BLOG!!!

 

[Fran49829]

My wife and I have been married for 43 years. People have forgotten that marriage is a sacrament, a holy institution, and needs to be looked at in that way. It is about 2 people supporting each other on the road to salvation.