Catholic Marriage question

[agapewolf]

I am 40.

I was never sure i would have the patience for children. I guess I figured if i wanted to have children i would feel that way. The thought of having a life to take care of that was so fragile frightened me. I know through life that I have risen to the challenges, but that doesn’t necessarily help.

I cant explain why I don’t feel like everyone else. Sometimes i look at children with their families and wonder if what I feel is wrong. Maybe I will regret it down the road and all of a sudden feel the need to have children of my own. But I cant change that and I don’t want to FORCE myself to feel another way because people think it’s wrong or weird.

Bucket said: "Why not just live together and hook-up and do whatever you want? "

To me marriage is a way to show someone how much you love them and that you want to be with them and only them for the rest of your life. I know (now) thats not the catholic definition and if it is it’s such a small part it’s not enough.

How can something like love and the need to show someone that love by professing to be with them forever no matter what through marriage be wrong. To me it’s not wrong, but to the church it’s not the reason for it.

To the church I can show that person that love by just being with them forever but not through marriage and “till death do us part”?

P.

You are defining love incorrectly. Love is not a feeling. It is not romance.

Love is the cross. It is a decision – an act of the will for the good of the other. The good of the other person is heaven, so when you love someone you do what you have to do to get them to heaven.

If you read EPH 5, you see that call means so far as to die for her in order to get her to heaven. It’s about sacrifice and service to the spouse.

Children bring us out of selfishness-- it enhances our ability to love, teaches us to love.

 

[Paralep]

agapewolf, I don’t understand how you can tell me I am defining love incorrectly.

I can accept that per the catholic faiths definition of marriage, I am not entering into marriage as I believe it to be.

If you want you can tell me that the Catholics definition of love is not what I am defining. But don’t tell me I am defining the word love as I feel it incorrectly.

P.

 

[agapewolf]

agapewolf, I don’t understand how you can tell me I am defining love incorrectly.

I can accept that per the catholic faiths definition of marriage, I am not entering into marriage as I believe it to be.

If you want you can tell me that the Catholics definition of love is not what I am defining. But don’t tell me I am defining the word love as I feel it incorrectly.

P.

Ok, you’ve got some bigger problems here. Do you not believe that God is the author of love? Do you believe that Christ showed us what love means? That is the definition of love, and that is the basis for saying you are defining love incorrectly.

Christ loves the church-- His bride. By dying for her. This is BASIC catholic teaching. Basic, catholic 101. Christ gave the keys to Peter-- the first pope, to assist us as the vicar of Christ so that we can trust the Church in helping explain.

It’s not up to our “feelings”… or what we want. It’s up to GOD-- the author of love to define it.

If you feel love is based on feelings or romance, well, you are headed down an extremely destructive road-- because then when you don’t feel in love anymore, you just leave. That is not love. That is abuse.

 

[The_Bucket]

I can accept that per the catholic faiths definition of marriage, I am not entering into marriage as I believe it to be.

Why would you want to do that? If you really loved your future spouse, why would you wrap sin in the packaging of a sacrament?

If you want you can tell me that the Catholics definition of love is not what I am defining. But don’t tell me I am defining the word love as I feel it incorrectly.

Ah but see, you keep talking about feelings and that’s why you’re wrong. Love really has nothing to do with feeling. You can feel attracted or infatuated or excited, but you cannot feel love. Love is action based on a conscious choice. You know what love is? This. This is love:

 

[The_Bucket]

So let’s be perfectly clear. Love is dying to self for others. Married love has a specific sexual element to it but that’s because sexual intimacy is the complete giving of oneself to another. It is about as vulnerable as we human beings can become. We strip ourselves naked, we unite with one another physically and we expose ourselves to the potential creation of new life.

Sexual intimacy is just one part of married life, but it is what separate the marital relationship from all other relationships. We are nevertheless called to do what Christ did for everyone around us. We are called to die to self for others. That’s love.

What you are describing is eros and some philia. The marital relationship is called to have all four definitions of love: Eros, storge, philia and agape. Especially agape.

 

[Paralep]

So when the priest asked me if I loved my fiance I should have said…no thats an action, I am attracted to her.

Can I show love for my fiance by doing THINGS for her?

Do you “feel” gods love?

P.

 

[The_Bucket]

So when the priest asked me if I loved my fiance I should have said…no thats an action, I am attracted to her.

Come on now, you know what we’re saying.

Can I show love for my fiance by doing THINGS for her?

Absolutely. The greatest thing you can do to show your love for her is to die to your self and live entirely for her, for other people and for Christ. Romance is nice but romance is merely one way that we express that we’re willing to spend time and energy on someone special. Isn’t that why romance makes you feel accepted? Because you know that someone who loves you made a really strong effort to demonstrate what she is willing to do for you?

Do you “feel” gods love?

Sometimes. Sometimes I feel something that I think is the love of God or at least zeal for Him. But I can’t trust my feelings because they are merely feelings. Because if I tie God’s love up in feelings, then that means when I don’t “feel loved” by Him, then He actually doesn’t love me. And that, my friend, is total nonsense. Mother Teresa felt abandoned by God for decades of her life, but was she right? Did God really abandon her? No.

Christ Himself felt abandoned at the very end! He quoted Isaiah in saying “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Did the other Persons of the Trinity really abandon Jesus? No. Why He felt that way is a mystery, at least to me. Perhaps because His suffering blocked out for a moment His ability to feel the love of God. Perhaps it was a conflict between His true natures as fully Man and fully Divine. Perhaps it was symbolic so that we can understand that we are not really abandoned when we suffer. I don’t know. What I do know is that we are never abandoned by God even when we feel that way. That’s why tying love to feelings is so very dangerous.

Christ’s actions speak louder than any words in the Scripture and any feelings I might have. He died for me. When you marry someone, the two become one flesh. You die to yourself and pledge to, until the day you die, put the other first. That’s not romantic in the traditional sense. But it is the truest form of love.

 

[Paralep]

Thank you all for your words.

I will be talking with our priest and discuss our thoughts and concerns with him.

P.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Just a thought: I don’t think I have ever met anyone who would say that they regretted having children, or wished that their child had not been born. Not everyone feels an “urge” to have kids, but once you have them, you love them more than you ever could have imagined beforehand.

My mom was one who never thought that she wanted kids, and but she ended up with four (plus grandchildren now).

Just my 2 cents.

 

[agapewolf]

So when the priest asked me if I loved my fiance I should have said…no thats an action, I am attracted to her.

Can I show love for my fiance by doing THINGS for her?

Do you “feel” gods love?

P.

Well…are you willing to die for her? We didnt’ say you can’t be attracted… you just can’t define attraction as love. What happens when she gets old?

In the “5 love languages” it talks about how people perceive love-- acts of service is one of them. But that doesn’t DEFINE love.

Sometimes, one can feel God’s love. Sometimes, you don’t. Mother Teresa spent many years in a spiritual dry spell-- doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love her.

 

[LSK]

All those who question the validity of the starting question, please raise their hand.

 

[1ke]

Wouldn’t this have to be conceived of prior to the marriage? As in someone goes into the marriage with the intention to be open to life and then changes his or her mind a few years into the marriage (which has yet to yield children) and gets sterilized. I guess that’s a case where it’s not a clear-cut impediment but could be one and a tribunal would have to look at it.

We are talking about not-yet-married individuals with a permanent intention against children.

You seem to be talking about something else-- a person who later decides they do not want children. No, that is not the same thing and does not impact validity of the marriage.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

I am 40.

I was never sure i would have the patience for children. I guess I figured if i wanted to have children i would feel that way. The thought of having a life to take care of that was so fragile frightened me. I know through life that I have risen to the challenges, but that doesn’t necessarily help.

I cant explain why I don’t feel like everyone else. Sometimes i look at children with their families and wonder if what I feel is wrong. Maybe I will regret it down the road and all of a sudden feel the need to have children of my own. But I cant change that and I don’t want to FORCE myself to feel another way because people think it’s wrong or weird.

.

FWIW, I was terrified of having children. I wanted to have them but had zero experience in how to relate to or handle them. My first experience with dealing with children was when we adopted our first daughter (overseas), my wife left the hotel room to get something, and my new daughter needed a diaper change. I just figured it out and did it, then had to calm her down.

Once you have children, you just automatically do what you have to do. Really, having children is a wonderful experience, even though it may seem terrifying at first.