How can i have a better view of the vocation of marriage when my parents were in an abusive marriage?

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SacredHeartBassist

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I can honestly say that I haven’t met a married couple in which I was like, “I want what they have.” Honestly, most married couples I meet aren’t that happy. Or at least they don’t seem like it. I hear them complain about how expensive it is to have kids. Or the guys tell me in confidence that their wife doesn’t want to have sex with them as much anymore. Or they tell me they want to cheat but won’t. Or they have cheated.

Just so you guys know, I’m a 27 year old catholic guy. Most of my friends aren’t catholic, but even the ones in catholic marriages don’t seem to be happy in their marriages. I know I have a bad outlook on the vocation of marriage because my dad always abused my mom and me and it left my mom hating the vocation of marriage. I don’t blame her for not liking marriage. It can suck. There are so many abusive marriages. There are so many cases of infidelity. Honestly there’s a greater chance that a marriage won’t work out instead of working out.

But at the same time, I know it’s a vocation and a sacrament and I want to be a good catholic who has a positive view of marriage when I get invited to weddings, etc. I don’t want to keep being this cynical guy when my friends say they get engaged and I’m just counting down the days until one of them breaks up with the other because of cheating or being used for money or lying. Please help. I just want to see marriage as a positive institution and I don’t. I know my thinking has affected my dating life and it has made me averse to dating as I should. Because right now I don’t even see dating as worth it
 
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Here on CAF are very many happily married people. Just look at some really cute threads here:
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Memorable moments with your spouse Family Life
For those married or had been married and are not too shy. A funny moment, touching moment, tender moment, meaningful moment or memorable moment that you may want to share. God bless.
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For every one of those comments there’s a thread on here about infidelity or abuse or neglect and wanting a divorce or the spouse wanting one
 
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For every good man you´ll find also several bad. In priesthood, in marriages, in charity. You don´t seem to have problems with those other fields, so, why in marriage?
Friendships are also “dangerous”, as trust in general. Dou you have problems with trust in friends?
Look, my mum ans my dad´s marriage ended in divorce. My In-Laws marriage has struggles. I am happily married. There is nothing like a curse like “it has to be the same with me” - it´s just about being more careful than others.
 
There are far more long lasting effects of a marriage breaking up than a friendship. I’m not afraid of losing friends. I can just make new ones. But when it comes to marriage the Catholic Church has a teaching on one and done
 
Well, but you are not doomed with a person to fail when you are both conscious and able to work on things - this can be tested before marriage. Men aren´t that static. It´s not about not having issues, it´s about learning how to work them out. Even a “failed” marriage doesn´t have to stay failed when both partners allow them to work on it.
I was in an abusive relationship myself, and really, hard cases like this tend to be clear and viewable very early and before marriage. So, the key is at least being honest with yourself and not marrying out of the feel of loneliness, for example.
 
That’s a good point that you can choose your partner. But what about partners who change years after a marriage and cheat or are unwilling to work with you? Seems to happen all the time to my friends
 
Maybe look on it the other way. What if I change? Maybe to the bad? I hope that my husband will, in all charity, pray for me then instead of filling up for divorce right after.
And I thin it´s important in which circles you spend your time. I noticed what you noticed often, and our reaction as couple was often enough “we move on, bad influence”.
A dear friend of us changed his view on marriage to the good, as he told me, after he saw my husband was that strict with bad influencing friends. So, it can happen otherwise.
 
If I cut out my friends who aren’t living good catholic lives I’ll have no friends. I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t broken
 
Not being broken is not a criteria for “good christian”. But complaining loud about my marriage to friends (instead of intime help-oriented talk to a close friend) would seem immoral to me. I am broken, as everyone in this world is more or less. It´s about dealing with it.
I would add, feeling or being alone is sometime still the right way. Trust me, I know how this feels. It´s also about your specific “weak points”. If my weak poin was, for example, dealing with sexual sins, I would stay away from friends who struggle in public with this. If I had a problem with drugs, I would stay away from people who fail with this.
None of them are out of the love of god or out of my respect.
 
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So what do I do to have a more positive outlook on the vocation and dating
 
First, build trust in your stability. For example, I had terrible fear to be left very long. The only way to solve this was actually being alone and dealing with exactly this horrible feeling before entering a relationship.
You don´t have to date. You are still far away from “alone and old”.
Think about forgivenes. God gives us the ability to forgive, that is a grace. You don´t have “nothing but a mess” when there´s a need to forgive a partners mistake. It´s also a grace to be in the position to forgive.
Read about the good ends. There is no average human, you don´t need to compare with the bad stories if you don´t want.
 
Remember that often people come to CAF for advice when their marriages/relationships are going badly or there’s a problem. If everything is fine, there isn’t a need to post, so there is some skewing going on.

What to do to have a more positive outlook? Try to focus on those positives. As you say, thinking negatively has shaped your relationships to be negative. It’s possible you (and your friends) are not really meeting the right people, which will add to your disenchantment.

I’m sorry to hear about your parents’ marriage. It’s completely understandable you feel like you do. But there are good people out there.
 
Yeah, I know there are good people out there. But they’re VERY rare. I’d like to think positively about the sacrament of marriage but it’s really hard to when statistics on marriage sort of go the other way
 
I really don’t think they’re as rare as you say. It’s possible that you’re in a situation where that’s all you’re seeing, though.
 
I don’t know that we should be trying to argue the OP into thinking that marriage is a good thing. It is, of course; what could be lovelier than going through life with someone else, enacting the relationship of Christ and His Church?

But marriage is imperfect, our current laws (in the US) make it very easy to unilaterally divorce, and if the OP can’t go into marriage with the mindset that “we can stick to this” his(?) odds of divorce are already higher than maybe they’d be otherwise. Fears are rational, but they needn’t be insurmountable.

Remember, OP, that marriage is between two people. Can you refrain from divorcing your spouse? Can you work toward building your house together with your intended? What is your honest assessment of the other person?

For what it’s worth, I’m six years married and very happy. I’m finding life with my husband much more fulfilling than my single life.
 
If I were cheated on I’d divorce. I’d also wouldn’t get married without a prenuptual agreement. I don’t think most people are worth dating
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
I hear them complain about how expensive it is to have kids. Or the guys tell me in confidence that their wife doesn’t want to have sex with them as much anymore. Or they tell me they want to cheat but won’t. Or they have cheated.
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All of these things can be issues- kids can be expensive, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it. Intimacy evolves, and desire comes and goes and doesn’t always match up. You work through it. Some people are tempted to cheat, and some do, but that’s on them. When you marry someone you promise to be true to them in good times and bad- not just good times. Just because some people don’t stick through the bad times, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean you can’t. Next time a friend tries telling you about his marital intimacy issues, tell him you’d rather he didn’t because it’s not respectful to his wife. People should not be talking about their relationship issues to anyone but a counselor or priest.

It sounds like you could benefit from therapy to deal with what happened with your own parents, and that you’re not really in a place where you should be pursuing a relationship anyway. But know that a lot of us are happily married and wouldn’t trade our spouses for anyone else. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have the same challenges other couples have, but a lot of people really do believe in the permanency of marriage.
 
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