How do you “feel” about your spouse?

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Psalm30

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So, in light of another recent thread on the joys and perils of marriage, I’m sincerely interested in people’s experiences with their spouse. Such as:

Is your spouse your “best friend”?

Would you say you love your spouse unconditionally?

If you’ve been married for a while, how has your love for your spouse changed over the years?

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your marriage?

If you have children, how have they impacted your marriage?

Do you love your spouse or children more?

I hope this doesn’t turn into a heated debate, but I’m bracing myself for the possibility. 😉
 
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Looking into her face is the closest thing on earth to looking into the face of God.
 
We’ve been married for 31 years. I wouldn’t say best friend or soul mate as they sound to mushy to describe us. Our marriage feels like home and I feel grateful and blessed everyday for it. My husband has traits that nowadays would be pegged on the autistic spectrum and that made for a lot of difficulty and pain for a lot of years and I seriously considered whether separation was the only solution. But by Gods grace I didn’t choose that route and God as He does, smoothed over the rocky ground. Today the kids are grown and are all on their own journey’s. Only one has let his faith slipped and Our Lady hears about him everyday!

Life is great now. We are both in reasonable health and out of debt and we do a lot of travelling together. Always lots of laughter and never really any arguments at all now. We also have a lot of joy from family get togethers with my brothers and sister and their spouses who also have grown into happy, joyful couples.
 
Psalm30 said:
Is your spouse your “best friend”?

Is your spouse your “soul mate”?

Would you say you love your spouse unconditionally?

If you’ve been married for a while, how has your love for your spouse changed over the years?

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your marriage?

If you have children, how have they impacted your marriage?

Do you love your spouse or children more?
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  1. Yes - I say that living with my spouse is like an awesome Slumber Party that never ends. I’d imagine all (or at least most) Catholic married couples probably feel the same.
  2. Yes - but in a Christian sense, that God chose us for each other… not the original Hindu sense of the term regarding multiple reincarnations
  3. Yes
  4. N/A - Love remains the same
  5. Health issues
  6. Blessed it. Bring us blessings, laughter, opportunities for learning & the occasional headache 😉
  7. The Sacrament of Marriage Covenant is with God & Spouses alone. Children are a true blessing from God, but they grow up and eventually move out. Living with your spouse never ends as the Marriage Covenant lasts until death. Love between Spouses is different & deeper than the love between parent & child. Spouses become One through the Sacrament.
 
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The biggest challenge I’ve faced in my marriage is dealing with the fact that the person who was my best friend, reliable back-up and always there for me for 33 years (23 married and 10 before that) dropped dead all of a sudden one night.

OP, are you married?
These questions are way personal.
I know we don’t have to answer, but I’m a bit taken aback that somebody would think these are okay questions to ask.
I must live on a slightly different planet than everybody else when it comes to “sharing” my deepest emotions with a bunch of Internet strangers.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The biggest challenge I’ve faced in my marriage is dealing with the fact that the person who was my best friend, reliable back-up and always there for me for 33 years (23 married and 10 before that) dropped dead all of a sudden one night.

OP, are you married?
These questions are way personal.
I know we don’t have to answer, but I’m a bit taken aback that somebody would think these are okay questions to ask.
I must live on a slightly different planet than everybody else when it comes to “sharing” my deepest emotions with a bunch of Internet strangers.
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Thank you for sharing. I’m very, very sorry for the loss of your husband.

Yes, I’m married. I’ve seen things much more personal than this discussed on these boards. I think the anonymity of the forums gives a little more leeway for expressing oneself. I wouldn’t feel comfortable answering some of these questions face to face with people who know who I am, but I’m okay with sharing somewhat personal things with people who have no idea what my true identity is, while hiding behind a screen name. Who knows, my experience may help someone.

Everyone is free to disclose as much or as little as they choose. God bless.
 
Yes, I’ve seen plenty of stuff on this forum that I wouldn’t have told anyone in person but a confessor. Anyway, I’m sure you have good motives, but this thread and the idea of taking such a survey of married people makes me uncomfortable. I will be muting it. God bless.
 
In the interest of having a balanced perspective, as I’m sure many of the responses shared here will reference the unending joy of marriage, I was happily married for many many years.

But, getting a civil divorce (and a subsequent decree of nullity) offered me a chance to have a second life I never expected; I’m blessed to have it.
 
Sometimes, as a married man, I feel the marriages described here on CAF are some sort of fantasy fairytale. Poster after poster talks about how their spouse is their little taste of heaven…
One thing I’ve struggled with is the notion, that I first came across on these forums, that one should love one’s spouse more than one loves one’s children. I can’t relate to that… and because of CAF it makes me think maybe I’m a bad husband. I work hard for my wife and at our relationship, but I love my son more, and if push comes to shove, I will put him first. We came very close to separating this year…it was ensuring his welfare first and foremost that was on my mind. I’ve been told here on CAF that a good Catholic puts their spouse first, even before children. I don’t see it in the Catechism. And I struggle with the concept.
 
I think the whole concept of a spouse being a “best friend” and “soul mate” is Hollywood fantasy. Our main job as Catholic parents is to raise children properly in the faith.
 
And your main job as a married couple is doing your best to help your spouse get to heaven.
 
I edited my original post to omit the question about your spouse being a soul mate. I always thought “soul mates” referred to just being really close to someone. I didn’t realize it meant something that goes against Catholic Teaching (reincarnation, etc.). I apologize.
 
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This seems to be the prevalent view on CAF. Spouse first no matter what. The view expressed by the poster above you seems, to me, to be more in line with the traditional emphasis down through the centuries: you may not like the spouse dad picked for you, but your job is to raise kids in the Faith.

All this talk about loving your spouse as your best friend who you love more than your children…how did that work (or does still in some cases) in the case of arranged marriages?
 
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  1. Best friend? Yes.
  2. Love unconditionally? Yes.
  3. My love for her has gotten better, in the sense of it being deeper.
  4. Biggest challenge? We were both older when we met, thus no children could come from this union - so we had to deal with that reality.
I always felt that she was God’s choice for me, so when we met I took a leap of faith. So far, so good, it’s 22 years and still wedded!
 
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If I were to be impish, I would say something like about the same level as non-arranged marriages. 🤣

If someone wants a marriage that will last until death do us part, they need to keep in mind, during the chaos of raising children, that those kids are only going to be under the roof for about so long, and that is often (and as we live older and older) a whole lot longer than the time from the conception of the first one to the last one leaving the nest. All too many spouses wake up one day - sometimes the alarm goes off with the last kid out, sometimes it goes off with retirement - and they “wake up” not really knowing who that other person is.

And not a few spouses “wake up” when the summons appears from the divorce court. A whole lot of that would not occur if they made a point of actually sharing their life together, rather than just their house and tasks.
 
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twf said:
Sometimes, as a married man, I feel the marriages described here on CAF are some sort of fantasy fairytale. Poster after poster talks about how their spouse is their little taste of heaven…
One thing I’ve struggled with is the notion, that I first came across on these forums, that one should love one’s spouse more than one loves one’s children. I can’t relate to that… and because of CAF it makes me think maybe I’m a bad husband. I work hard for my wife and at our relationship, but I love my son more, and if push comes to shove, I will put him first. We came very close to separating this year…it was ensuring his welfare first and foremost that was on my mind. I’ve been told here on CAF that a good Catholic puts their spouse first, even before children. I don’t see it in the Catechism. And I struggle with the concept.
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If I had been asked the same question about 15 years ago I would have felt the same as you, twf and probably wouldn’t have responded so bear that in mind when you detect an imbalance of anecdotes!
 
I am not sure of the origin of this idea that you should love your spouse more than your children, but I suspect it is a misunderstanding or loose paraphrase of another idea, like these:
  • In the spirit of “put on your own oxygen mask before helping your children to put on theirs,” the children are better-served if the parents have a good marriage. Or conversely, neglecting the marriage relationship will, in the long run, adversely effect the children.
  • Synergy – the effect of the sum is greater than the sum of the effects. Two parents, bonded by love, raising the children together, will probably do better than than two parents individually raising the children.
  • Compartmentalization, or the fallacy of “balance.” Envision your life – and your self – as whole and undivided. Don’t put God, spouse, children, work, and recreation in separate compartments which must be balanced. Rather than balance, seek harmony, in which all aspects of life tend toward the same goal, guided by the same principle.
 
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I agree that the OP’s questions are too personal – for me, anyway. Someday my online identity might be revealed, and all my online “secrets” with it, and I’ll have no control over how the information is read, talked about, judged, or used. 😎
 
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twf said:
I’ve been told here on CAF that a good Catholic puts their spouse first, even before children. I don’t see it in the Catechism. And I struggle with the concept.
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I don’t know about more, and am not married and have no children. So take this with a lot of salt I think the point is don’t neglect your marriage when children come. Your spouse will hopefully be there when the children grow up and leave home. When they marry and have their own children their priorities will change. Also if you have been overly focused on the children it can be hard to adjust to it just being the two of you again.
 
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