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Bruised_Reed
Guest
You’re happily married but is your wife? I hope your not offended. 
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Bruised_Reed
Guest
Not a leap, not odd; I had a similar reaction. And no one has taken offense. That’s a typical beta-male response when one is soundly countered.
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Greenfields
Guest
This is my parents,married 60 years
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Edward_H
Guest
Just because 2 people have the same response doesn’t counter a point. It may mean they both see the point wrongly.
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Edward_H
Guest
She’s quite happy. And 8 years ago she got even happier when I started to put into practice the best marriage advice I’ve ever seen, heard, or was given.
It was given by a priest of Opus Dei who, with a smile on his face told me “it’s much simpler than that, your job is to make your wife the happiest woman on the face of the earth - every day.”
The wisdom and inexhaustible depth of his point took weeks or months to fully unpack and it will take a lifetime of happy struggle to put into practice, beginning again every day and after every sincere participation in the Sacrament of Confession. This struggle - this "forge - is how marriage can make us saints if we respond to God’s invitation and accept His many graces.
But he was absolutely right.
It was given by a priest of Opus Dei who, with a smile on his face told me “it’s much simpler than that, your job is to make your wife the happiest woman on the face of the earth - every day.”
The wisdom and inexhaustible depth of his point took weeks or months to fully unpack and it will take a lifetime of happy struggle to put into practice, beginning again every day and after every sincere participation in the Sacrament of Confession. This struggle - this "forge - is how marriage can make us saints if we respond to God’s invitation and accept His many graces.
But he was absolutely right.
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Edward_H
Guest
It’s not begging the question at all when you comprehend that the greatest good will bring her the greatest happiness, and that is when your wife continually senses in very practical ways the heart of Christ in you, in every moment you are with her or near her, or even praying fo her as you work, or are elsewhere.
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Xantippe
Guest
I don’t think he was right.
Everybody has some level of responsibility for keeping themselves happy. Obviously, we need to be kind, fair, and generous–but happiness is not really something one human being can give another human being.
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Xantippe
Guest
Some people just aren’t going to be happy.
I’ve met at least one (who is probably undiagnosed OCD), and there are various adult CAF posters with parents who are never going to be happy with them.
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Xantippe
Guest
Yes–or “filibustering.”
I saw some advice about asking questions recently. The advice was something like this–the first sentence should be a question, and there should be no second sentence.
One of the things I have learned as a wife is:
–get his attention
–be clear
–be brief.
I try to say what I have to say, then stop. The more verbiage one pours out, the harder it is for interlocutors to understand what is and isn’t important or what the point of it all is.
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Francis
Guest
Hi, @momof2angells I do understand how patient you have been these years,while your talking he also need to pay attention you, can politely and with love, make him understand,you can do it in a prudence way over a cup of coffee when both of you are in a good mood, why don"t you have a chat on virtues and on control your tongue.
James 3:2-11 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits…read on.Tolerance also reminds of Mother Angelica Talks Hope it helps.God Bless
Sirach 9:15 Let your conversation be with intelligent people, and let all your discussion be about the law of the Most High Do not find fault before you investigate;examine first, and then criticize.
8 Do not answer before you listen, and do not interrupt when another is speaking.9 Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you,and do not sit with sinners when they judge a case.
James 3:2-11 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits…read on.Tolerance also reminds of Mother Angelica Talks Hope it helps.God Bless
Sirach 9:15 Let your conversation be with intelligent people, and let all your discussion be about the law of the Most High Do not find fault before you investigate;examine first, and then criticize.
8 Do not answer before you listen, and do not interrupt when another is speaking.9 Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you,and do not sit with sinners when they judge a case.
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Edward_H
Guest
This is a gap that it took me about 6 weeks to start undertanding more deeply.
I can tell you haven’t done the work because you used the words “keeping themselves happy”
The key point you’re missing is we don’t make ourselves happy. Closeness with God is what gives the greatest happiness. So that’s why we have to become “ipse Christus, alter Christus” (Christ Himself, another Christ, is the theological expression; one with Christ is easier to understand) to our wives.
St Paul uses the expression…“bonus odor Christi”, the good smell of Christ, if you will.
We have to learn (this takes more than “internet sparring” here) how to love our wives with the very heart of Christ. Then she becomes unimaginably happy.
Happiness is the intellectual realization that we possess a good…the greater the good, the happier we become.
So focusing on my wife’s happiness, getting my own focus off of my own happiness…my little needs, my little wants, my little annoyances, my “keeping myself happy” (in your words) - NOT focusing on these things actually and instead focusing on her happiness - her growing closer to God, through my vocation as a husband - miraculously brings BOTH of us great happiness.
Because I will be getting closer to Christ (and getting happier indirectly), as I try to help my wife get closer to Christ in a million little ways.
The priest I mentioned was profoundly correct.
I can tell you haven’t done the work because you used the words “keeping themselves happy”
The key point you’re missing is we don’t make ourselves happy. Closeness with God is what gives the greatest happiness. So that’s why we have to become “ipse Christus, alter Christus” (Christ Himself, another Christ, is the theological expression; one with Christ is easier to understand) to our wives.
St Paul uses the expression…“bonus odor Christi”, the good smell of Christ, if you will.
We have to learn (this takes more than “internet sparring” here) how to love our wives with the very heart of Christ. Then she becomes unimaginably happy.
Happiness is the intellectual realization that we possess a good…the greater the good, the happier we become.
So focusing on my wife’s happiness, getting my own focus off of my own happiness…my little needs, my little wants, my little annoyances, my “keeping myself happy” (in your words) - NOT focusing on these things actually and instead focusing on her happiness - her growing closer to God, through my vocation as a husband - miraculously brings BOTH of us great happiness.
Because I will be getting closer to Christ (and getting happier indirectly), as I try to help my wife get closer to Christ in a million little ways.
The priest I mentioned was profoundly correct.
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Edward_H
Guest
Oh, I don’t think the happiness of any person is beyond the reach of God.
That’s where we differ.
That’s where we differ.
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Xantippe
Guest
That’s the whole point of the idea of hell–that happiness is impossible without God, but that people can choose to live without God.
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Edward_H
Guest
So you made my point even stronger…our marriage should then be like heaven, with Christ and our own daily yes making it so for our wife!
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Xantippe
Guest
Heaven is freely chosen.
Another issue–I think you make a great case for charity and fortitude, but the seven virtues are:
–faith
–hope
–charity
–prudence
–temperance
–fortitude
–justice.
The model that you’ve sketched out (while inspiring and no doubt ennobling!) does not account for prudence and justice (which does include justice to ourselves).
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Edward_H
Guest
Well we really haven’t yet addressed specifically the virtues (I did mention that we have to use all the “means”).
The virtues are some of the means that God enables in us, and which the Church can help us develop or fill out with ever more perfection. Think of them as minor perfections, which can be perfected and should be perfected over our entire life, until our last breath!
At their “vanishing” point all virtues collapse to Charity, to God Himself.
The virtues are habits of doing the good, inclinations to seek the good, good dispositions.
So for a marriage to be successful…and success is defined as both spouses reaching heaven with not just all of their children (but hundreds more behind them - why shoot low for God, yes?) the spouses need to take full advantage of “all the means”.
The “means” are:
The virtues are some of the means that God enables in us, and which the Church can help us develop or fill out with ever more perfection. Think of them as minor perfections, which can be perfected and should be perfected over our entire life, until our last breath!
At their “vanishing” point all virtues collapse to Charity, to God Himself.
The virtues are habits of doing the good, inclinations to seek the good, good dispositions.
So for a marriage to be successful…and success is defined as both spouses reaching heaven with not just all of their children (but hundreds more behind them - why shoot low for God, yes?) the spouses need to take full advantage of “all the means”.
The “means” are:
- The Sacraments
- Other graces granted by God
- Prayer
- Mortification
- Practice and struggle in ALL the theological virtues (F, H, and Charity) and all the human virtues (not just the cardinal virtues you listed…but also industriousness, cheerfulness, optimism, magnanimity, longanimity, patience, chastity, modesty, humility, etc).
- Spiritual direction
- Spiritual reading
- Resolutions
- etc.
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Annie
Guest
Suppose you had some habit that made your wife unhappy but you didn’t know. Would you not be happy if she mentioned it to you?
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Edward_H
Guest
Nothing I’ve said means that correction or nudging never happens in a marriage…it could happen I think maybe 3-4 times in a long marriage. : >
Jesus corrected…but He was the farthest thing from a nag.
Too many petulant scorekeepers here for me, looking for self-justifications for living critically.
Jesus corrected…but He was the farthest thing from a nag.
Too many petulant scorekeepers here for me, looking for self-justifications for living critically.
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Annie
Guest
I see what you are saying, and that certainly happens in marriages! However, I do think that my marriage would be in better shape had I tried discussing certain problems with my husband rather than simply offering them up all the time.
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Edward_H
Guest
well there’s a third way…offering it up can be done in the wrong way. There’s gritting your teeth offering it up, and then there’s smiling offering it up, which demands more growth in us.
I don’t doubt that things can be hard after many years. But there is always simple that can be done each day toward the hidden intention (we share with God each morning) of having you and your husband resemble Jesus Christ at the end of your lives.
I don’t doubt that things can be hard after many years. But there is always simple that can be done each day toward the hidden intention (we share with God each morning) of having you and your husband resemble Jesus Christ at the end of your lives.
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