What is marital love?

  • Thread starter Thread starter STF
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

STF

Guest
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

For some people say, it is friendship + sex. Others say, that marriage is an alegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.

What would you say?

What is the experience of your grandparents or parents? When did they marry?
Can you point me to any encyclicals or other official Church documents on this subject?

Thank you!
 
STF said:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

For some people say, it is friendship + sex. Others say, that marriage is an alegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.

What would you say?

What is the experience of your grandparents or parents? When did they marry?
Can you point me to any encyclicals or other official Church documents on this subject?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
You had a thread earlier on wanting to find a Catholic rite with “obey” in it to use in your wedding, yes? In that thread, I urged you to figure out what you mean by “obey” and “submit,” because I didn’t feel like you had figured out what you meant by those words.

Again, I’d urge you to figure out what you and your fiancee believe the parameters are:

–if you were old and senile, should she let you go outside in your pajamas in the snow, just because that’s what you said you want to do?
–if you had a series of business failures and you wanted your wife to hand over a small inheritance to you, should she do that?
–if you didn’t believe in standard medical care, should your wife obey you and not take children to the doctor?
–if your doctor told your wife to abstain from sex for six weeks after having a baby for medical reasons, and you asked her for sex at three weeks, should she obey?
–if you were a pedophile, should she help you find victims?

I also strongly suggest reading the Sheila Wray Gregoire piece I gave you previously on submission as meaning pursuing the husband’s welfare. Here’s another piece by her that you should probably also read:

crosswalk.com/faith/women/what-we-often-get-wrong-about-submission.html

I suggest you grapple with those points. Think about the “hard cases.”

Also talk to your priest. And don’t say there aren’t any good ones. You live in POLAND. And read Casti Connubii.

Remember, you are an imperfect person–you are going to make a lot of mistakes. Don’t set up a marital system where you expect your wife to be your “yes man” or where it’s simply assumed that all of your ideas are good. One of the great advantages of marriage is it keeps us from doing stupid things. I’ve been married to my husband for nearly 18 years now, and we haven’t made a single major stupid joint mistake in probably 8 or 9 years–when major decisions are the product of joint deliberation, you can virtually eliminate the stupid.
 
STF said:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

For some people say, it is friendship + sex. Others say, that marriage is an allegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.

What would you say?
Click to expand...
IMHO the obedience thing is not a ‘my way or the highway’… in fact, it can be the wife making most of the day to day decisions, and the husband making the big decisions (with (name removed by moderator)ut of course). YMMV of course.

Marriage to me is being a team, having mutual priorities, yet also supporting the other in their individual pursuits… and being each other’s best friend and confidante, as well as someone you can laugh your a** off with.

Plus sex. 😃 :blushing: ’ And sometimes laughing your a** off with each other DURING sex. 👍

(what’s the old Irish line… 'good sex is GREAT!!! And bad sex… is still pretty good. 🙂 )
 
STF said:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

For some people say, it is friendship + sex. Others say, that marriage is an alegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.

What would you say?

What is the experience of your grandparents or parents? When did they marry?
Can you point me to any encyclicals or other official Church documents on this subject?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
My grandparents have been married since 1946 and they have the best marriage I know the most about.

My grandparents are both energetic, hard-working, economical, generous and family-minded. Grandma was (in her youth) a real firecracker. Grandpa is more mild-mannered (he’s of Swedish ancestry), but very steady. Their personalities are different, but their basic values are the same.

I would have a very hard time saying what their ideology of marriage is. When a marriage is “working,” outsiders really can’t tell. It just works.

I once told my grandma about our older relatives where the husband was suffering dementia, but wouldn’t take his medicine. Grandma said instantly–with no hesitation–“Put it in his food.” She had no qualms at all about wifely obedience, even though she is a very conservative Protestant. So that’s a vote for Sheila Wray Gregoire’s model of “pursuing welfare” as opposed to total obedience.
 
STF said:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

For some people say, it is friendship + sex. Others say, that marriage is an alegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.

What would you say?

What is the experience of your grandparents or parents? When did they marry?
Can you point me to any encyclicals or other official Church documents on this subject?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
I’ve never heard either of the things you’ve described or at least stated in that way. Marriage is way to much to place such strong value on two aspects like that. My parents taught me that in marriage, the primary goal is helping your spouse get to heaven. A wife does obey her husband, but only because the husband lays down his life for his wife. Sex is important because as Catholics we are bound to raise up little souls for heaven but not nearly as important as many people make it out to be. Friendship is great but it isn’t always going to be there either. Spouses often go through spells where they don’t like one another, but the love they have remains. Love is important but not the romantic type that fades. The unconditional love is what is important. I’m assuming my grandparents thought similarly as my parents but I never got to know them. They died either before I was born or early in my life. The one grandmother I knew had dementia. But all remained faithfully married through very hard times and the widowed spouse remained unmarried for the rest of their life. My grandmother with dementia thought my dad was her husband when they were young and her eyes would sparkle when he came in to see her. She obviously still was so in love. Both sets of grandparents married before 1920 and raised large families during the depression. My parents married in the 1950’s. I’ve been married since 1999.

The Catholic catechism section on marriage would be helpful for you to read. It has some clear answers on what the Catholic perspective of marriage is.
 
STF said:
Others say, that marriage is an alegory of the relationship between Christ and His Church and therefore what counts is sex + obedience of wife towards her husband.
Click to expand...
That is not the point of the allegory.

The bible and many saints have written of the spousal relationship as an allegory of the love of God because it expresses the great intimacy that God wants to share with each if us, as well as the sacrifice that spouses will make for the sake of each other reflecting the ultimate sacrifice found in Christ.

So I suggest you focus on intimacy (sex is a part of this) and sacrifice. I wouldn’t worry at all about obedience - good communication and mutual respect should negate the need for anyone to pull rank.
 
In addition to the great responses from PPs, I believe self sacrifice from both husband and wife is a huge part of marriage. You both give your all and that means that at various times one or both of you won’t be able to do or have something that you want.
 
I’m not married, so I can’t tell you what works, but I have seen a few marriages that, though they have not broken up, they weren’t idyllic marriages (but I guess no marriage is).

What I can tell you made the marriages stick is that one partner would die to themselves. What they want doesn’t matter anymore, they sacrificed their own happiness sometimes for the sake of the other.

That makes me think that if BOTH of the spouses would do that at the same time, that would make a pretty solid marriage.

Isn’t that part of the obedience, or subjugation? Christ laid down his life for us, and told us that to follow him, we must take up our cross daily, and we must obey that command. St. Paul said “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. He died to himself so that Christ, who died for him, may find life in him.

That is love, dying for each other. Put away whatever selfishness may be in your heart, and live only for the other person, and that would be an awesome marriage.
 
Stephen_says said:
I’m not married, so I can’t tell you what works, but I have seen a few marriages that, though they have not broken up, they weren’t idyllic marriages (but I guess no marriage is).

What I can tell you made the marriages stick is that one partner would die to themselves. What they want doesn’t matter anymore, they sacrificed their own happiness sometimes for the sake of the other.

That makes me think that if BOTH of the spouses would do that at the same time, that would make a pretty solid marriage.

Isn’t that part of the obedience, or subjugation? Christ laid down his life for us, and told us that to follow him, we must take up our cross daily, and we must obey that command. St. Paul said “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. He died to himself so that Christ, who died for him, may find life in him.

That is love, dying for each other. Put away whatever selfishness may be in your heart, and live only for the other person, and that would be an awesome marriage.
Click to expand...
Yes. This is what I was taught by my parents and by the priest at marriage prep. My husband lays down his life for me and I submit to his authority. Basically it is mutual submission. He would never purposely hurt me. I would never purposely hurt him. It’s easy for him to accept any decisions I make (most of the day to day household/family stuff) because he trusts me. It’s even easier for me to trust all decisions he makes (few but huge) because I know it’s done with the best interest of me and our children in mind. We live for each other and strive to make the other person happy while not seeking out happiness for ourselves. Truthfully, that makes us extremely happy because we feel fulfilled.
 
STF said:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

It is giving to your spouse.

Keep in mind that this “giving” is supposed to help your spouse get to heaven.

Marriage also requires the utmost patience. Railroading a spouse will ruin a marriage.
Click to expand...
 
1Lord1Faith said:
STF;13716798:
What are the elements and characteristics of marital love?

It is giving
Click to expand...
to your spouse.

Keep in mind that this “giving” is supposed to help your spouse get to heaven.

Marriage also requires the utmost patience. ** Railroading a spouse will ruin a marriage.**

Right. Building consensus may take time, but it’s worth it. As in the fable about the tortoise and the hare says, slow and steady wins the race.
Click to expand...
 
I don’t obey my husband.

I obey Christ and that is it.

Marital love is supposed to be self-sacrificial. You’re suppose to sacrifice as much as she does and vice-versa.

That is it.

I’m a grown woman and not a child. I don’t go from obeying my parents to immediately obeying my husband.

Christ is the only person I choose to obey. Full stop.

It saddens me that so many women choose to use the word “obey” to describe their marriage.

A woman is far more likely to give up her life for the marriage then a husband would anyway.

She gives birth to the children. That can be dangerous and life-threatening.

Women sacrifice far more then a husband ever would anyway.
 
chevalier said:
  • pain
  • suffering
  • dirty socks on the floor
  • cold dinner in the fridge
  • mother-in-law
You get the point.
Click to expand...
Also:

–big wet kisses
–a nice warm bed
–the prettiest babies on the block
–somebody to watch TV with
–somebody to cook dinner some of the time
–a grandma for the kids
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top