Married Couples
Deep Impact Conversations
“How was your day?” It’s one of the most common questions couples ask each other and either leads to a dead-end response like, “fine” or “busy” (which usually means “I don’t want to talk about it”), or a long-winded description of meetings, frustrations, errands and other ‘busy’ stuff. It’s what we call a ‘data transfer’…
Read MoreUnplanned Childlessness
“My daughters are in their thirties. They always hoped to marry and planned to be starting a family by now. It is so hard to see them grieving this loss.” It’s a common story we hear among our peers. Their single children are in their twenties, thirties and forties. Many of these are well past…
Read MoreOur Father-in-Awe
Earlier this week, Francine had a routine medical procedure. Predictably, one of the nurses asked, “Are you related to Professor Pirola?” She was referring to Byron’s father, a recently-retired medical specialist who enjoyed a long career in our local community. “Yes”, Francine replied, “He’s my father-in-awe”*. That brought a laugh, before the inevitable follow up…
Read MoreMarried Saints: There’s Hope for Us Yet!
As Catholics, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the REALLY holy people are only religious celibates. Afterall, most of the canonized saints were priests or religious sisters and brothers. Think past popes and the founders of religious orders… not many married people among those saints. Being a mere married couple, occupied…
Read MoreThe Art of Apology
Have you ever experienced the situation when someone has apologised but, while the words were said it lacked something, making it difficult for you to accept it? Sadly, most of us are not as good at apologising as we need to be. We think that it’s obvious, should just be instinctual, or that our love…
Read MoreCouple Decision Making
Behind every behaviour or decision that you make, is a value; something that you hold in high esteem and is advanced in some way by the action. For example, making the choice to work back late, may reflect any one of a number of values, such as: having pride in doing a job well, reducing…
Read MoreWhen I am winning, WE are usually losing
“You can either be right, or you can be one, but you can’t be both”. Our mentors were talking to us about a frustrating argument, and we were both digging in. They were right, of course, but we struggled to put it into practice. It would not be the last time either. Like just this…
Read MoreProtesting Against Disconnection
Have you ever had an argument and been left wondering what it was actually about? We can remember a number of occasions where we dug in and defended our opinion with great vigor, only to find ourselves twenty minutes later losing track of what we were defending. Somehow, the original point of disagreement – which…
Read MoreRelational Entropy and what to do about it
It’s the second law of thermodynamics and we use the term regularly in ordinary conversation. But what does entropy have to do with relationships? Entropy is defined as “a process of degradation or running down, or a trend to disorder”. In thermodynamics, there’s this idea that in order to resist, or reverse, the effects of…
Read MoreCouple Prayer
by Ron and Mavis Pirola In this year of Prayer and in preparation for the Jubilee Year of 2025, Pope Francis calls us to rediscover the great value and absolute need for prayer in personal life, in the life of the Church and in the world. So, what would be a better time to address…
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