Married Couples
Undoing the Knots is Easier than you Think
September 28 marks the feast of Mary Undoer of Knots. The devotion is over 300 years old and is based on a Baroque painting by an unknown artist located in Germany. The painting features angels feeding a knotted rope to Mary who unties the knots one by one. It was inspired by an ancient homily…
Read MoreChange Starts Here
Part 4 of It Takes One to Tango. See others in this series here, here. and here. All change in our relationships should start with ourselves. While it’s comforting to be able to blame our spouse for the inadequacies of our marriage, expecting them to change to meet our demands is not only ineffective, it’s not…
Read MoreSay a little prayer for marriage
In October a few years ago, the Australian bishops called the entire Catholic community to pray for marriage and family. The initiative was joined by around thirty other Christian churches making it the largest ever prayer campaign in the nation. It raises the question: does prayer really make a difference? Cynics might say that a…
Read MoreRomantic Love: Feeling or Choice?
From Hollywood to Cleo, the cultural representations of Romantic Love are clear: it’s a spontaneous feeling of attraction and affection for another. And like all feelings, we don’t choose it: it’s something that just happens to us. We spontaneously ‘fall’ into love and we are powerless to prevent it. To be sure when it strikes,…
Read MoreMaking Marriage Permanent
Breaking up is hard to do. We all worry about the state of marriage today, especially with the decreased emphasis on its permanency. Divorce is hard. When marriages breakdown and families are fractured, it’s devastating for those directly involved, and heartbreaking for those who love them. The social impact of divorce ripples through our society…
Read MoreFrom Valentine to Valen-TIME
With St Valentine’s day approaching, couples everywhere are looking for ways to mark the day with romance. From love-struck dating couples to couples stressed out with kids, every one of us struggles to find time to… Just. Be. Together. Insufficient time together is one of the biggest contributors to relationship breakdown. Whether our relationship is…
Read MoreMarriage on Fire
At the time of writing, fires are still blazing across the Australian landscape with many tragedies of life and property lost. Even if not directly impacted, many of us have friends, family and colleagues who are. And it is not over yet. In our case, Christmas Day saw Byron and two of our sons depart…
Read MoreRetired, Extremely Dangerous
A few weeks ago, we watched the action comedy R.E.D. featuring Bruce Willis as retired black ops agent whose peaceful retirement is disrupted by a CIA order to eliminate him. The comedy rests in the ridiculously casual way the characters approach their killing careers. RED, it turns out stands for his classification: ‘retired, extremely dangerous’.…
Read MoreIt Takes One to Tango
We’ve all heard the saying: it takes two to tango. But is it true that the only way to improve a marriage is if both husband and wife co-operate? Marriage is like a dance. If one spouse changes his or her steps, that changes the dance. The truth is, it only takes one spouse to…
Read MoreLike Parent, Like Child
The most powerful influence on a couple is their family of origin. Good or bad, our experiences in our childhood prepared us for marriage. The young couple sitting opposite us had been married only a few years. They were experiencing some health challenges, but this is not what brought them to us; they were locked…
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