Relationship Tips
Married 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 MoreSeven years – but who’s counting?
Some time ago, we were chatting with a man in his late twenties. He had been living with his girlfriend for some years, and she was restless: she wanted a commitment to marriage and family. After seven years together, he was still uncertain. In previous eras, the courtship sequence was simple: when a person was…
Read MoreBurn the Boats
A recent analysis of modern day wedding vows reveal around a third of couples shunning the traditional commitment for life. According to the results, 34% dumped the phrase ‘until death do us part’. This really shouldn’t surprise us as the prevailing messages young couples hear is that divorce is not only commonplace, it’s also to…
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 MoreMaking the Wedding Vows Stick
It’s common for married couples celebrating a significant wedding anniversary to have a renewal of vows ceremony. The truth is, most couples in long-lasting marriages are renewing their vows a lot more often. Some time ago the Weekend Australian Magazine featured a couple who had just married on Bondi Beach. But it wasn’t their first…
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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