Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’
Romance and Mystery
One of the things that makes a new romance so exciting and attractive is the element of uncertainty: Is this person really interested in me? Will this person really be the one I’ve longed for? We can all relate to the thrill of the start-up relationship where the other is essentially still a stranger…
Read MoreListening is the Music of Love
One of the most supremely loving gestures we can give another person is to truly listen to them. Yet for most of us, being genuinely listened to is a rare experience. Why is something so simple so hard to give? We remember those early romance days so clearly. Living in two different cities, we relied…
Read MoreHoly Spouses – Holy Family
The Church has long valued the spousal dimension of Mary and Joseph’s relationship. It encourages us to see marriage not just as a social institution for the purpose of raising children, but as a divine calling to personal holiness through service to each other. We’ve all heard of major Marian feasts like the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption,…
Read MoreMarriage: to be happy or to be holy?
“And they lived happily ever after”… it’s the ending of the fairy tale love story and has become the expected story line of most modern day couples. Swept away by passion and the overwhelming experience of ‘falling in love’, couples expect the wedding to seal their happiness in permanent (and effortless) marital bliss. Of course,…
Read MoreBlessed be the (Relationally) Poor
Embracing the Call to Love in an age of relational poverty. Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te (Latin: I have loved you, Rev 3:9), reminds us that faith and love for the poor are inextricably linked. He writes, “We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith…
Read MoreLove in the Waiting
Advent is the season of waiting; we wait in anticipation of the coming of Christ. But are we the only ones doing the waiting? I (Francine) was hurrying to get out the door for 7am Mass. I looked at the time on the car clock and sighed in defeat: 6:58. There was no way…
Read MoreGratitude: Plant Now, Reap Later
As we look forward to the new year, lots of us are making resolutions, setting goals, planning for the coming months. Most of our colleagues in the marriage education field are posting articles about setting relationship goals – an excellent idea, but we’d like to propose something different. It has been well established that gratitude…
Read MoreTIME – The Currency of Relationships
There’s an old adage in the world of parenting advice: Kids spell LOVE as T.I.M.E. Kids don’t need things nearly much as they need a parent’s attention and availability. It’s a classic mistake we make all too often; we give them stuff we’ve bought instead of the thing they most need from us – our…
Read MoreMaking the Connection…with Arguments
Neither of us likes it when we disagree, yet we’ve had more than a few in our 28 years of marriage – some of them leading to horrible arguments. When disagreements descend into arguments, they usually become hurtful and unproductive, leaving us feeling bitter and exhausted. But are arguments all bad, or always harmful?…
Read MoreThe Riskiest Place For Our Marriage
A while ago a viral video clip came to our attention. In the video, a marriage counsellor is responding to the claim that 85% of affairs begin at work. While the insights presented were quite good, we were curious about the details as that 85% figure seemed high. After considerable searching, we eventually identified the…
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