One of the few things contemporary culture seems to agree on when it comes to marriage is the beauty of a long-married couple still in love with each other. Lasting wedded bliss is certainly possible, but it’s not something a dating, engaged, or even married couple can expect to achieve without hard work and a true appreciation for what love really is.
Among the riches of the Catholic tradition are some of the most powerful and beautiful reflections on love—not the worldly love that hinges on emotion, but rather true love, which runs deep and affects every element of a life well lived.
True love, as defined by St. Thomas Aquinas, is to will and choose the good of other. Ven. Fulton Sheen wrote in his Book of Sacraments: “Marriage as a sacrament belongs to an entirely different order than the mere union of man and woman through a civil contract. It basically regards a husband and wife as symbols of another marriage; namely, the nuptials of Christ and His Church.”
As wedding season approaches, use that mood of hope and possibility to take a closer look at the relationships that matter most to you. How are you willing and choosing the good of the other in your relationship with your significant other, whether you are dating, engaged, or married?
Eniola Honsberger, Director of the Office of Family Life for the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, and foundress of Espouse Relationship and Conversation Facilitation, has served over 5,000 engaged couples in her diocesan post. In this interview, she shares best practices for reenergizing marriage and for preparing for healthy marriages in dating and engaged couples.
Lindsay Schlegel: How do you suggest couples work to reenergize their marriages?
Eniola Honsberger: People think they need to take elaborate vacations or go on retreats to breathe new life into their marriages. Don’t get me wrong; there is a time and place for those things. But more often, couples need to take strategic pauses and talk, to carve out time together to ask themselves certain questions and give themselves the opportunity to dream, to re-evaluate their lives, to make plans to grow, to change, to do things differently.
Couples can ask each other what they are happy with and what needs improvement. As part of this conversation or separately, they can also pray together.
These exercises are forms of psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual intimacy. Society would like to have us think sex is the only form of intimacy, which is extremely damaging to long-term marital success. It is vital for married couples to learn to exercise other forms of intimacy for a deeper and stronger bond.
However long you’ve been married, it’s not too late to reenergize your marriage. Both parties just have to be willing to work on it. You can do this once a week or once a month; make it a date night!
What can dating or engaged couples do to prepare for healthy marriages?
There are many things couples can do in preparation for marriage, like reading books and participating in marriage preparation courses. But what I love recommending is that engaged couples start to have more open and honest conversations with married couples.
Marriage is not easy, even with the best of intentions, so having a trusted couple or person in your corner to be a sounding board is so beneficial. In the work that I do, most engaged couples have at least one set of parents who are divorced. So they might need to look outside of the family for examples of healthy marriages to emulate, whether it’s to a mentor couple or a coach.
Practically speaking, this can look like going out to dinner with couples they trust and respect and asking them the tough questions about marriage. This is great way to get different perspectives and spark conversations in their own relationship. I recommend couples create a relationship journal with all the good advice received as well as negative things they want to avoid in their marriage.
Another thing is to choose friends wisely. These friends will be growing with you and your marriage, and you want friends that will lift up you and your relationship, not tear it down. The big emphasis here is that engaged couples should not go through preparing for marriage on their own and even more importantly, should not walk the journey of marriage alone.
How do healthy marriages influence life within the home and life beyond the home?
This quote from Pope St. John Paul II rings true: “As the family goes, so goes the nation and the world in which we live.” Healthy marriages make healthy people. The science has been done, but I don’t think we need the science to know that fact is innately true.
I always tell single people seeking my advice that the most important decision they will make in their adult life is the person they choose to marry. The person you decide to marry will either bring you the most joy or the most pain. The health of your marriage becomes part of your DNA and influences many facets of an already complex life.
Healthy marriages help form the brains of children and how they see relationships and the world. People can define healthy marriages differently, but there are some foundational components to a marriage that are good for the spouses to experience and for the children to witness, for example: physical touch, affirmation, gentle communication, smiling, and laughter.
The health of a marriage directly affects the health of a home and what we take from home is what we bring out into the world. Marriage is not just a union between two persons; it is the formulation of relationships that come from God Himself, impacting each generation.
What advice do you have for couples who are struggling to find joy in any of the stages (dating, engaged, married)?
I suggest a deep dive, or an audit, of the relationship. This starts with individual assessments and then collaborative engagement. I know this sounds technical, but it is important to clarify first: is it me or is it the relationship?
Often when a couple is struggling to find joy in their relationship, it has to do with personal unfulfillment or external factors that are projected onto the relationship. I suggest that individuals ask themselves these questions in front of Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration or in the context of an examination of conscience.
If you have concluded there are issues in the relationship and you are struggling to find joy in it, I suggest talking with your spouse and then together with a professional. This could be a priest, a relationship coach, or a counselor. While seeking professional support, I also suggest working on your spiritual intimacy by going to Adoration, praying a novena, or offering a devotion to Mary.
And today we celebrate...