Once again, Valentine’s Day has come and gone this year. It’s one of those occasions that most married couples either enjoy or dread. As marriage relationships age and mature, so do the ways in which birthdays, anniversaries, and yes Valentine’s Day come to be celebrated among those who are married. Sometimes Valentine’s Day happens to occur a bit too close to a serious disagreement, or worse. As an elderly lady once said to me in my early years of priesthood, “Father, I love my husband but sometimes I don’t like him!”
I’ve had the privilege as a pastor to enter into the lives of many who were struggling in their marriage, varying to some lesser or greater degree. Since I’ve never lived the sacrament of marriage, I can only listen to the stories of those who are struggling. At the same time, a priest has a unique perspective based on the sacramental view of marriage that the Church teaches. Once a man married for nearly 30 years, and father of 6 children at the time, told me that if he and his wife were ever struggling in their marriage, he would rather talk to a priest about it than a counselor who was married. When I asked him why he said, “Because you have never been married. Married counselors would likely be influenced by their own marriage relationship. Your perspective would be based on the many marriage situations that you have dealt with and NOT your own.” I found that to be an interesting observation.
Looking at your wedding album might be a good thing to do on an annual basis, perhaps as a kind of reality check, but what else can you do either before or during a time of struggle in your marriage? It seems to me that there is one thing that seems to quickly fade in so many marriage relationships and I would call it “tenderness.” Tenderness is perhaps the greatest quality of the other person that drew you to engagement and marriage. Certainly, physical attraction and personality usually dominate what draws people to first be interested in each other. But hopefully there was also some tenderness and vulnerability in each other that was exclusively shared with you and you with them.
This tenderness is expressed in the marriage ceremony of the Church when a couple concludes their vows to each other by saying, “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.” Herein lies, I believe, the single most helpful statement by which one who is married might examine their own conscience regarding the role they play in their marriage relationship. Note that this is what I would call an “active vow.” By that I mean that by these words one pledges to do something. It’s stated in the positive, as a pledge to the other, that they will love and bring honor to the other. Thus, it is not enough to say, “I have never dishonored my spouse.” Rather, have I loved and brought honor to my spouse? If you are married, are you doing this faithfully?
As a pastor during marriage preparation, I would ask engaged couples in my office to share with each other, in that moment, how they have experienced their fiancé loving and honoring them. Albeit I was putting them on the spot, but most engaged couples found it difficult to readily name how they experienced their fiancé intentionally loving them and bringing them honor. I tried to teach them to be intentional about honoring their spouse, both privately and publicly.
One of the things that I think goes directly counter to this vow is when a group of guys start complaining about their wives, or a group of ladies tell each other how awful their husbands can be. These gripe sessions, often justified as “venting”, quickly turn into rancor. While these complaints might be true enough, it is the fact that one reveals these things about their spouse to others that breaks the vow of loving and honoring them all the days of their life. Similarly, if one is verbally mistreated by their spouse until the one mistreated decides to dish it back, to make them feel the same way, this too, breaks the vow to love and honor the other all the days of one’s life.
So, if you’re waiting for the other person to “go first” and show a bit of tenderness, it may never happen. Rather, I have seen that consistently striving to “love and honor” one’s spouse brings tenderness back to the relationship, and in time this begins to be noticed by the other. Could one spouse not notice when the other stops the name calling, verbal punching, belittling, sarcasm and hurtful behavior? Of course, this isn’t some kind of magic pill. It always takes two, and sometimes the other may choose not to participate. Even this does not dispense us from the promise “to love and honor you all the days of my life.”
This, then, is heroic love…to love another person especially when they don’t deserve it. And this is precisely what is at the heart of marriage as a sacrament. One becomes a living reminder to their spouse of someone else who loved them when he died on the cross for them. Marriage as a sacrament is a tall order! By one’s own faithfully living the vows, one becomes a living sign to the other of the immensity and beauty of Christ’s love for them. How profound is that?
Those who celebrate milestone anniversaries might not be able to enunciate this, but they are probably still together because they see in each other one who has forgiven them and overlooked their faults and weaknesses – truly a reminder of Christ’s unconditional love. So, if you are married, and even if your spouse is now deceased, page through your wedding album and notice what stirs in your heart when you go back to that day.
