Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius February 21, 2015 Spiritual Ponderings 21 Undeniable Secrets of Marriage
Let us continue looking at Dr. Allen Hunt’s book: The 21 Undeniable Secrets of Marriage to discover insights not only into marriage but into relationships in general. Quotes from his book will be in bold and my commentary will be in regular font.
06. The Secret of the Love Bank: If you want more love, you have to give it away.
Every person has a love bank inside the heart, one that can either be filled with love or be left bankrupt and empty. And we all yearn for our love banks to be filled to capacity. This is the secret of the love bank. One of the great mysteries in my life is that I cannot understand people who treat others as junk and then cannot understand why no one wants to be around them. I have seen people yell and scream at another person and then wonder why the other person does not want to spend any time with them. Some people I guess fear change more than being lonely.
For marriages, and even for your life, the application of this rule is simple: If you want more of something give it away. If you want more love in your life, give more love away. If you want more joy, give away more joy. And it is especially true in marriage. Do you want to be surrounded by other happy people? Then be happy yourself. Mother Teresa said that “Peace begins with a smile” and “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
07. The Secret of Romance: Songs of Songs is there for a reason.
God desires to be the lover of your soul. And Song of Songs makes that abundantly clear. In this little book of the Bible you will discover the secret of romance. I believe that this secret can be broken down in two. The first is don’t expect from your spouse what only God can give. You spouse can help direct you toward your ultimate end but in of itself your spouse cannot be your ultimate end because that is God. The second is if you want to know what true love is look to Jesus as your role model. Romance is not so much about giving someone fine jewelry as it about forgiving. Romance is not so much about have a lot of possessions but rather about loving each person that comes into our lives as a gift from God.
As God loves you and me as His spouses, in the same way, a man loves a woman with delight. God’s love gives the model for romance, selfless, sacrificial, and generous. Extravagant love!
08. The Secret of the Best Friend: Don’t marry someone you can live with; marry someone you can’t live without.
What does it mean? It means your marriage has its best shot if you marry your best friend.
Over time, this settling in is when authentic love either takes root or dies. At that moment, when the sizzle has subsided every couple will make a decision to invest or to divest. To step in or step out. Each spouse will choose: Will I learn to love this person in way deeper than emotional, heart pumping star dreaming, or will I go in search of another two-year sizzle with someone else? If the answer is yes to a deeper love, the marriage and relationship will grow to a new level and increase its chances at thriving. If the answer is no, it will die a quick or sometimes slow and agonizing death. One or both partners quickening experience with someone else. They will have made the mistake of confusing lust for love. -
Struggles and difficulties do not mean anything is going bad in a relationship. In prayer there are times of consolation (when we feel God’s presence) and there are times of desolation (when it feels like God is absent). St. Ignatius’s beautiful insight in his rules of discernment is that God is speaking/teaching/nurturing in times of desolation as much as God is speaking in times of consolation. Marriages and relationships can grow just as much in bad times as they do in good times. Flowers grow possibly more in the rain than they do in the sunlight.