Joyful Marriage?

This past weekend, my fiance and I attended a Catholic Pre-Cana marriage preparation class. We sat in the basement of a Manhattan church surrounded by 150 other couples as our speaker, a married husband and father, issued us a series of challenges. If God had a "plan" for a joy-filled marriage, would we want in on it?

In fact, he was educating us. We were men and women in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and after all these years, after surviving adolescence, we were finally getting the "talk" - a talk many of us, I believe, have never had. No, this is not your grandparents' Pre-Cana!

A few things that caught my attention...Love is not just an emotion, it's a choice to make a mutual, total, complete gift of self to each other. In Catholic tradition, it's all about the vows! When you take your vows and consummate them, you receive the grace of the Sacrament of marriage. Each time you have sex, you are in effect renewing your marriage vows.

But in a world that relies too heavily on sexual communication outside of marriage, how will we understand its purpose inside marriage? Someone recently told my fiance, upon his engagement, that from this point on, the sex was all "down-hill." I laughed when I heard this. Umm...somehow I don't think so. When did marriage become so anti-climactic? Are we so afraid that we won't know the joys of sex if we wait for it?

Back to those challenges...our speaker did a great job of engaging a real audience, understanding he was talking to men and women with varied sexual ethics. He didn't dilute his message, but proposed that if we undertake these challenges with trust in God, we will be set on a path toward a lasting marriage filled with more joy that we can imagine. Here they are (in my words):

1) If you're having pre-marital sex, stop now until your wedding day. If you're someone who enjoys undertaking challenges, prove to yourself you can exercise self-control. Find news ways of showing affection to your fiance.

2) Cut out the pornography (guys). With a 56 billion global porn industry out there, what does it say to your wife that you need to turn and look at another woman lustfully in person or in print?

3) Take a class together in Natural Family Planning (NFP). Learn the psychological, physical, and spiritual dangers of contraception and choose a better way to love your spouse, each other's fertility, and communicate, body and soul. (I want to say more about this another time).

What do you think of these challenges?

Comments

[Renee]

People forget how to be nice to their very own spouse. How tempting it is after having a bad day to take it out on your love one at home? Not in a physical violent way, but just going off with negativity about how horrible everything and everyone is including their own husband. Then they expect great sex a few hours later? Marriage is where you are safe; when one walks through the door they don’t need a barrage of everything that went wrong that day instead they need love. You can talk about the bad stuff after dinner.

Marriage is sacrifice. People don’t like to sacrifice, but if you honestly believe within Marriage you become one with your husband you are not sacrificing yourself you are giving to yourself when you him help out . Just today my husband was running late so and I was ahead of time so I did “his” job and dropped off our daughter at school. In this sacrifice, we acknowledge what we do for one another and appreciate even if it is a quick one minute cell phone conversation to say “Thanks, You really made it easier for me this morning.”

When people find out I’m Catholic, they ask many questions some explicitly sensitive regarding bedroom activities. I keep driving the point if you care for one another outside the bedroom, you don’t need to resort to all the “don’ts” many people are obsessed with in the bedroom. They are so caught up in the role play, toys, maneuvers, and tricks they completely separated themselves from their spouse and the reality they are married. All of the emotional foreplay of being charitable and even nice to one another simply doesn’t exist in their relationship. It makes one wonder what type of courtship did they have?

[Julia]

Erin,
I recently attended a similar (possibly the same) marriage prep class in CO.

One thing that really struck me about the challenges issued was the premise that you are renewing your wedding vows everytime you have sex, and especially the concept of faithfulness. Faithfulness is not just "don't sleep with anyone else."

You are saying with your bodies what you say with your words at the alter "I give myself to you freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully." In this way, pre-marital sex is a lie, because you are communicating something with your bodies that has not been communicated with the vows.

Similarly if you are, as Renee said, grumpy and mean all day, and then want sex that night, you are not being faithful to your vows. You have not been giving yourself totally all day, why do you want to do that now?
I will keep you and your fiancee in my prayers as you continue to prepare for marriage.

[Cygnus]

Our Engaged Encounter was just as special an experience as you describe your Pre-Cana.

I just came from the blog of someone I knew from a message board. She proudly writes of her sexual escapades, and she has no intention of marrying. It saddens me because she can never know the real joy of sex; she has to settle for the counterfeit of the non-conjugal act. And what happens when her hormones stop raging?

We were virgins until we got married, and it was worth the wait. How did society get to the expectation that sex before marriage is not only allowable, but now all but mandatory? We are living proof that it need not be that way.

Thanks for the admonition about porn, which has also become quite acceptable and expected for men today; I think it's more widespread than anyone admits. There is help, however, for addiction to porn for those who want it.

[G.S.]

Familiaris Consortio by Pope John Paul II spends some time on this topic. I had the opportunity for guided study through the document in FAMILIA's (www.familiausa.net) Mothers of Young Children program. Knowing what the basics of what the Catholic church teaches is one thing, but the beauty of a fuller discourse is amazing.

[Kristy]

It is so very refreshing to read everything that all of you have said. I am Catholic too, more-than-happily married for 6 months, and my husband and I are practicing NFP. As a 4th year medical student, I have often found it disconcerting that the medical field chooses not to be open to NFP and the science behind it. Most Ob/Gyn's dismiss it completely, especially because we are taught to disregard it in medical school as something that "does not work." I just finished reading the more recent discussions about the new HPV vaccine that has recently become available. What NFP provides us with is an "absence of fear of the other," our spouse. And that, might I add, includes a fear of STDs and the like. What a relief! I applaud the ladies that take the challenge to live a truely free life, as you all have.

[Katie]

I stumbled on this site tonight looking for some form of encouragement for my very single status :) I am a college student at a Catholic university and just joined the Church this past Easter. Even at a Catholic university it is hard to be virgin who wants to wait till marriage to have sex. I just wanted to say that it is such a blessing to find this website.