God's Desire for Marriage -- Part II

This is a talk that we gave at the St. Thomas Aquinas Society Conference God is Calling You By Name on August 3, 2007. I will post it in multiple parts for ease of reading.
An audio CD of the talk can be found at Holy Family Resources.

God's Desire for Marriage -- Part I
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part II
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part III
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part IV
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part V
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part VI
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part VII
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part VIII
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part IX
God's Desire for Marriage -- Part X

...

James:
Now let's take a look at the way the world views marriage. As human beings our deepest longing is to find happiness. Society and the mass media propose various ways to find happiness: making lots of money, having a great body, a top-of-the-line computer, a 6000 square-foot house, taking the “perfect” vacation, acquiring the right car, or working at the right job. As a couple, happiness might mean going out every Friday night, or never fighting. We chase after what we think happiness is because of what the media, friends and family tell us it is. Media and television often play up the need for independence and self-reliance. Prenuptial agreements and no-fault divorce make marriages seem doomed before they begin; television often portrays marriage as easily disposable as people get married over and over. Another common view of marriage is that nobody every really succeeds: they deny themselves, living unhappily together or they give up and get divorced.
If this is the way that the world views marriage, what is God's view of marriage?
God's desire for marriage is for us to have the same deeply intimate union with one another as He desires to have with us as individuals. As a couple, we can fulfill our deepest longing as husband and wife, to find happiness. TRUE happiness results from the unity that comes from living intimately and responsibly with our spouse and the priest with his people. We re-discovered this true happiness during our Marriage Encounter Weekend. GOD'S DESIRE FOR MARRIAGE IS TO BE THE BEST COUPLE WE CAN BE.
In Marriage Encounter, when we use the word “intimate”, it means to be open to love and being loved. Being responsible means living out the decision to love in our daily lives. In living intimately and responsibly, our goal is Unity; we define it as the happiness that comes from the intimacy God calls us to in our relationship.

Christine:
Each one of us brings into our marriage our expectations of what marriage will be like. These attitudes are shaped by our family and friends, our culture, the way we grew up, and what we saw in marriages around us. I come from a blended family. My dad was a widower with 3 children when he and my mom got married and had my sister and I. The older 3 children had a rough time adjusting to the new family, and the relationship between them and my parents was often rocky. I did not want to experience those issues in my family, so I decided early that I would never marry a man with children, and I would not bring any into a marriage.
My parents seemed to disagree very reasonably, without any yelling or long silences. I was raised in a Catholic home, and believed that divorce would never be an option, no matter how bad things got.
As I was growing up I watched my Dad work side by side with my Mom around the house and taking care of us children. I thought this was the status quo for all marriages and I never thought to question it. My father was the provider for our family; we lived a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. My mother stayed home and cooked and baked and ironed everything. She made it seem easy to be the “master of all things domestic” and I thought that I would be the same way. I could see myself as a do-it-all stay at home mom who always had fresh bread baking and a warm smile to greet my honey at the door as he came home from the office.
I had this rosy dream in my head of being in love with a handsome man who would do everything in his power to make me happy. I was the baby in my family, and so I was almost always pampered and spoiled, and I liked it very much. I expected that same pampering in my marriage. I dreamed of being pursued in my marriage as if I was some lofty object. I expected to feel cherished and pursued all the time. My husband would treat me like a princess. I would get to spend the rest of my life side by side with my confidant and best friend. I believed that our love would supersede problems and make marriage easy. I expected that we would always find a way to agree on everything and then tackle the world together as a team. I didn't give a second thought to warnings from my parents and others that marriage is not always pleasant and easy and that I was going to have to work hard at it. Surely my husband and I would be above such pettiness.