Saturday, Holy Saturday, will be our wedding anniversary.
We will have been married for 28 years! Gosh!
We married young, and I was certainly foolish! Yet, our marriage has been good and blessed, regardless of my failings...
A friend and I were emailing about marriage. My friend lamented that her marriage did not necessarily meet the ideal often portrayed in Catholic books and on Catholic CDs - especially in modern, conservative Catholic circles.
Our marriage is good, its great actually :-), but it also does not fit this ideal..
Dh and I are very different and we need our other friends and separate activities to balance us out. Then our time together is better.
We are not your typical Catholic homeschool family, that people write pages about. We are more independent do your own thing people .
We are not your typical Catholic homeschool family, that people write pages about. We are more independent do your own thing people .
We do not look like the ideal but we are okay.
Similarly, we don't really have issues with submission and the head of the household - areas often discussed in Catholic books on marriage. We talk and talk, sometimes heatedly ( ykwim!) and usually we come to a consensus or an agreement about things. Or I decide that the topic under discussion is more important to dh than it is to me and we go his way. Or Gerry decides to do it ( whatever it is) "my way" and follows me...This is the way we are, our personalities, and it all works out in the end...
There are many different types of Catholic marriages and ours is one of these, borne out of years of experience, love, laughter, sorrow, prayer.....
19 comments:
Oh Leonie,
IKWYM.Although not Catholic, nor have I read any books on Catholic marriage, I have read oodles (too many) books on Christian marriage - enough to know that we don't fit that mould either.
We too have some rather heated discussions ;-) but we also have some remarkable times of grace and forgiveness.
We are nearing our 19th year of marriage and it definately changes shape and colour as it matures :) But it's like a good wine- gets eve better with age. ;)
Susan
Sounds alot like our marriage.Not typical, but not really unusual, either. Happy, anyway!
HAPPIEST OF ANNIVERSARIES -- you know you're an adult when you understand that marriage is not the fairy tale that's portrayed in the movies, nor is it all that bad -- in fact it can be fabulous, but it always takes 3 -- if God ain't in it, ain't nothing gonna work!
Prayers will be said for you and dh on Holy Saturday, dear Leonie!
Happy Anniversary, dear Leonie! What fine young men your marriage has brought into the world!
BTW, my Anniversary is tomorrow. Fourteen years! We've reached your halfway mark!
Happy anniversary, Alice!
And thanks for the thoughts and support, all of you!
Happy Anniversary, Leonie, and thanks for your honesty. YOu are so right about finding what works for you as a couple.
Falling prey to the pretty picture woven in those books is, as Mary said, a fairy tale.
Dear Leonie!!!!
Happy Anniversary to you and Gerry!
How wonderful!!!!
Enjoy it and get your funk on!!!:-)
Cay, you are so right wrt fairy tales and truth - and, Maria, we hope to have lunch out as a family. Not quite getting our funk on, though you know I LOVE to dance...
Happy Anniversary, Leonie! I appreciate your honesty and insights, and I agree, we are not a cookie-cutter people. So why do we compare ourselves to such things? Happiest of wishes coming your way!
Thanks, Cheryl and Jennifer....I wonder why we do compare or why one sort of marriage is held up as "the best"?
Happy Anniversary! I hear you about marriage books. They are certainly interesting and I do pick certain insightful *aha*. Otherwise they are at worst good fairy-tale reading or at best a reminder to live our marriage sacramentally. Hope you have a lovely celebration this weekend. Genevieve
The "ideal" is probably a complete nonsense! Thankfully, there are real people in the world (and the Church)...
God bless you both on Saturday.
Louise in Adelaide
Thanks everyone- hope you have a good weekend..
Hi Leonie,
Congratulations for Saturday. My DH and I reached our 32nd anniversary last Saturday and while we have had some tense moments due to illness, stress and bereavments we haven't regretted a moment of our marriage. I agree with other comments that there are no ideal marriages as each union has it's own challenges and it depends on how issues are resolved that makes a successful one or not.
Leonie, I am the lady from Pymble and we tried to find a contact email address on your blog but to no avail. Maybe it's in a hidden spot that I can't see.
Happy Easter!
Hi Mary - my email addy is westen@bigpond.com......
Happy Anniversary, Leonie. God bless you.
Thanks Ruth - hope you are feeling better..
A belated happy anniversary to you! Congratulations!
Thank you, Elizabeth!
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