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In the marriage it is not enough to love each other very much

Love is not self-seeking (1 Cor 13,5)

In marriage it is not enough to want each other or love each other very much. We also must know. Know what? How to live together. The coexistence of two people is always difficult. It is essential that there does not appear self-interests, but rather the: “you are of interest to me.”

Everything of value has a cost. Contrasts the popular saying: “the cheap ends up being expensive”, is a great truth. A beautiful marital cohabitation is worth a lot, so it has a cost. But human beings have the possibility and the elements to have a good relationship.

Today there is much talk of the crisis of marriage, separations, how to recover after a failure. It is said that young couples do not tolerate anything and that the first time there is a serious problem they say they were not wrong, that it is not this person or that with which they married. Then comes the separation with all that this implies. Is it so difficult for two people to live together who claim to love each other? Is it more difficult today than before?

Most couples seeking help, start blaming their problems on different concrete things: work, lack of time for dialogue, relatives who impose themselves ... but really do not know what is happening.

Having a good daily life together does not depend solely on whether people want it or not. This is critical, but unfortunately not enough if both are not very clear that their relationship is most important, and you must worry about it all the time.

Conflict always exists when living with someone; father, mother, or friend. In the relationship also, we found another series of elements that hinder it; there are specific expectations, it is forever, every day we must conquer our love, communicate feelings, there are children who are different people and add elements to the coexistence. To this must be added the fact that both come from different families. Different ways of life that are valid for the other person do not work for them. Ultimately each has a different past that has marked them differently.

They are like chips of different colors, patterns of learned behavior that appear in every moment of life together and face each situation of daily living. Everyone wants to act according to the color of the tab, forgetting that it is the couple who have to look for “their own color.”

For example, if the man is accustomed to act according to yellow and red the woman in her life, together, the wisdom is to seek their own color: orange.

Theirs is not that of other couples. If they succeed it will be much easier to understand. It is important to discuss these points, compromise, negotiate. “You like it this way and I like it that way. Let's find a spot that suits us both.”

An important element to consider is that there are not currently defined roles. Forty years ago, right or wrong, the roles of women and male were structured. He worked and she stayed in the house. Today it has reached level playing roles, which usually appears in women working and taking care of their old obligations. Not having well defined roles of each other is an important source of conflict.

Each couple has to find its own way according to their needs and aspirations, based on the interaction of both, without allowing third-party influences. It is necessary that both will attach importance to their relationship. The: “you are of interest to me” is fundamental. It matters what the other is, what the other thinks, what the other feels or wants. “What we want.”

The mere fact of being aware of these points: that each brings learned behaviors, and that is problematic the lives of two people under the same roof, is enough to help the relationship. Both should know that living with a partner is not an easy task. It is complicated because there is no perfect world and sometimes a painful landing cannot be avoided.

It is the same as the problem of adolescence. If parents do not know that this is a critical stage in their child’s development, their behavior will be interpreted incorrectly. They will think that the child is at war with them. Without this knowledge, adolescence would be an extremely critical stage in the relationship of a family. Just understanding what adolescence means greatly reduces the family crisis.

We must also be clear in the relationship something that previously was not considered. And that is the fact that the human being is always changing.

It was thought that people reached adulthood and there ended the process of change. Today it has been proven that humans continue to evolve and undergo a series of crises throughout their life. The midlife crisis is sometimes as strong as the crisis of adolescence.

We therefore have two people making a life together with similar expectations and individual processes which can be divergent.

It may be that one of the members of the couple is living a tremendous existence crisis, only by their age and the other at a flourishing stage of life. When two people marry and do not know these stages, they sometimes begin to misinterpret behaviors and believe the difficulties are due to their life together.

They take the bad mood, silence, dissatisfaction with life as a difficulty of the relationship of the couple and not as what it really is, which one of them is going through a difficult evolutionarily phase. Faced with this fact, the only attitude would be to accept this reality, and not take the behavior of the spouse as a personal attack, because it is not.

There are many elements in common that make life difficult, but it’s worth a try to work to have a good relationship, because there are many good and beautiful things in it! A happy home is real and true, if every day against obstacles we are able to improve ourselves, to give great importance to “you are of interest to me.”

To dialogue as a couple

1. In our lives together do we care about the “you” or are we still in the “I”?

2. Are there defined roles in our partnership?

3. Faced with the crisis of the other, how do we act? Do we feel displaced, attacked, or seek to redouble love to help the other out?

4. What do we propose to do after this dialogue?

To pray together

Lord Jesus,

in our daily living

there are many elements to overcome,

requiring us to overcome our self

to interest in you.

We always want to have you with us,

For you, help us increase our love,

but especially for you to teach us

to live together and thereby living as one

and not tarnish the great love we have.

When we discover crisis facing the other

We recognize their need, and never think

there is something wrong with the us.

Jesus may our coexistence

always be beautiful,

even at times when we must overcome obstacles.

Amen.