On the last Sunday of 2021, the Church invited us to contemplate the Holy Family as a model for our families. St Paul VI says that their life was a school in family living.
Many consider the family to be the backbone of society. Unfortunately, if we look around, we would soon realise that this backbone has become extremely weak and fractured in many places. The rate of divorces and separations should be alarming. Statistics give us numbers but they don’t tell us much about the suffering these numbers bring about.
Often, the children, being the weakest, are the foremost victims. However, the partners too become victims. They have to reorganise their lives, learn to cope with complicated situations and, most of the time, face financial and psychological difficulties.
Why is this happening? There is so much celebration on couples’ wedding days, often costing many thousands of euros but then, a few years later, everything evaporates. As usual, there is not one reason but many. I’ll try to list a few of them as I see them.
Perhaps the most important one is our culture’s problem with commitment, which is seen as giving up the possibility of making new choices, and in so doing, forfeiting one’s freedom. Little do we realise that freedom and maturity are attained only through commitment. To become a concert violinist, one needs to renounce becoming a concert pianist.
Another reason for this happening is an erroneous choice of one’s partner. Scott Peck says it very forcefully. Before deciding, fall out of love and look at your prospective partner as they are, with their strengths and weaknesses. Then ask yourself whether you would want to spend your life with them without expecting them to change. When one is ‘in love’ – perhaps ‘infatuated’ would be a better word – one would only love oneself or the partner’s introjected image. Marrying on infatuation would be building one’s house on sand.
Virginia Satir, a pioneer of family therapy, postulates communication as one of the main causes of family dysfunction. Often, low self-esteem makes one communicate in unhelpful ways. In family therapy, she used to teach people how to communicate better and, in so doing, the family members would heal their low self-esteem and, in turn, the family would function better.
Communication is the litmus test of love
Communication is the litmus test of love. Good communication demands profound listening, which in turn requires withholding one’s own concerns. This is not an easy task but, if there is true love, it should be manageable. Responding with “I” messages rather than with “you” ones is the counterpart of deep listening so, for example, one should say “When you come home late for dinner, I feel irritated”, rather than “You irritate me when you come home late for dinner.” Praying together, both before and after one’s wedding, won’t do any harm at all.
Sometimes, outside help is necessary. Many are shy of asking for help, viewing it a sign of weakness. Often, it would be the relationship that needs to be healed. In a three-legged race, it is more important that the partner athletes run in lockstep than for each to be fast. So it is among family members. Family therapy requires humility and patience. It also requires faith and hope that a marriage can be healed.