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Marriage...The Catholic Church characterizes marriage as one of the sacraments, and the language used here should make it obvious that I believe that marriage cannot be understood if we do not consider its spiritual aspect. However, speaking philosophically: marriage can be a joining of bubbles at the edges, designed to protect children and the personal and financial assets enclosed within. Or it can be a complete merging of bubbles, a joining of personalities so deep that, while one or the other may have primacy in specific areas, there is no telling where one begins and the other leaves off. The fact is that successful merging requires practice, and that practice is probably best done in relationships that do not involve sex. In part, the reason is that, when we begin that experimentation, we often have not completely separated from our parents. Learning to join and separate from our friends of the opposite gender is a useful part of learning to manage our association with our parents, and so free ourselves for a deep engagement with a life partner. Part of that partnership is renouncing our attachment when it would interfere with our partner's success. Specialization brings with it the benefit that each can represent the other in organizing the energy of their part of the supporting community. We must trust each other in conducting that business. Again, non-sexual practice is the only way to achieve graceful mastery of this faculty. Truly successful marriages have only global agendas. They accept that day-to-day events, sickness and health, good times and bad, will require adjustments and accommodations that cannot be planned and that may delay anticipated accomplishments. Again, the breadth and depth of our involvement make marriage the ultimate test of our will. For this reason, the weak-willed will enter marriage as an anti-engagement, fencing their commitments around with contracts and positions to be renegotiated. My advice to those committed to constructing a lasting relationship is to test your understandings of goals as early as possible, and to exit the relationship if the rationale for change does not meet your standards of maturity. Obviously, trust is essential to any partnership, and so marriage relies upon it to the greatest degree. |
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