“Fall in love again with your spouse, this time in a more conscious and mature way.” This is one of the key messages of Fr Ruben Tanseco, our Spiritual Director and Facilitator during the 3-day Marriage Encounter Weekend that was ran by Magis Deo community at BLD Retreat House, Dasmarinas, Cavite August 21-23, 2009. My husband and I were among the 28 couples who attended the event.
How to fall in love again? For the whole duration of the seminar, we were asked to focus only on our spouses, nothing else. Between spouses, we did a lot of sharing, listening, understanding and accepting each other’s thoughts, pains, dreams, deepest desires, fears and yes, even the most kept secrets and anger. We relearned the importance of constant and open communication, no judgement, no defensive remarks, only listening with the heart. We took a journey back to the time when we are still about to get married, so in love with each other, until the present. We rediscovered the person we fell in love before and started to appreciate each other’s good qualities again. We got rid of all the baggage of anger, hatred, guilt and frustrations that we’ve been carrying around for so long. And with God in our midst, we forgave each other’s shortcomings and transgressions. We renewed our marriage vows, this time with deeper understanding of the words and with more awareness and willingness to put God at the center of the relationship. We again consecrated our oneness to God who is bonding us together in His love and protection.
Today, I hear more and more cases of broken marriages. Couples fall apart without even trying to understand each other and finding ways to make up. Most are too proud to pause and listen with their hearts, to accept and forgive. Too proud to admit that each one has shortcomings and has caused pains in the marriage in one way or another.
It is true that there will come a time when couple start turning their eyes and ears from each other. This is the time when each one starts counting mistakes and shortcomings of the other. Each one keeping scores of the other’s bad points that they stop and fail to notice and appreciate the good things that each one does for the other. The danger is when no one from the couple seems to care what’s happening and no one takes the initiative to talk it out. No one is willing to go back to common ground and ask the question, what do I want to happen to this marriage? Do I want it to end or do I want it to last? What happens if the marriage will end with bitterness?
One of the things that struck most of the participants in that marriage encounter weekend were the questions “What if your spouse suddenly dies?” “How to go on without the other?”
What I saw recently was very painful. My husband and I just attended a necrological service of our common friend. She is a beautiful soul, only 38 years old and a mother of 3 young kids. Seeing her husband and kids, and the thought of how they will resume their day to day life without her, immediately brought so much tears to my eyes. It pains me to think how would life go on without their mother, without his beloved wife, his best friend? I can only see too much sorrows and struggles...
This sad experience has underscored the lessons and the realizations we have during the seminar. Life is too short to spend most of it in anger, hatred or indifference with your spouse. So why not spend more of your time together in love and happiness?
I hope we will have more seminars like this for couples to help reduce if not to stop, the alarming increase in numbers of broken marriages. Let us help to save more families from being torn apart by starting from our very own home. As a couple, strive to be the very best friend of each other because after all, you journey through life together as partners! Make the journey fun and meaningful!
May God bless us all always!
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