How to be Holy and 'Normal' in Marriage

by Alexander A. Schneiders , Ph.D.

Catholic writers in the field of marriage and marital relationships have been prone, almost universally, to stress the sacramental nature of marriage and its possibilities for personal and collective sanctity, but often with little regard for those factors in the marriage relationship that form the bedrock of marital success and happiness. Sometimes one gets the impression that pious preaching about what marriage should be is offered as a substitute for a realistic approach to the basic problem of marriage which is essentially one of human adjustment and mental health. It is somewhat like the overly pious attitude that many persons take toward sex, in which the holiness and sanctity of sexual relationships are emphasized with small regard for the tremendously complicated problem forced upon men and women by social attitudes, powerful impulses that hunger for expression, cultural taboos, moral restrictions, stimulating books, pictures, movies, and ceaseless temptations that hammer at the bulwarks of self-control. There is no question regarding the good intent of such utterances, but unless the advice and the exhortation given are fitted snugly and carefully into the total framework of the sexual or marital problem, they can do a great deal more harm than good.

A typical example of this type of thinking is given to us by Father Allen Keenan in his Neuroses and Sacraments. According to Father Keenan:

The Sacrament of Matrimony blesses the marriage contract at all its levels, but especially at the spiritual level. The conception of marriage that it brings is one which makes all the aspects of marriage take on a spiritual meaning. St. Paul calls it 'a great mystery' and bids the partners love each other as Christ loves the Church. Christ Himself blessed this Sacrament and affirmed its indissolubility. The union between the partners is transcendental. God has bound them together. Each party should love the Christ in each other. Every time intercourse occurs they do something holy, because this is the nature of a contract which Christ Himself has blessed and raised to the level of a Sacrament.

This, says Keenan, "is a depth and sincerity of love which beggars into prose all the finest poetry on human love."¹

Actually, this is a beautiful epitome of the relationship between sanctity and the marital union, including the fact of sex. But what it could mean to an immature or neurotic woman whose basic anxiety centers around sex is all too obvious. Many married persons fear sex or are repelled by it and cannot engage in the marital act without ravaging feelings of guilt, even though their intellect tells them that this is a licit act. As Father Keenan himself says, "Most people find difficulty with sex, but neurotics especially so." The question here then is whether the problem of marriage and sanctity can be approached from the top, that is from the level of spirituality, in which case the view is downward from the fact of the sacramental nature of marriage and the holiness potentially contained in it, to a consideration of those factors that constitute the essential groundwork of marital happiness. Or, should consideration be given first to the basic conditions of marital happiness without which sanctity is difficult or impossible? I believe the latter is the more fruitful and promising procedure, and I would like to cite as evidence the indifferent relationship between personal holiness and marital happiness. I am referring, of course, to the necessity of building first of all a sound psychological union in the soil of which sanctity will have a chance to grow. As Father Jordan Aumann points out in another connection:

However great be the degree of a soul's grace and infused virtues at any given time, those great gifts may remain static and sterile if the individual does not cultivate the acquired virtues to such a degree that he can utilize the supernatural powers at his disposal. For grace works through nature, and a lack of the acquired virtues is one of the great obstacles to the full living of the Christian life.

Holy and Normal

Sanctity, of course, means holiness; and the argument is that marriage, being a Sacrament as well as a natural and civil contract, should lead the married couple along the path of spirituality to even higher levels of sanctity. As a Sacrament, certainly, marriage brings with it its own special graces which make possible the achievement of personal holiness. Theologians never tire of pointing out that every married couple, whose marriage is blessed as a Sacrament, is never wanting in the graces that are necessary to surmount all the trials and tribulations of the marital union and are given a headlong push by reason of these graces to increasingly higher levels of personal sanctity. In this they are perfectly right. No one, believing in the sacramental nature of marriage, can dispute the fact that God's blessing on the marital union will serve to shower it with abundant graces, more perhaps than the couple will actually need to forge their marriage into a successful and happy union.

But this sacrament of fact, literal though it may be, does not guarantee marital happiness or sanctity in individual cases. Actually, this is part of the larger problem of the relationship between sanctity and psychological normality, on the one hand, and mental disorder on the other. There are quite a few theologians who agree that neurosis and similar conditions are a serious impediment, if not an absolute block, to the achievement of sanctity. As one such writer says in a recent publication:

All persons, both normal and abnormal, have the same obligations in view of sanctity, for there are not two sanctities, but only one. And since the spirit is inseparable from our psychic structure and grace works through the individual nature, sanctity requires a spirit free from sin, inordinate self-love, and excessive attachment to created things. Therefore, sanctity requires a certain integrity in the psychic order. This does not mean that neurotics cannot have utmost confidence in God and an intense love of God, but they still lack that integrity which is required for sanctity.³

Neurotic Spouses

This statement clearly epitomizes the basic fact that where psychological health or emotional stability are seriously lacking, it is extremely difficult for spiritual factors to still unwanted desires or feelings and to bring about the elevation of mind and heart and soul to God that so clearly marks the path of spiritual perfection. Clearly, the neurotic housewife or the insecure husband, battling constantly against feelings of guilt, insecurity, a sense of failure, or chronic anxiety will find it extremely difficult to glory in the marital union and to elevate this union to the level of sanctity that the graces of God have destined for it.

Let us take a case at point. Not long ago a young couple, married three years and with two fine children, were referred to me by a Catholic agency. When I first saw them, they had been living apart for a period of eight months, and although sincerely desirous of reestablishing their marriage, they had found it impossible to do so. The reason they found it impossible was that every time they got together to discuss plans for the reestablishment of their union, the discussion ended in a free-for-all fight. The husband was a rather ineffectual person who was largely incapable of taking the reins and assuming the responsibilities that a husband and a father must assume, if the marriage is to succeed. The wife was in worse shape. Though thirty years of age, she was extremely immature, anxious to an excessive degree — especially where her future relationships with her husband were concerned — and very dependent on the advice and support of her mother.

Interviews brought out the fact that while she was enamored with her husband during the period of courtship, her decision to get married was motivated also by the fear that if she didn't grab him maybe there would be no other opportunity. After the wedding was safely concluded, she informed her husband that they would live with her parents, ostensibly to repay the parents for everything they had done for her and also to save money. This was to last for one year, but it stretched into three years, at which time the marriage broke up. Needless to say, the husband soon learned to resent the entire situation and to heartily despise every member of his wife's family.

These two young people are typical of many Catholic married couples. They were married in the Church; the marriage was sacramentally purified. In other words, they had a good start. Other things being equal, their marriage should have been a success. But it was not, and the reason has little to do with the marriage itself and everything to do with the emotional make-up of the people involved. As Father Aumann says in speaking of the relationship between functional disorder and virtue:

Such subterfuges as rationalizing, regression, identification, projection, and segregation indicate that the individual is immature and in a sense is under the control of some power other than his reason. But the immature man cannot be a saint, because the immature man is not a perfect man.⁴

To speak of achieving sanctity in a situation of this kind is, therefore, a farce; and yet when these young people got married, sanctity was as available to them as to any other young couple.

The reason for marital failure in this case is obvious. The young wife is immature, spoiled, dependent, and pervasively neurotic in her attitudes toward her family, her husband, her children, and toward marriage itself. Obviously, she was afraid to leave home. She didn't want a husband who would protect and cherish her; she wanted a sex partner, and when sex lost its alluring qualities through satiation, the responsibilities of marriage became overwhelming. This young lady wanted to stay with her mother, and the role that the husband was to play was simply a means of personal gratification for her wishes and desires. Until these immaturities, dependencies, and other neurotic qualities were reduced by counseling and psychotherapy, there was not the least chance of her entering into a successful marital relationship. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the couple had taken their problem to several priests — one of whom was a close friend of the family — a marriage counselor, and a psychologist, but to no avail. These efforts were unsuccessful, because in no instance did she receive the therapeutic help necessary to bring her to the level of self-understanding and personal growth required for establishing a secure marital relationship. As Dr. Kane says in his book on a Catholic approach to marriage and the family:

If and when a neurosis is suspected, recourse should be had to a competent psychiatrist and his advice followed, for recovery from neurosis is quite possible. In the last analysis, a neurosis is a mental illness, and religiously motivated persons who accept a spouse in marriage "in sickness and health" will regard it in just that light.⁵

You will be interested to know, that after several months of therapy with both the husband and the wife in individual and joint sessions, the couple with their children are living together in their own home. This case is typical of thousands; and it manifests unmistakably the tremendously important role played by psychological factors.

Six Obstacles to Happiness

In a recent issue of The Sign, a national Catholic magazine, there appeared an interesting article called "Six Obstacles to a Happy Marriage," written by a research fellow in marriage counseling at New York's Post-Graduate Center for Psychotherapy. The author is also a marriage counselor in private practice. These six obstacles are: 1) the sex block, 2) a stereotyped concept of the other sex, 3) refusal to share the failures, 4) religious differences, 5) attachment to mother, and 6) refusal to share life. The author develops a solid argument for the importance of these six obstacles. But the author of the article pointed out in the very beginning that the so-called little problems of marriage are seldom simple. "More often than not, they turn out to be mere symptoms, pointing to deeper hidden problems." This is the important fact that we must bear in mind in seeking the psychological basis of sanctity in marriage. The quarrelling, the fault-finding, the arguments over religious differences, the drinking, the adulterous relationships, the selfishness and all the other difficulties pointed to by various investigators as disrupting marital relationships are in the majority of cases symptomatic of deeper personality difficulties. It is more important to know what brings a man to the stage of habitual drinking than it is to define the relationship between alcoholism and marital breakdown. Similarly, it is more efficacious to discern the basic reasons why the wife rejects her family responsibilities, than it is to lecture her on the morality of being a good wife and mother. Admittedly, many problems can be solved, and the road to sanctity well paved, by means other than psychological analysis or counseling. Many couples have surmounted the most serious difficulties after years of struggle and in the later years of their married life have found the integration, peace, and contentment that make it much easier to profit from the graces inherent in the Sacramental union. It doesn't make too much difference how it is done, whether by experience, acquired wisdom, or counseling; the important thing here is that certain qualities, or virtues, must be acquired in order for sanctity to take root.

Holiness Is Wholeness

We have said that sanctity is simply holiness; and now we would like to emphasize that holiness in turn requires wholeness and integration. It is this basic fact that underlies all other psychological characteristics necessary to marital adjustment. Without wholeness or integration there is small chance of marital success or sanctity, because integration defines the unity or oneness that must underlie the marital relationship. It is this oneness that is destroyed by neurotic instability, suspiciousness, jealousy, immaturity, fault-finding, nagging, inadequacy, inferiority, guilt and similar conditions. Because of such factors, not only is the integrity of the person impaired or destroyed, but more important the oneness and solidarity of the marital union is weakened and eventually destroyed. Without this latter integrity, it is impossible to achieve true holiness in marriage.

Essentials for Adjustment in Marriage

Looking at the total problem from a more positive viewpoint, let us ask ourselves what specific psychological qualities are necessary to lay a solid groundwork for both marital adjustment and sanctity. Keeping in mind that integration, integrity, and oneness constitute the essential earmarks of a successful marriage, the following characteristics should also be given full consideration. In fact, if one looks closely enough, he will see that these characteristics are intrinsically bound up with the basic quality of personal and conjugal integration.

Psychological Compatibility is the first of these factors. It has long been recognized that such factors as sexual compatibility, and even religious compatibility, are not at all as important as the blending together of the basic needs, aspirations, and feelings of the married partners into a harmonious union. This meeting of the minds that we call psychological compatibility is a necessary step in the achievement of marital happiness and sanctity. As Keenan and Ryan point out in their recent book on marriage:

To the particular human need answered by the Sacrament of Matrimony is the need in one sex for completion by the other; and the general need of man as a social being to regulate his sexuality in the society in which he lives. Sanctifying grace donated by Matrimony binds redeemed man to redeemed woman in the love of Christ, and elevates the family to being a unit in that redeemed society we call the Mystical Body of Christ. Both parties, as partners, are called to mutual sanctification . . . ⁶

It is clear that the elements of complementation and unity emphasized in this statement as a basis for sanctification would require a high degree of compatibility.

Adaptability, Capacity for Adjustment is the second factor of real significance. If it is true that marriage is in its own way a problem in adjustment, since it makes persistent demands with which both parties must be able to cope, then it goes without saying that resiliency or adaptability of response is a sine qua non of the married life. As Kane points out, when discussing personality factors in marriage:

"The concept of rigidity has particular significance in the marital relationship. If two persons are to live together for life, adaptation is the key to compatibility. One must be prepared to make concessions and to change oneself, not merely the marriage partner. Changes in ways of living and personality must be mutual. If one partner is neurotic, his rigidity in reaction makes change extremely difficult if not impossible.⁷

One can see from this statement how closely linked are the two qualities of compatibility and adaptability. As we have said, all such factors are very closely allied to each other, and the absence of one tends strongly to dissipate the influence of the others.

Maturity is the third basic factor that bears directly on success in marriage. Maturity is one of the most essential ingredients for mental health and adjustment regardless of situation, time, or circumstance. Without maturity we feel and think and act like children. And it goes without saying that the important and complicated business of marriage should never be entrusted to childish minds. Maturity has many facets and reaches into every department of personality. Maturity in marriage means maturity of judgment, of feelings and emotions, of self-discipline, of sexual longings and behavior. The mature person does not indulge in childish fantasies, defense mechanisms, neurotic demands, and other devices that reveal the existence of a childish mentality. The mature person has learned self-discipline and knows how to bring his feelings and his behavior into line with reason and will. He cherishes and seeks the constant development of the natural virtues, such as fortitude, temperance, and prudence. It is this kind of maturity that underlies the development of real sanctity. To use again the quotation from Father Aumann, "The immature man cannot be a saint, because the immature man is not a perfect man."

Emotional Adequacy and Stability is the last factor to be emphasized. It could be argued that immaturity takes care of this factor, but it is of such basic importance to marital adjustment that it should be considered by itself. It is clear to everyone that chronic anxiety, fear, temper tantrums, outbursts of anger, chronic irritability, jealousy, moodiness, and suspiciousness are all inimical to marital happiness and compatibility. It is often urged that the marital union must be dominated by love, mutual respect, trust, consideration, and selflessness. But no one of these virtues can take root in the soil of emotional inadequacy and instability. Moreover, it is impossible for personal sanctity to flourish in this type of emotional setting. A healthy emotional life is the key to peace of mind and tranquility; and these the marital partners must achieve, if they are going to work out a successful conjugal union. Mental health and marital adjustment are closely related realities, and both of them form the groundwork of personal and conjugal sanctity.

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