July 2022 - The Marriage Group

Financial Tips for Couples Moving in Together

Read Time: 4 minutes

Moving in together is a big step in any relationship. You’ve just been married, and now you’re ready to take on your world together in a new home.

However, one of the biggest reasons couples fight at this stage, or any stage, is financial difficulties.

There are a few proactive actions you can take that’ll strengthen your relationship when it comes to finances and make the transition a little easier.

1. Have an Open and Honest Discussion

Having discussions about finances can be difficult for even the strongest of couples. During this discussion, you’ll want to evaluate the state of your individual finances and make some key decisions for your financial future. When entering into this important conversation, make sure to be respectful of others’ feelings and approaches to money, and be honest about the state of your finances when communicating to your partner.

Also, if you feel that the discussion has taken an unproductive turn, take a moment away from the conversation to relax, seek guidance, and remember this is the person you love. The important thing is to make sure you’re on the same page financially by the end of your conversation.

During these conversations, talk openly about your finances including student loans, credit card debt or other types of debt, savings goals, and retirement plans. This’ll help you understand your bigger financial picture as a married couple. Another decision you’ll need to come to by the end of this discussion is whether or not you want to combine your finances.

To some, marriage and living together means you should combine all aspects of your life, including finances.

However, there can be some advantages to keeping your finances separate, or having some things combined and others separate. It’s important to be understanding about your partner’s personal financial goals, and make sure to communicate about what you can work on together.

2. Decide to Rent or Own

The biggest decision you’ll make when moving in together is deciding where you’re going to live. In some situations, one partner will move into another partner’s current residence. Others prefer to start their life together in an entirely new home.

When beginning your search for your home, you’ll need to decide whether it’s best to rent or own.

After discussing your finances, you should have a pretty good understanding of how much you can afford to pay in rent. There’s often a preconceived notion that renting can save couples money, especially with recently raised interest rates. However, mortgage payments can be, at times, less of an expense.

Additionally, you’re working toward owning your home which is a financial asset as compared to paying rent, where the only benefit is having a living space. To see if owning is an option for you, you’ll need to figure out how much you can afford on a mortgage, which can be calculated by evaluating your credit score and your debt-to-income ratio. If you think owning is out of your budget, consider walking through this process first because it might be more within reach than you think.

3. Create Your Home’s Budget

Once you’ve decided if you’ll be renting or buying, you’ll want to create a budget for your home and your new family. When moving into a new place, there are always hidden costs that you’re not expecting initially. These costs include furniture, moving costs, appliances, and updates to your living space.

Even if you decided previously to keep your finances separate, this might be a good opportunity to open a joint account to pay for things such as the mortgage or rent, property taxes, utilities, and internet. This is a great way to ensure you’ve saved the correct amount of money each month collectively, and without needing to draw from your individual savings accounts to make these payments.

Once you have those expenses covered, you can start a simple budget for some of the other shared costs that you’ll incur monthly, such as streaming services, groceries, entertainment, pet costs, and home maintenance.

After living together in the home for 2 – 3 months, look at the money you’re spending in each category, and see where you can cut to increase savings. It might take some trial and error with your partner in these beginning months, but trust that with faith you and your partner will continue to grow.

Once you’re settled into your new home, you and your spouse can start enjoying your lives together. Remember to approach financial discussions with patience and to have financial health check-ups every now and again.

If you feel like you and your spouse are having disagreements about finances, or just experiencing difficult times, sometimes it can be best to see your priest, a financial counselor, and other marriage mentors in your life. Bumps in a marriage can happen, however with planning and understanding your life together can continue to grow through any obstacles.

Marriage Every Day™ is the place for couples who want to have fun growing strong marriages. Community chats, free mini-courses, and engaging activities will help you build a marriage you love alongside thousands of couples just like you!

Learn more HERE.

July 28, 2022/by The Marriage Group Team

The 6 Most Important Tips for Newlyweds

Couples, Couples Marriage Prep

Read Time: 7 minutes

Congratulations! If you’re reading this you have successfully survived engagement, marriage preparation, wedding planning, and hopefully had the best day of your life with a lovely honeymoon to boot!

When my husband, Joshua, and I got married in June 2021, it was 4 weeks after we both graduated from college. I remember finishing finals, visiting my family in Dallas for a few weeks, then returning to Lubbock, TX for two weeks of setting up our new home and finishing wedding preparations.

Our wedding went off without a hitch and we had a wonderful week in the Ozark mountains. When we were up at our cabin the Arkansas woods, we both felt like years of university stress and months of wedding strain were lifted off our shoulders. It was by far the most blissful period of our lives.

But then we got home.

Joshua and I had been together for 3 years and 7 months when we got married. We were best friends (and don’t worry, we still are!). We could spend every minute of every day together and never get bored of each other. We never cohabitated, but we spent plenty of time at each other’s residences while we dated through college.

We thought we knew how the other lived and that we wouldn’t find too many surprises. We had also, at the recommendation of our chaplain, conquered 10 weeks of premarital counseling in addition to completing The Marriage Group’s Pre-Cana course during engagement. To be honest, we realized marriage would be different on an intellectual and emotional level, but we apparently hadn’t fully grasped what marriage – our marriage – would look like on a practical level.

Now that we are a year into this, here are the 6 most important tips for newlyweds adjusting to the first weeks and months of marriage.

1. Allow Yourself to have High Standards

Anyone who has lived with a roommate at any time in their life most likely may have suffered from not communicating their needs. I know I did all through college. I’m a very tidy person. I like the blankets folded and the pillows in place and the floor clear and the dishes washed and the trash emptied regularly. I never had a roommate who I was 100% happy with regarding their living habits. But, instead of just communicating my needs early on, I let my frustrations fester and build for months or even the entire school year. Why? Because this roommate was temporary. The dorm wasn’t my home.

Your spouse is not temporary, and your residence is your home.

When Joshua and I moved in together post-honeymoon, we immediately told each other when we weren’t happy with a particular living habit.

I had a certain way I liked the dishwasher loaded and organized. I told him, and he did it!
He wanted me to communicate with him if I was going to be gone when he got home from work, and I did it!

It’s not like we had never washed dishes together or updated each other about our plans when we were dating. It’s that the little things mattered more as soon as we were married and living together in our home, not just dating or in a place we were staying for a year.

So, allow yourself and your spouse to have high expectations, and communicate about them. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about. Don’t force yourself to settle for living less than you want to and silently build up frustration that will eventually boil over.

2. Learn How to Resolve Conflict

You know how people say, “Don’t go to bed angry”? The idea behind it is to always resolve your conflict before the day ends.

From our experience, Joshua and I would disagree. What we learned in pre-marital counseling and what we find works in our marriage is building positivity within our conflicts. As St. Paul says in Ephesians 4:26, “Do not let the sun set on your anger” (not your conflict).

This looks like being affectionate even and especially while you argue: holding hands while you talk or intermittently hugging and kissing when you feel the conversation making progress. This looks like setting boundaries with your spouse during heated arguments: letting them know if they’ve said something that hurt you, or that you need to take a break and calm down.

Above all, this still looks like conflict, yes, but also with the assurance that you and your spouse are both of good will toward the other.

You are not enemies or opponents. You are not trying to be right or make your spouse wrong. You are expressing your needs and desires and emotions. You are safe to give that to, and receive it from, your spouse.

If you need sleep and let the conversation rest for a bit, get to a place where you feel safe with your spouse and then cuddle up for the night. Don’t make your mission: do not go to bed angry. Make your mission: go to bed secure.

3. Accept Influence from your Spouse

While having high standards and communicating them to your partner, also allow yourself to adjust for your partner. When I first told Joshua I wanted the dishwasher loaded a certain way, I was so particular that I wanted him to load the forks on the right, the spoons in the middle, and the knives on the left. He tried to remember my particular order but struggled. The end result was he always loads the silverware into individual pockets (he keeps the forks together and the spoons together, etc.) but not necessarily from right to left. And guess what — I don’t care! I just wanted the dishwasher to be organized and slightly easier to unload.

Psychology researchers have actually seen, from observing married couples, a direct correlation between accepting influence from your spouse and marital happiness.

If spouses are stubborn and refuse to hear their partner’s needs or desires and are unwilling to change up their own schedules or habits to accommodate the person they have vowed to spend the rest of their life with, it leads to nothing but trouble down the road.

If you’re the type of man to stay up until 3 AM playing video games and your wife would prefer you come to bed with her by midnight, you may want to consider rearranging your hobbies.
If you’re the type of woman to watch reality dating shows with your girlfriends when they air on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights and your husband would like you to pick just one of those three nights to continue your routine with, you may want to consider setting up some boundaries with your friends.

These things change when you get married, and that’s okay.

4. Make a Bill Calendar

Review the section on Finances from your Pre-Cana course if you need to — because finances are a top source of stress for newlyweds. Every couple needs to work out the particulars of their spending expectations, habits, bank account and tax preferences, and any other details related to money on an individual and household level.

Joshua and I are a year into marriage and have our first kiddo, and we’ve had more than one conversation lately about how we want to handle finances and bills. We certainly don’t regret opening a joint account and completely sharing our money, but not everyone likes that idea. We don’t put “spending limits” on each other, but some people prefer to have that structure. It’s okay to not have all the answers right when you get married!

But, if there is one piece of advice I think is safe to give across the board, it’s make a bill calendar. We have a full-month calendar in our kitchen with all our monthly bills: what they are, how much they cost, when they’re due, and how they need to be paid (auto or manual).

The reason I encourage this is because (1) it’s an easy way to organize your bills and not lose track of anything, and (2) it allows you and your spouse to have healthy communication regarding our finances every single month.

We sit down together every month, go through the bills, and put them on the calendar. We maintain open communication about our money. We both have full access to our joint account. Neither of us are ever blind-sided by where our money is going.

Every couple needs to evaluate their needs on an individual level, and every couple also needs to keep open and honest communication regarding their household finances.

5. Adjusting to Sex and NFP is Difficult and Awkward — and that’s Okay!

Speaking of communicating with our spouse every month, let’s talk about Natural Family Planning for a minute. To go from abstinence to full intimacy is a physical adjustment. To go from sex being a mortal sin to a beautiful and holy unity can be a mental struggle. And, let’s face it, NFP can be a little scary.

All of a sudden you are engaging with your partner in a completely new way AND you could unexpectedly have a kid on the way? Whew.

Practicing Natural Family Planning and saying no to contraception means putting a lot of trust in God and in your spouse. It requires regular communication about your desires and needs for having children and for intimacy. Adjusting to having sex also takes a lot of vulnerability and honesty about your needs and desires, too.

Also, adding sex into the equation changes your relationship.

Physically and hormonally bonding yourself to your spouse changes how you relate to each other in every other way (a good reason that abstinence before marriage makes sense).

This will be expanded on in future content, but for now, know that it’s okay to struggle, to be scared even, and to need some time to make these adjustments. The good news is that frequent communication about this topic will help mitigate a lot of the awkwardness.

6. Give Yourself — and your Spouse — A Whole Lotta Grace

Finally, marriage is hard!

Yes, you are still with the same person you’ve been with for X amount of time. But no, you are not in the same relationship. Marriage isn’t just dating but living together. Marriage is a full-on blending of not only your lives, but yourselves.

Marital intimacy binds people together in ways that change the relationship entirely: psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

It’s not going to be a seamless transition. You and your spouse will struggle individually and as a team with any number of challenges. Don’t worry — we will cover a lot of those topics as tome goes on. We’re right here with you as you navigate through these uncharted waters.

You have a new, wonderful, lifelong vocation and commitment to someone you clearly love. Embrace everything: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. You’ve got your whole life together. Let us help you start figuring out how to live it fully.

Marriage is hard, yes, but it is also rewarding.

Learn more HERE.

July 28, 2022/by The Marriage Group Team

Keeping Engaged Couples Catholic

Clergy

Read Time: 2 minutes

Here you go again. You’re working with a couple who hasn’t darkened the door of a church in years. You guide them through the marriage prep process, preside at their Catholic wedding, then watch as they carry on with their life journey leaving faith by the side of the road.

You see it over and over, and honestly, it can make you feel a little jaded about marriage prep.

The couple has so much on their mind already: wedding decorations, catering, invitations, honeymoon travel arrangements, etc. If their faith isn’t already really important to them, it’s going to get crowded out pretty fast.

As you prepare an engaged couple for marriage, what can you do to keep their Catholic faith alive?

Teach them how to pray.

Sure, they may know the standard Catholic prayers by heart, like the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary.” But do they know how to pray together, as a couple?

So many people have never really been taught how to pray. That means they’re missing the very foundation for their faith lives. But as a clergy or ministry leader, you can provide that foundation for them.

When a couple prays together, their spiritual lives change. They start to develop a relationship with Christ. And when that happens, their love will mature. They’ll ask deeper questions. And all those things you wish would stick in their heads about faith and marriage? They’ll desire to know it for themselves.

That’s not an overnight process, though. It can start here in marriage prep, but like all good things, learning to pray and growing in faith take time.

So start small. Encourage your couples to start praying together. Better yet, don’t just tell them, show them how.

Yes, praying as a couple can feel awkward at first. That’s okay. (And you can tell them that.) It’s like planting seeds. If they stick with it, those seeds of faith will bloom in their married life with the help of God’s grace.

When you remember that, you’ll find joy and purpose coming back into your marriage prep.

Here are some resources to help you teach couples how to pray.

Joined by Grace: A Catholic Prayer Book for Engaged and Newly Married Couples

A simple, practical guide on ways to pray as a couple. It’s full of texts to pray with and background info on devotions your couples can start working into their life together.

The Rosary

The idea of praying the Rosary every day intimidates most people, so invite couples to try praying just one decade a day with a pocket rosary. That alone can make a powerful impact on their faith.

Novena for engaged couples

Praying a novena together for nine days in a row builds up habits of prayer the easy way, because it takes just a few minutes to do each day. This “Novena for a Happy and Faithful Marriage” was compiled from St. Josemaria Escriva’s writings on marriage in today’s world.

July 12, 2022/by The Marriage Group Team

When Your Partner is Grieving

Couples

Read Time: 5 minutes

Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow Together

If you’re together for any length of time, walking through a season of grief with your partner is inevitable. Depending on the nature of your partner’s relationship with the deceased, the season could involve weeks, months, or years of working through the loss. In some ways, we are forever altered when someone we love dies, and time simply changes the way we grieve instead of eliminating it altogether.

Comfort vs. Correction

Every person expresses grief uniquely, and, unless you’re a psychologist or professional counselor, it’s difficult to gauge just what to do or say when your spouse is grieving. Thankfully, it’s more important for the person who is grieving to be able to express themselves verbally than it is for you to offer advice.

A helpful theory when considering what to say to your grieving spouse is the Ring Theory. It positions the person who is experiencing the loss at the center of concentric circles and demonstrates the idea that the grieving person gets to express themselves freely (or “dump out”) to everyone they are in a relationship with.

The circles grow larger as they move out from the person who experienced the loss, and represent how close a person is to the griever. The theory suggests that people recognize which circle they belong in and encourages them to direct their attention to comforting those in the circle just inside theirs.

For example, the circle just outside the griever is their immediate family, and the outermost circle is the general public.

As the person closest to your grieving spouse, you have a wonderful yet difficult opportunity to be a safe place for their broken heart. They should be able to express themselves freely with you, unloading all of their pain, fear, and shattered dreams. This difficult season can deepen your relationship, strengthen your faith, and expand your ability to be intimate and vulnerable with one another.

However, according to the Ring Theory, things could go in a different direction if you begin to offer advice, correction, or criticism to your partner for the way they grieve or process their feelings.

If you begin “dumping” on them instead of listening, you force them into a caretaking role.

It’s also unfair and even cruel to criticize someone for the way they grieve, the feelings they are expressing, and their level of despair. Even if you don’t understand why your partner is (or is not) so sad; cries so much (or too little), or isn’t handling grief the way you do, they are not the person to share those concerns with. Finding your own outlet with a trusted friend or counselor will free you up to stick to comforting your spouse which is really what they need most from you.

Peace vs. Perfection

When my husband and I had been married for 10 years, I experienced the loss of my father to suicide. The moments and days that immediately followed my father’s death are a blur to me. We had five children aged 5 – 15 years-old, and our family’s grief was crushing.

It’s been 15 years since my dad died, and I have reflected many times on the ways my husband has cared for and comforted me in my ever-changing grieving process.

I’m not sure either of us could recount how many times he has held me while I cried, listened to me process my feelings, or seen a shadow fall over me when something triggers a memory.

My grief has been messy, imperfect, and confusing.

It has caused angry outbursts, crippling anxiety, and disconnected numbness. It has made me cling to my husband at times and coldly push him away at others.

Thankfully, he is a devoted partner who has been willing to walk alongside me in my search for peace. He’s given me the freedom and space to explore my grief at the graveside, the counseling office, and in solitude while also being steadfast in his commitment to being with me when I need him.

It was only in the last few years that my husband finally communicated to me how my dad’s death affected him, how he lost someone he loved and respected too. I was stunned that I never considered that my husband lost a father-in-law, his children’s grandpa, a buddy…a friend.

My grief had consumed my ability to see his pain, and he never demanded that I stop being so selfish and comfort him.

Sacrifice vs. Satisfaction

The example my husband demonstrates in the way he has cared for me in my grief prioritized my needs over his. I don’t know that he made an active choice to follow the example of Christ, but he did every time he sacrificed himself to care for me. He sacrificed his need to be validated, his need to be comforted, his need to express his opinions and feelings so that he could comfort me.

Instead of demanding that I satisfy his needs when I was so broken, he chose to take them to God in prayer and left them largely unsatisfied in the human realm until he was able to find healthy places to work them out.

As I reflect on the sacrifices my husband has made for me, I feel incredibly loved and protected. As I mentioned, grief is messy and imperfect, but as we have moved through it, our marriage has been strengthened and refined by our commitment to each other despite our pain.

That messy imperfection created something beautiful in our relationship, something that has nourished and sustained us through many other marital challenges.

Hope vs. Certainty

In the last 25 years of our marriage, we have been to many funerals, and we will likely experience many more. It never gets easier to grieve or to love someone who is grieving. Grief is scary and unpredictable. When you love someone, it’s terrifying to consider all you have to lose and how life can change courses in the blink of an eye.

However, it helps to understand that comforting someone in their grief is an act of sacrificial love, most clearly demonstrated by the love of Jesus Christ. We can trust that if we prioritize the needs of our grieving spouse, God will be faithful in meeting our needs. He promises that in the most popular scripture read at funerals:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me.

Psalms 23:4

We walk through the valley whenever we confront death in this life, and it is a tremendous blessing to have a spouse that will walk alongside you when you’re grieving. We should all aim to be a partner who understands the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, one who can earnestly pray the words of St. Francis who said, “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.”

Growing in our understanding of this kind of love can draw us closer to God and our grieving partners. It will never be easy to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but there is beautiful comfort in walking it with someone we love.

Learn more HERE.

July 11, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand

The Prayer of St. Francis for Couples

Couples

Read Time: 7 minutes

When looking for advice on handling marital conflict, sometimes the answer is in the simplest place. It may be a single line of scripture,

[And] be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. – Ephesians 4:32

…or a question from your 4-year-old, “Mommy, why are you being mean to Daddy?”

Rarely are the everyday conflicts in relationships too complicated for a few simple principles that have been laid out in God’s word or in the prayers of the Church. Trouble comes when we don’t resolve these issues and instead pile them up and allow them to become resentments that fester for years.

The Prayer of St. Francis

One of the most beautiful prayers of the Church is the Prayer of St. Francis.

It’s a call to think outwardly about one’s effect on the world and a plea for God’s strength to put the needs of others above our own. St. Francis’s prayer can be applied to every interpersonal relationship we have along with one’s role as a neighbor, Church member, and global citizen. It is especially poignant for married couples.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…

When your marriage reaches a place of conflict, and it will, you will have to consciously decide whether you are going to ignore it or resolve it. The Prayer of St. Francis suggests that God can actually use you as a tool, an instrument, to repair it. Like a hammer on a shelf or a piano alone in the corner of a room, an instrument must receive action from outside itself in order to fulfill its purpose. That St. Francis chose to ask God to make him an instrument is significant, and its implication for us during times of conflict can bring a sigh of relief.

The first line of the prayer positions God in the action seat and the one praying as the implement of His will. If we are the instrument, then He is the one who does the hard work; we simply yield to His will. This takes the pressure off us to fix the problem by ourselves, and it reminds us that we have a Helper who will guide us toward His will for our relationships.

What is His will?

It’s described in detail in the following lines:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Is it really that bad?

If you’re not currently experiencing marital or relational conflict, it may seem extreme to apply the words hatred, despair, and darkness to your relationship, but all those who have walked in a marriage for some time know how quickly emotions can shift and a loving relationship can get messy.

This section of the prayer can help us when we’re not feeling loving, when we’re not experiencing the giddy, warm, and lighthearted joy of our relationship with our partners. It reminds us that we need to sow, or actively work at, love…even when we don’t feel it.

It also helps us examine what the root of the conflict may be. Are we hurt by our partner? Are we having a hard time trusting them? Are we anxious about the relationship? Do we feel depressed, or are we discontent with our circumstances? All of these questions are variations of injury, doubt, despair, darkness, and sadness, and all of them can be healed with forgiveness, faith, hope, light, and joy.

How do we do that?

Conflict resolution in relationships isn’t one-sided, and it takes action from both parties to move forward in a healthy relationship. It’s possible to cultivate this together and make it part of your relationship’s culture. It’s also incredibly likely that you will eventually face something that causes a conflict beyond your ability to resolve without outside help from a mentor, counselor, or clergy member. That’s simply a reality of life and not a sign that your relationship isn’t strong or good.

Working through conflict on a regular basis will help you identify the times when you do need outside help. You’ll develop a pattern of resolving issues when they arise, and you’ll build an understanding of yourselves as a couple along with your strengths and weaknesses in this area.

Forgiving one another, having faith in each other, being hopeful that you can get through things, shedding light on your problems instead of hiding them, and choosing joy are all active measures that St. Francis’s prayer indicates that God can help us apply to our conflicts. Meditating on each line of this prayer when we’re in conflict will position us to receive God’s grace in these areas.

How does God do that?

The ways God moves and changes us when we pray are still a mystery, but the next section of St. Francis’s prayer sheds some light on how He works in us:

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

There is an aspect of all humans that is totally focused on themselves as the primary and most significant part of every story. In conflicts, we will automatically see our own perspective as most important, our own hurt as the most significant. We will demand that others validate our perceptions and apologize in a way that connects with our sense of justice.

However, this section of the Prayer of St. Francis flips the script on our need to be seen and heard. It asks us to consider others as more in need than ourselves, as more deserving of consolation, understanding, and love, and it tells us that if we give to them first, and pardon them for their sins against us (which may actually feel like a part of our selfish nature is dying), that we will experience new life. All it requires is that we initiate the process and allow God to help us fulfill it.

Before we begin to bristle at the lack of fairness this may imply (I mean, why do we have to act first, and how do we know our partner is going to reciprocate?), we need to remember that as human beings we are both the offender and the offended, the one who injures and the one who is hurt. We are the one who misunderstands others, and we are the one who feels misunderstood. We are in conflict because we cause conflict. We are not innocent.

Missing this important aspect of your effect on the world around you will keep you isolated from others in a way that is detrimental to all of your relationships, especially in your marriage. If you cannot see your own need for grace and forgiveness, you will never be able to offer those gifts to others with any amount of authenticity. Knowing your own faults, and understanding God’s grace for you, will inspire you to pray for His grace for others.

What if it doesn’t work?

When you’ve reached a point while praying this prayer that you feel God has moved you to a place of peace, it’s natural to assume your partner will join in and everything will wonderfully resolve. Unfortunately, conflict resolution is hard work, and every conflict is different. You may solve a huge problem quickly in one month while a smaller one grates on your happiness for weeks. Just keep moving forward and persevere. Get outside help if you need it, but take heart, conflict and working through things on a regular basis is part of a healthy relationship.

Carrying the spiritual practices you have during hard times, such as praying the Prayer of St. Francis, into times of peace can preemptively ward off future conflicts. The Prayer of St. Francis keeps our humanity in the forefront, reminding us of our tendency to see ourselves first and foremost in every situation, and it shows us that we need God’s action in our lives to make us people of grace and peace.

Becoming an instrument of God’s peace in the world is a lifelong process, and it’s a worthy pursuit if we truly value the people He has put in our lives. Allowing Him to change us makes us better spouses, parents, friends, and neighbors, and it’s through those relationships that He will spread His love throughout the world.

Are we hurt by our partner? Are we having a hard time trusting them? Are we anxious about the relationship? Do we feel depressed, or are we discontent with our circumstances?

Let us pray…

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

A Prayer for Married Couples

Inspired by the Prayer of St. Francis
By Jessie Wiegand

Lord, help me embody your peace in my marriage;
When I feel numb, warm my heart to my partner.
When I feel wronged, help me reach out with forgiveness.
When anxiety consumes me, give me courage to face reality.
When I’m afraid we’ll never make it, show me that we can persevere.
When I am depressed, open my eyes to your truth.
When I am discontent, assure me that we have all we need.

King of the Universe,
Make my arms a refuge to my partner’s brokenness;
My ears, a haven to their worries and cares,
And my heart, a sanctuary for their hopes and dreams.

Remind me and assure me that
When I act first, You provide safety;
When I reach out, You extend grace.
And it’s when I fully surrender myself that You make me One with my partner.
Amen.

Learn more HERE.

July 11, 2022/by Jessie Wiegand