I have to confess that I do not like marriage counseling at all, not one bit. I suppose I can get away with a slight qualification, to make my confession somewhat more savory. I could say that while I do not like the counseling, I love the counselees. But everyone says this, and it is practically meaningless.
I do not like, of course, the custom of mutual complaint. It is sad (and trying) to witness romantically glued-together couples, for whom everything was faerie and Wagner (well, Coldplay), descend into boorish throes and woes. Now, the things that heretofore were endearing have moved quickly through forbearance into articles of contempt: socks on the floor are now sparks in tinder, and the once-charming scattermindedness of a young bride is now the subject of beer-sotted fraternal denunciation.
It is sad, too, to hear the conversation of charge and counter-charge. It is rare that this dialogue ever ventures above adolescence, above the dull conventions of "He did this" and "She did this first." I think when I listen to these prurient ravings – these contretemps which are amplified into melodrama – I am actually hearing artifacts from movies and television. I think I am hearing not real and actual selves, but scripted ghosts of selves. It is as though the combatants were only faintly aware of feelings, and sought thus hither and thither in their short-term memory for some good line to articulate these feelings: but what is accessed and brought to the fore is simply that which is regarded the most, considered the most, and interiorized (even cathected) the most.
This is what I think happens with dreams during sleep: the particular blue note struck here is that couples who present themselves for marriage counseling are usually sleepwalking, and they play out their fights in TV dreams.
In marriage counseling, at the first impression, I am working with incorporeal fragments of melodrama: clichés, posturings and images, intergenerational trends which would be comically stupid were they not so stupidly tragic. I am hearing echoes of a remarkable failure of men to embrace the charisms of their gender, and of women to follow the example of the Theotokos. I am hearing grown up children who have themselves never seen a home embrace prayer and a culture of joy. They have not seen peace and a domestic order that was both humane and divine.
They have seen, rather, the person-hood of their own parents wilt in the serfdom of materialism: for what else can we call the worshipful obedience to the commands of the advertisement? What else can we call the almost unconscious lurch into unprecedented indebtedness?
Serfs, history tells us, will get drunk to synthesize some plastic mask of happiness: and thus, these young husbands and wives have learned this lesson too. Not just with alcohol or other chemicals, but more usually with the constant standby mental switch to laziness of thought, a passivity and uncritical acceptance of brainwashing from the bozart gods: McLuhan called this a "cold" medium – which required little to no interaction. Freud rightly called this the "sub-conscious." The Church calls this "forgetfulness of God," "reverie," especially "neptic neglect."
I like the latter term most. "Nepsis" is the watchfulness of every thought. It is a constant discernment and critical judgment on whether that thought should be permitted entrance into the deeper strata of the psyche.
Most young husbands and wives (or older cold warriors) have simply left the back door wide open, and the front, and all the windows to boot. I think that some, for good measure, would take off the roof of their mental housing so they could have "convertible souls" – which would be the ultimate in the way of being "open-minded."
So this is how those scripts, those idiotic oneliners from Raymond and Roseanne, from Archie and "Married with Children," from Homer (Simpson) and Scarlett O'Hara, crept into the brains of my heartbreakers. These are all logismoi – quite demonic insinuations – and they are effective in pressing the buttons, gassing up the engines, and letting passions fly.
My young heartbreakers must not know real happiness, else they would quickly grow tired of their plastic jejune attempts to make themselves that way. Their attempts, sadly, are no longer mutual: they have lapsed into their pre-romantic individualized habits of their parents and peers.
It turns out, more often than not, that they were not taught at home, growing up, over Sunday dinner, the noble stories, the beautiful myths that had the winsome virtue of psychic ordinance – the interiorization of the Sacred Order. They did not see the mother fill the room with light and grace, sustenance and healing, commanding love by the sheer presence of her quiet love and forgiveness. They did not see the father talk deep on memory and stand on ceremony.They did not see the father command himself before he ever thought to lead his wife and children.
(For that is what "headship" means: all command is predicated on self-command ... all external order is based on and structured by internal order. That is the simple, ridiculously simple, and sole reason why only an insufferable dolt insists that women and children "submit" to him: the very act of stating thus is itself an transgressive rejection of self-command.)
These adult children saw instead a full embrace of sixties mod art and polyester, smorgasbord and shiny aluminum swanson Salisbury (that had nothing, in the end, to do with steak or England). They saw the father belittled and the mother belabored. They saw the cultural divinization of childishness at the expense of the domestic life-or-death nurturance of childhood.
And now I have husbands who do not know manhood enough to be husband or father … wives who do not know womanhood enough to be wife or mother. I have heartbreakers who are stuffed with the scripts of transgressive ego, but they are not filled with words or English: language, after all, communicates – but psychic "tapes" do not act as language at all. They are, simply, soliloquies. They are puerile challenges to the abyss, and the echoes are taken – insipidly – as confirmations of their self-established myth.
Certainly, I urge them to talk simply and fairly. I know that the arrangements of our sessions – my cranky office with icons and nautical paraphernalia (i.e., O'Brian stuff), and the very fact that I'm sitting there in clerical garb – is enough to keep them from complete barbarism. I direct them to talk with each other, instead of engage in two simultaneous denunciations of the other in the third person, and I am thought to be the Judge and Arbiter. I review the melancholic realities of separation and divorce: i.e., "separation usually leads to divorce, since it invariably reinforces your attitudes about your marriage"; and "divorce is always bad, socioeconomically, for the mother and the children." I sometimes throw in, if I'm particularly peevish, the fact that a divorce with children in just a few years will only keep putting bread and bacon on the table for child therapists like I used to be. I tell them to never yell in front of the children, that they should walk away into their own sanctuaries, like their bedroom, or taking a walk outside. I don't tell them that I used to give this very advice to my ADHD clientele in the elementary grades, and that these infant clients were fairly adept at self-monitoring and the practice of self-soothing techniques and frustration/anger coping skills. I don't tell my heartbreaking marriage clients this fact because usually – and I must say this out loud or I will burst – my child clients were a lot better at taking counsel and practicing new behaviors than my adults ever were (or are).
So, in all this, as I am beating off the red-eyed wolf and the raving lion with my staff and smooth stones, I plead with my cold warriors to forgive as Jesus did. I paint the icon, psychically, of the extremity of the Cross, in the middle of the anger-spouting faces. And I try to plant, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" in the middle of their lips. I know that that God has condemned (or rather, elected) them both to the eternal yoke of this marriage: and that this cold marital season, this very winter of their discontent, is meant for the chastening of their will, and for the redemption of soul and body. I know this, and I remind them of the fears and joys of forever.
If I were a secular therapist, an priest-adept of the posthuman religion, I'd suggest all sorts of things. Such measures would be so popular that I could put up a shingle and charge a lot of money (which I don't at all). These measures would get compliance, certainly. I'd suggest rage therapy, separate mini-vacations, trial separations, masturbation, fantasizing about other partners during intercourse, free association, the swinging of rubber foam sticks "to get the aggression out," puppet theater, psychopharmacology of some sort, the reading of astrology, the reading of Mars and Venus and electric women, the science of sexuality and genitalia.
And if all else failed (which these measures do, in spades), then I'd relent, and the three of us would sigh finally in relief because we really tried hard, and I'd finally say (and give permission): "Well, you might as well divorce."
No. Instead of those money-making measures (and you can write a best-selling book about any self-soothing therapy), I have more in mind that just won't go away. I have this little thing called eternity, and for that, marriage requires not foam sticks, modern sex or fantasy. It requires fasting, for one thing. It requires quiet (turn off the matrix noise). It requires the Eucharist and the washing of feet, practiced every day in nuptial self-sacrifice. It requires giving up and surrendering in verbal arguments: even and especially husbands should say, simply, "You're right," pick up his socks and muddy boots, and let her have the last word.
I think that all verbal arguments should be ended with surrender. Let them win. For all your victories have been pyrrhic, no?
Marriage requires nepsis. It requires grace and dogma. It calls for kenosis, self-pouring-out like Christ did when He became like a slave on the Cross.
Marriage requires a tradition of beauty and peace – and for too, too many of our young couples, they have no domestic experience of this. In marriage counseling, we are really calling them to a place they've never been.
And that, friends, is why I don't like marriage counseling. It calls for kenosis, Cross and forever. Husbands and wives cannot completely run away from this note, struck so deeply at the nuptial sacrament, and they know what needs to be done, in their heart. My heartbreakers are rightly afraid of it.
And, I fear, they are not afraid of it enough.
Thanks for this. And if you ever find something to say that works... please please let us know!
Not a counsellor, but an observer of friends, siblings and others who have trod the road to divorce and mostly beyond, I'd love to tell folks, "You know, when you divorce... it is never really the end. You won't be "done" with each other." 'Cause I've never actually seen this... heard of it once or twice... but only in divorces where one wants the other to think he/she has "won" so that they may in turn "win" what they want... which is often access to the children. Divorce is... or SHOULD be heartache forever. Sadly, it seems in some cases you don't have heartache because they never actually joined their hearts in the first place. Some didn't even try to.
Listening directly or here through another, one is thankful to not be there. And it is here... not understanding what one might have done right... because I think that's the truth... that I at least begin to understand marriage as the mystery that it is.
Posted by: James the Thickheaded | May 18, 2009 at 10:57 AM
"Not understanding what one might have done right ..." -- that is indeed the nature of goodness, and really all participation in Love.
Actually, loving is what works. It is the pseudo-language of negotiation and "power-distribution" that does not work.
Kenosis works, and ascesis and Grace work.
I like your point that divorce should be heartache forever. It is, and those whose hearts don't ache are unaware that it aches, or maybe that it exists.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 18, 2009 at 09:14 PM
As a former marriage counselor and divorced, it is an ache that lasts forever if one has eyes to see and ears to hear. I went through 7 years of "therapies" before our counselor did exactly that: "Well, we tried everything ...it is a healthy thing for you to be divorced". It cost me about 25,000.00 to hear what I wanted to hear in the first session.
I don't do counselling any more. God bless you for trying.
Posted by: anon | May 19, 2009 at 12:40 AM
Christ Is Risen!
There probably aren't many homilies on marriage better than this one: http://www.roca.org/OA/121/121b.htm
Indeed He Is Risen!
Posted by: EddieB | May 19, 2009 at 08:20 AM
Thank you, Eddie. That link leads to St. John Chrysostom's justly famous homily on marriage.
I'd like to quote the part that we would call, in modern homiletics, the "sermon application":
"I am aware that many people think me ridiculous for giving such advice; but if you listen to me, you will understand the advantages of a sober lifestyle more and more as time goes on. You will no longer laugh at me, but will laugh instead at the way people live now like silly children or drunken men. What is our duty, then? Remove from your lives shameful, immodest, and Satanic music, and don't associate with people who enjoy such profligate entertainment. When your bride sees your manner of life, she will say to herself, "Wonderful! What a wise man my husband is! He regards this passing life as nothing; he bas married me to be a good mother for his children and a prudent manager of his household." Will this sort of life be distasteful for a young bride? Only perhaps for the shortest time, and soon she will discover how delightful it is to live this way. She will retain her modesty if you retain yours. Don't engage in idle conversations; it never profits anyone to talk too much. Whenever you give your wife advice, always begin by telling her how much you love her. Nothing will persuade her so well to admit the wisdom of your words as her assurance that you are speaking to her with sincere affection. Tell her that you are convinced that money is not important, that only thieves thirst for it constantly, that you love her more than gold; and indeed an intelligent, discreet and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Show her that you value her company, and prefer being at home to being out. Esteem her in the presence of your friends and children. Pray together at home and go to Church; when you come back home, let each ask the other the meaning of the readings and the prayers. If you are overtaken by poverty, remember Peter and Paul, who were more honored than kings or rich men, though they spent their lives in hunger and thirst. Remind one another that nothing in life is to be feared, except offending God. If your marriage is like this, your perfection will rival the holiest of monks."
"Your perfection will rival the holiest of monks."
Can't beat that.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 19, 2009 at 08:26 AM
How's your batting average on pre-marital counseling? Is your average appreciably different than the national 50/50 randomness? How do you think the RCC's pre-marital program measures up? What are your thoughts about pre-marital programs in general?
Posted by: Visibilium | May 23, 2009 at 07:10 PM
I'm not sure, V., how to evaluate. So far, none of the couples I've married as an Orthodox clergyman have divorced, although several have come in for marital counseling. One of those sessions provided the sand in the oyster that provoked the post: I'm not at all sure whether a pearl ensued.
I usually do 3 sessions of pre-marital counseling. I can say with confidence that a couple will have a greater chance of succeeding if the following conditions are met:
1) no pre-marital co-habitation.
2) emotional self-control (in Eastern terms, we'd call this "apatheia")
3) an ability to think, and a desire to learn old wisdom (eg., theology, philosophy, artifacts from Christendom)
4) prayer in Church and in private
5) faith
Note the absence of Wagnerian romance. Note the absence of schlock from La Boheme.
I think pre-marital counseling or programs are not nearly as meaningful as Christian maturity, and an erotic sacramental nuptial union that blooms out of friendship. I find the usual pre-marital sort of negotiation utterly fruitless and even harmful.
Frankly, a married couple that can't keep their hands off each other but comes to Vespers and attends the Great Fast is a couple that will successfully beat off Asmodeus.
I have no idea how the Cana program of the RC's stack up in terms of outcome. I'm sure that Rome has her college of statisticians who can tell you.
Hope this helps. As you can tell, I'm not in a sanguine mood about this sort of pastoral work, but I'll do it anyhow.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 23, 2009 at 09:02 PM
Fr. Jonathan,
(1) Romantic love involves a open-ended search for personal happiness whereas Christian marriage traditionally champions the resolute devotion to another and indifference to reciprocation for the sake of some spiritual ideal. In short, we marry based on and for reasons that essentially contradict the supposed goal of marriage. Would you agree?
(2) What degree of emotional-spiritual bonding is appropriate before marriage? Is the purpose of forbidding cohabitation and physical intimacy to prevent such a bond from coming into being, that was my understanding.
Posted by: Cudgel | May 25, 2009 at 05:30 PM
Dear Cudgel,
Your first question seems to assume a sharp divorce (pardon the pun) of Christian marriage from romance. You define romantic love as an "open ended search for personal happiness." I'm not sure this is fair to the idea of romance. I think that eros is certainly part of Christian marriage, but only with the proviso that it is subjected and given meaning by self-sacrifice and the Holy Spirit.
I obviously like the idea of "resolute devotion," but I'm not so sure about "indifference to reciprocation." For one thing, such indifference is impossible, simply because marital love must involve reciprocation, as it is necessarily an act that images Trinitarian co-inherence.
If the supposed goal of marriage is a parallel search for selfish happiness (which itself is oxymoronic), then yes, I agree that Christian marriage is antipodal with the usual and idiotic Las Vegas style marriage.
Now, for your second question. I don't know how my terse list of five preconditions led you to think that "forbidding cohabition and physical intimacy" is meant to present "such a bond from coming into being."
Cohabitation is ruinous to marriage. Not necessarily, as happily there are some marriages that have survived this disadvantage. But cohabitation and fornication always corrode and corrupt the future nuptial union. It is the height of boorish priapism to contend that cohabitation is rehearsal for keeping house in marriage later on, or to fantasize that coitus before the sacrament is practice for matrimonial intercourse. Even in the decrepit plastic WalMart desert of sociology, you can summon not one real statistic that shows any reliable positive link between pre-marital sex or cohabitation and successful marriage.
What degree is emotional-spiritual bonding is appropriate before marriage? I do not know what emotional bonding is, and spiritual bonding sounds deeply mysterious. If you mean intimacy, then I don't know where inappropriateness begins, but I can say that it certainly precludes intercourse and orgasm outside of heterosexual marriage.
What you mean by emotional and spiritual intimacy I presume is better left to the state of betrothal -- that time between the establishment of an exclusive relationship where conversational and emotional intimacy must be kindled. This establishes the erotic friendship that will flower in intercourse, as a result of the nuptial union.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 25, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Fr. Jonathan,
Thanks for the quick response.
(1) To clarify one question I raised, I thought the goal of prohibiting sex and cohabitation before marriage was to prevent premarital eroticism, that is, a degree of psychophysical attachment that is considered bad in itself as a matter of principle, regardless of its possible consequences.
(2) As far as the research is concerned, I consider the jury to still be out on the question of premarital sex/cohabitation effects on marriage:
http://www.ncfr.org/pdf/press_releases/PRESS%20RELEAS2.pdf
http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12369&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_
Posted by: Cudgel | May 26, 2009 at 11:59 AM
Thanks, Cudgel, for the clarification.
The expectation for sex and marriage is clear. Sexual activity (and I will be arbitrary here and confine it to physiologically aroused activity, just for the argument) is meaningful and spiritually wholesome only in the framework of heterosexual marriage that is blessed by the church.
While I certainly agree with prohibiting sexual activity outside matrimony, to me that is a distorting converse of the Church's endorsement of eros (cf Council of Gangria; Canon of St. Andrew; Hebrews; Canticles; 1 Corinthians) in nuptial union. The endorsement may be a negative, as in the sense of accomodation. It may be positive, as in the sense of Evdokimov's Sacrament of Love and even Chrysostom.
Yes, such psychophysical attachment is certainly bad in itself outside of marriage. I'm starting to think -- contrary to the wistful hopefulness of the NCFR stats -- that even monogamous fornication before and leading up to marriage is injurious ... and so is premarital cohabitation, which seems to be passively endorsed by my entire generation for their children.
The studies you linked are interesting. I'll have to take some time to look at them carefully. I suspect there are holes.
Thanks for the information!
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 26, 2009 at 12:16 PM
Fr. Jonathan,
[Note: I hope my questions have not become annoying.]
My historical research and reading of Scripture forces me to conclude that the initiation or consummation of a marriage has no theologically obligatory form. It is therefore theologically valid to see marriage as creation of the two persons in the presence of witnesses, or of the parents, of of the State, or of the Church, but none of these forms are unrevisable in principle as they are no mandated by God.
The Church marries people with power it always possessed, but it did not become responsible for all marriages until Emperor Leo IV. The Church is free to redefine its relationship to marriage however it wants.
Posted by: Cudgel | May 27, 2009 at 01:15 PM
No, Cudgel, your questions are not annoying at all.
Because this is a large historical issue, I cannot do it justice. But in the Apostolic Church, marriage is inaugurated by the nuptial sacrament, and this sacrament (as are all sacraments) is rooted in Holy Tradition.
That is the reason why the Church is not free to redefine its relationship to marriage, simply because Tradition does not permit such arbitrary decisions.
I am a priest of the Orthodox Church, therefore I have no right to think of sacramental marriage apart from the only theologically valid form, which is the Orthodox sacrament of marriage. That is why I cannot commune anyone who is in an erotic relationship unless it is subsumed under the sacramental blessing of the Church.
In other words, no, I cannot agree that it is theologically valid to see marriage "as a creation of the two persons" -- that is more like the secular custom of "civil marriage," which is endorsed by a Justice of the Peace. Such a theory is closer to the Protestant "worthy estate" -- a formula that is deliberately anti-sacramental.
There are all sorts of relationships and all sorts of civil marriages, but no spouse or co-habitating "significant other" can be communed unless that relationship is sacramentally founded in the Orthodox Church.
Hope this helps.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 27, 2009 at 02:06 PM
Fr. John,
I suppose for me the central question is this: if the Church has the authority to tolerate multiple marriages/divorces despite what Christ said and the authority to introduce mandatory episcopal celibacy despite what St. Paul said, then how can I deny the Church's authority to change the form of marriage when no commandment concerning it exists?
Posted by: Cudgel | May 27, 2009 at 03:36 PM
([I accidentally wrote "John" instead of "Jonathan" because of a brainfreeze.]
Posted by: Cudgel | May 27, 2009 at 03:47 PM
Brainfreeze: I completely understand.
Well, to be honest, I take your point about multiple marriages/divorces. I am never comfortable about marrying a couple after a divorce. It is little comfort to note that in each of the particular divorces of which I was painfully aware, there was adultery involved.
But that does nothing to answer your point. This is an example of "economia," where the church has had to make pastoral accommodations for social realities, in order to sustain the communion of a home and its children.
"Mandatory episcopal celibacy" is something with which I am much more positive. The priesthood is one thing to allow for marriage, since it is so local, particular and concrete. But the episcopacy is much more akin to the apostolate: you should bear in mind that the episkopos St. Paul spoke of is much more like today's priestly office, rather than today's bishopric.
Today's bishopric is so attacked by demonic forces and miserable inanities that no wife or children should be subjected to the tumult. The level of merely defensive prayer is so demanding that no time for the family would be allowed.
The bishopric is a lightning rod for demonic and societal contempt. I would never want to see a wife and children shrivel in that torrid maelstrohm.
The Church has no authority to change Tradition, only the application of Tradition (hence its allowance for up to 3 divorces; its allowance for a permanent status of marriage before entrance into major holy orders; and its demand for episcopal celibacy).
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 27, 2009 at 04:01 PM
Fr. Jonathan,
I most certainly agree that the Church has no authority to change Tradition itself but merely its application. The essential content of the Orthodox doctrine on marriage I take to be summarized in the "Encyclical Letter of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America on Marriage:"
------------------------------
In the New Testament Scripture, from the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, we learn that marriage is a unique and unbreakable union of husband and wife joined by God Himself: "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6)
------------------------------
How this union is initiated and consumated and what role the Church/state play in those processes is not part of revelation and has thus undergone continuous change throughout Church history.
Posted by: Cudgel | May 27, 2009 at 04:28 PM
Am I right in thinking that you are of the opinion that marriage starts at sexual intercourse?
I can't go with you to the stark extent that the Church's role in "how the union is initiated and consummated" is not part of revelation. The Church's role in society -- whether in its relation with the state, secular citizens or her own members -- is always somehow part of revelation. Holy Tradition -- despite its stable form -- is always revelatory, as the Holy Spirit is always articulating the apostolic vision to the Apostolic Church.
I grant you that too often, the Church's activities in time distorts that very Tradition. If you want to say that a particular exercise of economia -- say, for example, the permission for remarriage after divorce -- constitutes a particular distortion, then you can do so. You'd be in agreement with quite a few, already.
But I don't think so in this instance.
Yes, it is God Who has joined husband and wife: but in the rubric of holy mystery, this joining corresponds with the ecclesial sacrament. The Church's discipline here tells me how marriage is to proceed and how it is to be transfigured into paradisical domesticity, for the poor, the foolish and the marginalized, as well as those in the Roman world who were rich enough to be married in the civil endorsement. The Church has every right to make these pronouncements and impingements on my privacy.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 27, 2009 at 04:54 PM
"Am I right in thinking that you are of the opinion that marriage starts at sexual intercourse?"
Ah, a trick question!? :-)
I believe that Mary and Joseph were married in God's eyes by virtue of their betrothal, and I believe that Christians today are united in marriage during the liturgical service and that prior to relations. I agree that God is the uniter of man and woman in every marriage, but I see this as completely compatible with marriage as a contract between the spouses:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi%202:13-16;&version=31;
I cannot see how else Jesus' original audience and earliest followers would have understood his remarks on marriage. My current viewpoint is the only means I presently have of explaining all of the relevant Scriptural, historical and liturgical evidence.
Posted by: Cudgel | May 27, 2009 at 05:33 PM
No. Joseph and Mary were not "married" in God's eyes, or in any other's. Mary conceived the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, so any other marriage -- including to Joseph -- would constitute adultery.
I know that sounds abrupt, simplistic, and nearly blasphemous. But if the Father is the Father of Jesus, the Son of God, then no one in the original audience and earliest followers would have ever dared to think that Joseph was married to Mary -- if they stipulated the Paternity of Jesus Christ.
I'm not sure where we stand here. What is your proposition? That marriage is independent of the Church's liturgical setting? Please clarify.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | May 28, 2009 at 08:31 AM