Just wanted to throw out "Teams of Our Lady" as one more wonderful movement in the Church whose mission is Married Spirituality. We've been with our Team for six years and were blessed to join our team when we had only been married for six months. Our team has five other couples we pray, study, and walk with - and all of them are father along into marriage than my husband and I. We have such great examples!
As a couple who have been involved in Teams of Our Lady since the 80’s, we have been supported by being in our prayerful, joyful, Teams community. We began with 7 couples during a N.Y. snowstorm in 1980 and have met monthly (sans summer months) since then. We have all gone through many ups and downs in our marriages, and always through prayer, love and laughter in our meetings have been carried through it all. We are now three couples and four widows - very different from the young vibrant couples who started out on the Teams journey together. Keep studying, walking, praying and enjoying one another and your Teams community.
God bless this beautiful movement in the Church worldwide, for aiding couples live out their matrimonial vows.
Thank you for sharing your witness! My husband and I are so thankful for our Team and have promised to bring the movement to other parishes if we ever have to move away from our Team.
Was the music at the end Kate and Casey’s music? It was beautiful. I completely understand the part where you talked about how it’s rare to have people supporting those struggling in their marriage. When I went through a really tough time in my marriage, I felt like many people I talked to kept encouraging me to divorce and make a plan to be able to leave, including those closest to me. I end up finding a good Catholic counselor and only talking to them and my priest because I wanted to stay married and I knew by talking to the other people I was not going to get the kind of support I needed. It was a hard realization to discover that I couldn’t talk to people I had always turned to in the past with problems. And you are right, even though my husband was “the problem” I was the one that had to change first. I always compare it to a math problem like 2+2 = 4 but suddenly I become a 3 the outcome has to be a 5it can’t be an 4 any longer. I always find it painful when people tell me they are giving up on their marriage and getting divorced. Even if they have a “good reason“ I always think to myself why are you giving up? I always think to myself that there are solutions. This was a good podcast. Thank you.
The Third Option (http://thethirdoption.com) is another good resource for married couples who are not communicating well or getting stuck in the same old (sometimes negative) ways of relating. My husband and I went through it a few years ago; there was always a short lesson on some topic related to marriage (expectations, etc), and then a couple who had previously gone through Third Option would talk, fairly candidly, about the issues they had dealt with in their marriage and how they worked them out. Some of the sessions/presentations were better than others, but it sparked a lot of good conversations between me and my husband about our families of origin and what we had each brought into the marriage. Honestly, I had agreed to go through the program because I wanted my husband to see how he could better meet my needs (hurts a little to say that), but I was very humbled and realized a lot about the unrealistic expectations I was putting on my husband and how I needed to grow as a wife.
The whole program helped provide a little of the community and accountability that you all talk about at the end of the episode; it was a great opportunity to hear from older couples and learn from them. I would love for our parish to have more opportunities for generations to mix and come together more often, but we seem to be separated by our season in life quite often.
I appreciate hearing well catechized couples that are older than us affirm how useless the Pre-Cana programs are. We got married in the PGH diocese, too, so you’re all familiar! One of the leaders in our ONE DAY, 8 HR long session (it takes longer to make bread on a cold day than receive Church-sanctioned advice and guidance on a lifelong vocation with no input or mentorship from a priest??? cool.) said, verbatim,”what’re you going to do WHEN your spouse cheats on you?” excuse me?? in light of this episode’s conversation it’s ironic, but in general how can that be allowed?! this was before they loosely and offhandedly endorsed “protection” in sex sometimes, so it wasn’t a single offense. I’ve been married 5.5 years and i think about this all the time and lament for the other couples in the room who took all this to heart!
If we are a full subscriber on your Substack, Emily, will we have access to the Visitaion Sessions marriage Q&A or do we have to fully subscribe to Visitations Session’s Substack?
Looking forward to this book!
Just wanted to throw out "Teams of Our Lady" as one more wonderful movement in the Church whose mission is Married Spirituality. We've been with our Team for six years and were blessed to join our team when we had only been married for six months. Our team has five other couples we pray, study, and walk with - and all of them are father along into marriage than my husband and I. We have such great examples!
https://www.teamsofourlady.org/about_us_1
As a couple who have been involved in Teams of Our Lady since the 80’s, we have been supported by being in our prayerful, joyful, Teams community. We began with 7 couples during a N.Y. snowstorm in 1980 and have met monthly (sans summer months) since then. We have all gone through many ups and downs in our marriages, and always through prayer, love and laughter in our meetings have been carried through it all. We are now three couples and four widows - very different from the young vibrant couples who started out on the Teams journey together. Keep studying, walking, praying and enjoying one another and your Teams community.
God bless this beautiful movement in the Church worldwide, for aiding couples live out their matrimonial vows.
Thank you for sharing your witness! My husband and I are so thankful for our Team and have promised to bring the movement to other parishes if we ever have to move away from our Team.
Was the music at the end Kate and Casey’s music? It was beautiful. I completely understand the part where you talked about how it’s rare to have people supporting those struggling in their marriage. When I went through a really tough time in my marriage, I felt like many people I talked to kept encouraging me to divorce and make a plan to be able to leave, including those closest to me. I end up finding a good Catholic counselor and only talking to them and my priest because I wanted to stay married and I knew by talking to the other people I was not going to get the kind of support I needed. It was a hard realization to discover that I couldn’t talk to people I had always turned to in the past with problems. And you are right, even though my husband was “the problem” I was the one that had to change first. I always compare it to a math problem like 2+2 = 4 but suddenly I become a 3 the outcome has to be a 5it can’t be an 4 any longer. I always find it painful when people tell me they are giving up on their marriage and getting divorced. Even if they have a “good reason“ I always think to myself why are you giving up? I always think to myself that there are solutions. This was a good podcast. Thank you.
It was their music! Isn’t it beautiful. And I am so happy you and your husband found a way. It is a beautiful witness.
That is a clever and apt analogy! I may borrow it when I teach. So happy that you and your husband stuck it out.
The Third Option (http://thethirdoption.com) is another good resource for married couples who are not communicating well or getting stuck in the same old (sometimes negative) ways of relating. My husband and I went through it a few years ago; there was always a short lesson on some topic related to marriage (expectations, etc), and then a couple who had previously gone through Third Option would talk, fairly candidly, about the issues they had dealt with in their marriage and how they worked them out. Some of the sessions/presentations were better than others, but it sparked a lot of good conversations between me and my husband about our families of origin and what we had each brought into the marriage. Honestly, I had agreed to go through the program because I wanted my husband to see how he could better meet my needs (hurts a little to say that), but I was very humbled and realized a lot about the unrealistic expectations I was putting on my husband and how I needed to grow as a wife.
The whole program helped provide a little of the community and accountability that you all talk about at the end of the episode; it was a great opportunity to hear from older couples and learn from them. I would love for our parish to have more opportunities for generations to mix and come together more often, but we seem to be separated by our season in life quite often.
I appreciate hearing well catechized couples that are older than us affirm how useless the Pre-Cana programs are. We got married in the PGH diocese, too, so you’re all familiar! One of the leaders in our ONE DAY, 8 HR long session (it takes longer to make bread on a cold day than receive Church-sanctioned advice and guidance on a lifelong vocation with no input or mentorship from a priest??? cool.) said, verbatim,”what’re you going to do WHEN your spouse cheats on you?” excuse me?? in light of this episode’s conversation it’s ironic, but in general how can that be allowed?! this was before they loosely and offhandedly endorsed “protection” in sex sometimes, so it wasn’t a single offense. I’ve been married 5.5 years and i think about this all the time and lament for the other couples in the room who took all this to heart!
If we are a full subscriber on your Substack, Emily, will we have access to the Visitaion Sessions marriage Q&A or do we have to fully subscribe to Visitations Session’s Substack?
For this one you will!