“How many of you in the room do feel, on balance, that you have married the wrong person?”
The auditorium filled with laughter. “I mean, we’re among friends.”
He peered around the room before he quickly spotted a few honest souls who were willing to admit to the candid motif of his presentation.
“There are a number of reasons why this is going to happen to you,” he continued, “or has maybe, already, in the privacy of your heart already happened to you. I should say that it’s not that bad. And the reason is that all of us will not manage to find the right person. But we will probably all of us manage to find a good enough person. And that’s success.”
The Church's perspective on marriage from an unlikely source.
In one of his many presentations, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person" philosopher, author, and self-avowed atheist Alain de Botton offers a contrarian perspective to the pervasive romantic culture we have in modern society. He offers the idea that there is no such thing as a “soul mate.” Rather, a lifetime of loving commitment with a good enough person has the potential to enable one to love and be loved.
The perspective on lifelong sacrificial love that de Botton offers is nothing new to the Church, which has been propagating it for over 2,000 years. It is the type of love that comes from Christ and can be easily seen in the sacrament of marriage.
“‘Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony.’Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to ‘be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,’ and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love” (CCC 1642)
But what about the single person who feels called to marriage?
How does one ever learn to love like that without the sacrament to experience it?
There’s a beautiful passage in Genesis where Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant to Abraham’s wife Sarah, is running away in fear for her life. Stranded in the desert, pregnant with a child, and hurting from the mistreatment of Sarah; God heeds her affliction and provides for her because He sees her heart. She thus gives Him the name El-Ro’i (“Roh-ee”) meaning: the God who sees me.
"God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The Lord looks into the heart.” —1 Samuel 16:7
In God’s seeing us as we are, He is able to love us as we are. So we are called to love others (and ourselves) as God loves, by seeing them as He sees them: a hurting, broken sinner. We may never fully see others in their God-given dignity as El-Ro’i does, but we can start by taking a word of wisdom from de Botton.
In his presentation, he says, “What does it really mean, ‘to love?’ To love ultimately is to have the willingness to interpret someone’s, on the surface, not very appealing behavior in order to find more benevolent reasons why it may be unfolding. In other words, to love someone is to apply charity and generosity of interpretation.”
While we cannot see others as El Ro’i, the best we can do is interpret them under the best possible light. Perhaps then with this understanding the single person can also start by seeing themselves and others as God sees them and begin to put true love into practice.
How to see yourself and your spouse as they are in marriage.
Alain de Botton finishes his presentation with a few pointers for building a successful marriage (and preparing for one!) that all married Catholics and hopefuls alike can learn from. These are helpful reminders to apply not just to others, whether that be coworkers, family, or spouses (if you have one), but can be applied to yourself as well:
1. Admire strengths, tolerate weaknesses, and recognize ambivalence. According to de Botton, mature love will be a mixture of admiration of the good, toleration of weaknesses that selfless love brings, and recognition that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about ourselves and others.
2. Learn about our childhood. Much of the way we love and choose partners, de Botton posits, can be gleaned from our childhood. While most of us may think we are choosing partners that will make us happy, de Botton claims, we are actually choosing partners that are familiar. This can lead to our replaying certain patterns.
3. Be a good teacher. While we typically think of the type of teacher in a classroom setting, de Botton’s advice is that we learn how to get “one idea from one head to another,” namely from our own head to another’s. In other words, de Botton advises that we learn to communicate.
4. Let others teach you to be better. For most of us, de Botton claims, we feel a bit “ticklish” or uncomfortable when someone else shares something about you. They are not attacking you, he claims, but trying to make you a better person.
With these tidbits of wisdom from an unlikely source for a Catholic, we can learn to love others and ourselves a little bit better. This will make us better spouses, aspiring spouses, singles, coworkers, and friends.
“Maturity is the ability to see that…all of us are this wonderfully perplexing mixture of the good and the bad.” —Alain de Botton
