What You Can Expect from Marriage

I remember the three months before my October wedding, I mentally shifted gears. My fiancé and I had set the venue. We sampled the food. We chose the readings. We completed our pre-marriage retreat. And in those final days with the invitations ready to hit the mailbox, we were beginning to build a life.

That process began years ago and officially culminated with George’s proposal, but now we were putting words into action. That early conversation about joint checking accounts was now a reality. That casual open house we walked through last summer turned into us buying our own home. Those early dreams about married life in our dating relationship evolved into us standing in line at the DMV to purchase our marriage license with my new last name staring back at me on the application.

And those are just the practical, day-to-day aspects of combining our lives. We’ve spent time in prayer and thoughtful reflection both together and individually since the very beginning of our relationship as we discerned our call to married life.

When you get married, you are not just becoming roommates with your spouse. You’re not just saying “I do” for today, for tomorrow or for a few years down the road. You and your spouse are becoming one in God’s eyes. While the world may see our shared cell phone plan or hefty mortgage as a sign of commitment and longevity, it’s the sacrament of marriage that we will participate in together that will unite us forever.

“The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him…and the two of them become one body.”

Genesis 2

As a cradle Catholic, I’ve never realized exactly how counter-cultural the Catholic lifestyle is until we began our marriage preparation. Balking the cohabitation trend alone is unheard of, but add in topics like focusing on marriage preparation over wedding planning or practicing natural family planning, and people might think you’re taking everything a little too seriously. It’s just a wedding after all, right? Wrong.

This higher life that we are all called to is hard. God never promised us that this would be easy. He never said that He would deliver Mr. or Mrs. Right to us at the time we expected or make every piece of our relationships perfect just because we follow Him. But He does promise that we will be blessed through His love and through our choices to honor Him.

By making the difficult choices, from choosing to wait for a loving, Catholic spouse to living separately until our wedding to committing to promoting a culture of life, I know that we are building a foundation for a faith-filled marriage that will bless us and bless others.

I truly believe that the sacrifices we made early on will impact the years to come.

On my wedding day, I walked through the tall wooden church doors as the Trumpet Voluntary triumphantly sounded from the organ. I walked down the aisle to George as one person and we returned up the aisle together shortly after as new people, a husband and a wife.

That’s something a shared address or a shared bank account cannot replace. Only through the sacrament of marriage can two truly become one.