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3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Brandon Vogt.

Brandon-Vogt3 Lessons and 2 Tips is a new series of interviews in which some of my favorite people (and probably some of yours) share three lessons they’ve learned by being married, plus two tips for single people. This edition features Brandon Vogt, Catholic blogger and author of The Church and New Media, who has been married since May 17, 2008. He and his his wife have three children.

AS: How did you meet your wife?

BV: My wife and I grew up in the same town and we met in high school. We were juniors together when we started dating, (and) we were in band together. We both played clarinet, (and) depending on who tells the story, either I was ahead of her or she was ahead of me and we would challenge each other, back and forth. What started as competitive relationship eventually blossomed into a loving relationship.

AS: What’s the first lesson you’ve learned by being married?

BV: The necessity of dying to self. I’ve found that the more I die to my own desires to serve the desires of my wife and my children, paradoxically, their desires become my own. Once I die to myself and my own desires, those desires are resurrected in new forms in the rest of my family. I have had to learn to that to be a great husband means to be a selfless husband.

AS: And the second lesson?

BV: To remain calm. Especially when you have young kids, lots of days things get out of control. Kids are screaming. They’re misbehaving. It seems like your breaking point. It’s easy for husbands and wives to take it out on each other, but we know that’s totally counterproductive. It ultimately damages your relationship. The best way to serve your family is as a united husband and wife. I have to remind myself that this, too, shall pass. All frustrations will ultimately pass.

AS: And the third lesson?

BV: To ground yourself in the Lord. We’ve found that in our marriage, the strongest periods are the times when we are both seeking the Lord, individually and together. There are weeks and months when we’ve just grown leaps and bounds in our relationships with the Lord; we pray together, discuss our spiritual lives, read the Bible together. Other times, there’s a lull. When our spiritual lives are firing together on all cylinders, it’s quite evident. When there’s a lull, when spiritual matters are ignored and we become ambivalent, that evidences itself through little flare ups, bickering, little problems here and there. When we are spiritually attuned together, our relationship flourishes. When we’re not, our unity breaks down.

AS: What’s one tip for readers who are single?

BV: One thing I heard a lot as a single is that when you’re single, you should be preparing yourself for marriage. It’s good advice, but I’d add (a caveat): Catholic sexual teaching has held for centuries (that) everyone is called to get married, but not everyone is called to marry a human being. Some people are called to marry God, either through the priesthood, or through the religious life, or through a consecrated community. Develop your relationship with God now because the way you relate to the Lord will influence your marriage, whether that’s a human marriage or a divine marriage.

AS: And a second tip for singles?

BV: Find a community. Whenever you’re single, it’s a rare point in your life where you can easily move in and out of a community. When you’re married, you’re in a community that you’re going to be in for the rest of your life, (whether that’s a) religious community, or (a community with your) spouse and kids. To prepare yourself for perpetual community, develop the skills to live in community with others. Find ways to enter into other types of small community now, whether that be small groups at your parish, local sports teams, groups of friends at work. Commit yourself to at least some form of community and learn how to live a communal life.
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Connect with Brandon Vogt: Click here to read his blog, here to like him on Facebook, and here to follow him on Twitter.

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Is monogamy unnatural?

ID-100157105According to a column Friday on CNN.com, to honor each other as man and wife for the rest of our lives is probably impossible.

“Strict sexual fidelity is a lofty but perhaps fundamentally doomed aspiration,” wrote Meghan Laslocky, the column’s writer and author of The Little Book of Heartbreak: Love Gone Wrong Through the Ages.

According to Laslocky, humans have to tolerate the “impulse to experience sexual variety” for longer now than ever, because people are living longer now than before.

“A person is theoretically expected to have one sexual partner for about 50 years,” she wrote. “This seems like a lot to expect of any human being — even the most honorable, ethical and moral.” It’s a lot to expect, she said, because humans are animals and animals aren’t often monogamous.

“Face it,” the column’s headline reads. “Monogamy is unnatural.”

Then infidelity is “only human,” to use words the average American adult might use. But I have good news for Laslocky:

Infidelity is not “only human.” Fidelity is.

Humans are embodied spirits, created in God’s image, given enough daily grace to resist temptation. “Original sin,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “caused ‘a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted; it is wounded… and inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence.”

Concupiscence is definitely in “the impulse to experience sexual variety.” It is what pulls a married man or woman toward sex with somebody other than his or her spouse. According to Theology of the Body (TOB), “It is as if the ‘man of concupiscence’ …had simply ceased… to remain above the world of living beings or ‘animalia.'” We have to learn, according to TOB, “‘to be the authentic master(s) of (our) own innermost impulses…'”

It is animal to act thoughtlessly on impulse, and human to use faith and reason to control it. It is animal to be unfaithful, and human to keep our vows.

This doesn’t mean we are animals because we sin. It doesn’t mean we are animals at all. It doesn’t make us less-than, but proves we are greater-than, that we don’t sin because we’re human but because for a moment, we forgot we are human. It means that because we are human, we aren’t bound by sin, but invited to be freed from it, that we don’t have to keep doing the things we sometimes think we can’t not do.

If we are the animals Laslocky says we are, it isn’t because of biology, but because we’re rejecting grace. And if “sexual fidelity is a lofty but perhaps fundamentally doomed aspiration,” it isn’t because we are animals, but because we believe we are.

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Click here to read Laslocky’s column in full.

Relevant quote: “If redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act. God’s command is of course proportioned to man’s capabilities; but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given” (Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor).

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Thoughts on gender hierarchy and roles.

I watched a John Piper video once that so inspired me to throw a hanger across my bedroom.

Oh how it made me angry, his promotion of gender hierarchy, of perpetuating marriage protocol based on rigid gender roles. Of one gender better, stronger, smarter than another. Piper, who was Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis for more than 30 years, is a proponent of hierarchical marriage (he calls it “complementarian”), a source of stress and indigestion for egalitarians.

In marriage, according to the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (the CBMW, of which Piper is a member), “wives should forsake resistance to their husbands’ authority and grow in willing, joyful submission to their husbands’ leadership.” “Adam’s headship in marriage,” according to the CBMW, “was established by God before the Fall, and was not a result of sin.”

And then there are gender roles.

“Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order,” says the CBMW, “and should find an echo in every human heart.”

These are thoughts about that:

  • “God did not command men to dominate women. He predicted it as the sad consequence of original sin.” -Sr. Helena Burns
  • In “Barne’s Notes on the Bible,” Barnes says women are “more subject to infirmities and weaknesses; less capable of enduring fatigue and toil; less adapted to the rough and stormy scenes of life” and “the God of nature has made her with a more delicate frame, a more fragile structure, and with a body subject to many infirmities to which the more hardy frame of a man is a stranger.” (Cue stress and indigestion.) But is a woman’s being less capable of enduring fatigue and toil and less adapted to the rough and stormy scenes of life innate, or is it learned? Most adults coddle female toddlers who trip and fall, and tell male toddlers to shake it off. Is that because girls innately can’t take it and boys can, or because girls are set up not to take it and boys aren’t? Is it because men have more “muscles” than women, or because husbands – under whose authority women exist in hierarchical marriage – let their wives lose the ability to use certain “muscles” because they don’t permit their wives to use them?
  • In a YouTube video about how women are to submit to husbands who are abusive, Piper says it’s ok for a wife to say no to her husband. But before she can say no, he says, she has to say this: “Honey, I want so much to follow you as my leader. God calls me to do that, and I would love to do that. It would be sweet to me if I could enjoy your leadership.” It is, then, the very men who assert females are weak and males are strong who can’t take “no” from a woman unless she strokes his ego first.
  • Indeed it stings when somebody says “no” or “I disagree with you.” But it is not proof a man isn’t masculine. It is proof he is human. That a wife never just says no to her husband when no is appropriate doesn’t say he is manly. All it says is he can’t take no. Not saying no (or refusing to take it) enables a person to avoid conflict, and pain and emotion, and as a result, to avoid growing (as a human, and as a spouse).
  • I am not hostile to submission. I am hostile to complicity in the maintenance of fragile egos, to the forfeiture of authenticity, and to abuse.
  • A wife has to trust that the decisions her husband makes will not violate respect for her, for life, for love, for God, in no particular order. In that light, “submission” is not a burden. It’s relief of a burden. A woman can make decisions, but in marriage, she ought to be free because of trust to share the load with her husband, to let him handle some of the stuff so she can handle the other stuff.
  • Teamwork, not dominance.
  • It is inefficient, in my opinion, for a married couple to have a completely inflexible set of gender roles. Do what you’re good at doing, and what you like doing. (Dear future husband: Please like to cook.)
  • Love trumps protocol. Every time. And if it doesn’t, it isn’t love.
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Click here to read the rest of the CBMW’s core beliefs.
Click here to watch John Piper’s video on submitting to abusive husbands. (Trigger warning.)
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[Guest Post] What I learned about marriage from my parents.

Guest blogger Olivia!

As a child, I knew my parents were different from other parents. They slept in separate rooms because my dad had violent nightmares. My mom worked first shift, my dad worked second shift. They rarely showed affection for one another. Their marriage was the second for each of them, and I think this gave them a little experience to build their own marriage on.

When I was a teenager, I never wanted to get married.

I was a very independent child, so I told myself that I didn’t want my independence taken away. I never went on dates in high school. I had no confidence, so I figured no one would want to be with me. I’d see the heartache and hear from my girlfriends about problems in their relationships. I assumed all relationships were like that, and I didn’t need that. More than anything, I saw the relationship my parents had, would compare it to the relationships of my friends’ parents, and realize that whatever my parents had together was not something I wanted.

But in my second year of working toward my undergraduate degree, I met a man like no other. He was hilarious, generous, and so very kind. Two weeks after our official first date, I knew I would marry this man. I told my mom this and she was shocked. She’d say to me, “You want to get married? You always said you never wanted to get married,” when I would brag about this wonderful man.

We got married in 2007 and enjoyed a brief honeymoon period (without ever taking a honeymoon) before life went back to normal and reality set in. We’d have our disagreements, calm down, and work things out. And then life threw us one curve ball after another: job loss, extended unemployment, moving in with family to keep a roof over our heads because of unemployment, health scares, no money… you get the picture.

Through all of these trials, we would lash out at each other whenever the stress levels reached a tipping point. We have had such horrid arguments that we even have uttered the d-word. I have caught myself saying something to my husband that sounds exactly like something Mom would have said to Dad in the middle of a disagreement. I have had that moment in which I realize I’m very much like Mom, and then I try to correct my behavior.

I remember the d-word being discussed lightly between my parents when I was in high school. Miraculously, when I moved out to go to college in 2004, my parents’ marriage improved. But Dad suddenly passed away in 2009, leaving my mom widowed and lost. It was hard to watch Mom begin to navigate the world without Dad. As time has gone on and we reminisce about all the wonderful times we had with Dad, Mom would echo the same sentiment about him: “Things were rough, and we had some horrible times, but I would never trade in a moment with that man.”

My parents were knocked down by difficult trials and faced many dark days in their relationship. Through the dark and the light, one thing stayed constant: They did it together. They stuck by each other through everything. I think of all my parents went through when I was child, and while I remember some of the arguments, I rejoice in now being able to comprehend how they came together to handle whatever situation they faced.

Marriage is one of the most difficult “things” I’ve ever had to do. It requires time, patience, nurturing, love, humility, respect, and humor. I’ll admit it: Marriage is hard work. It’s not for the weak. There are rough times where you just don’t have the energy to look at your spouse because of some idiot thing they’ve said. There are times you’re so embarrassed by something you said or did in anger that you can’t even look at yourself. But those beautiful times, those times you realize where you’ve come from and what you’ve gone through together, make that hard work so worth it.

My parents had a very unconventional marriage, but it was their marriage. My husband and I have a different marriage, and it’s OUR marriage. Give your marriage everything you’ve got. When things get tough, just keep fighting. It’s absolutely worth it.

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About the blogger:  Olivia Hattan-Edwards is a native Floridian who lives in the mountains of north Georgia with her love, Richard, and their two cats, Humphrey and Bogart. Olivia is the youth services coordinator for a public library and is currently working on a master’s degree in Library and Information Science. Richard works at a public high school and is involved with high school athletics. In her spare time, Olivia enjoys reading YA literature, shopping at thrift stores, and supporting Richard at whatever sport is currently in season. She recently launched a new blog, Bookmarking Life. Olivia and Richard have been married for five and a half years.

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Love is tough.

I sat in my seat in a circle of students in my counseling theories class.

Pen in hand and a self-inventory worksheet on top of a book in my lap, I thought about the question at the top of the paper: 
What did you learn about love from how your parents treated you?
This is what I wrote:

Love requires trust (in multiple ways). Trustworthiness was expected of me, not as a condition of love but as a function of it. Love is tough. When I am loved, I am held to high standards, expected to be the best I can and not enabled to do whatever is less than my best.

I think of this a lot.

I think of it as a counselor (Ha! It’s still so new to call myself that.), in my observation of families and in my interactions with clients.

But also as a daughter. A sister. A friend. A single woman. A potential wife and parent.

This is not about one person telling another what he or she has to change about him or herself in order to be marriage material (I did that once, and it isn’t love).

This is not about manipulating a person into being who they aren’t, who you’d like them to be (somebody tried to do that to me once, and it isn’t love, either).

It is not about having unreasonable expectations (sort of like when my goal was to find – nay, be found by – a Catholic chiropractor who has dreadlocks and a Scottish accent).

It is not about relating like an authoritarian.

This is about ti voglio bene. Italian for “I love you,” but translated literally – according to Edward Sri in Men, Women and the Mystery of Love – it is “I wish you good” or “I want what is good for you.”

This is really about sacrifice.

It’s about not putting yourself between your kid and reasonable consequences for his or her behavior (because while you suffer when they do, if you always save them, they never can learn). It’s about not spoiling your kid, even if it makes you sad when your kid doesn’t get what he or she wants, or your kid’s response to “no” irritates the snot out of you (because kids who are given everything become adults who don’t want to do anything).

It’s about expecting the beloved to reach the bar (of integrity, responsibility, chastity, etc.), not lowering it for them. It’s about accepting that to lower the bar for somebody – while easy for you – is to contribute to the maintenance of his or her weakness, to the atrophy of his or her muscles.

It’s about being there for the beloved through his or her growing pains (which implies allowing him or her to grow), not vetoing somebody’s growth so you don’t have to witness his or her pain.

Love is tough.

Ti voglio bene.