Posted on

3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Gomer

12660462_883139281090_281406714_n
Gomer.

3 Lessons and 2 Tips is a 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 Mike Gormley, aka “Gomer,” who is hilarious and has been following Jesus Christ seriously since he was 17.

He has struggled with atheism, self-hatred, and a very nerdy persona in a house of athletes and sportsball fans. He is husband to Shannon and father to four insane children who are the delights of his life.

Gomer has been in full time churchy-work for nine years and runs his own side project called LayEvangelist.com and an awkward (his word) and awesome (my word) podcast for young adults, called Catching Foxes.

He is gracious to share three lessons and two tips with us: Continue reading “3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Gomer”

Posted on

When sexual abstinence is “unrealistic.”

Caught a zika virus segment on the Today Show this morning in which a doctor discussed that the virus can be sexually transmitted. And she had advice for couples who are at risk.

Abstain from sex for a little while, she said, or, and I quote, “maybe more realistically, use condoms.”

To which I say STOP IT.

To call condom use more realistic than abstinence is accurate, in the sense that people are in fact more likely to use contraception than to abstain from sex (for many reasons, not solely to prevent the transmission of the zika virus).

But to call condom use more realistic than abstinence is also to actively discourage abstinence (and, subtly, to shame the people who practice it). It implies that nobody chooses abstinence, or that nobody can — that humans won’t govern their urges because they can’t.

It is to say “YOU SHOULD DO THIS, BUT YOU WON’T.” What if that’s how our parents raised us? Continue reading “When sexual abstinence is “unrealistic.””

Posted on

Why love will not sustain your marriage.

Love, as it turns out, will not sustain your marriage. It isn’t even supposed to. In fact, just the opposite is true. Marriage is supposed to sustain your love.

This is one of several of lessons I learned in a brilliant little book called Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love, by Dietrich von Hildebrand. It is short (77 pages) but important.

I wrote about it for yesterday’s post on the Catholic Match Institute blog.

Marriage, I wrote, “is an environment provided to us in which we can maintain (and when necessary, fight for) the love that brought us together.” Then I elaborated: Continue reading “Why love will not sustain your marriage.”

Posted on

Is a first kiss a litmus test?

I recently read an article about first kisses, and it didn’t sit right. The author called a first kiss a litmus test. It’s how you confirm that he’s into you, she wrote — it’s how you determine whether he’s confident.

And maybe, for her, that’s what a first kiss is. And maybe it is for you, too — a gauge you use to measure stuff, like your interest in a person, or a person’s confidence. But is it supposed to be?

Continue reading “Is a first kiss a litmus test?”

Posted on

Three relationship resolutions for 2016.

Relationships are good but hard, and I know it because of personal experience and because of the emails I received throughout 2015 from readers whose requests best can be summed up with one word.

“HELP.” — as in, “Should I break up with her?” and “Why won’t he ask me out?” and “Should I pursue a relationship with her?” and “Is it ok to tell him that I like him?”

It is normal to desire to do relationships well and it is also normal to feel a lot like you have no idea what you are doing. Continue reading “Three relationship resolutions for 2016.”