The Gift of Dialogue (and how my marriage benefits from it)

I remember sitting in the darkened basement with my family and my fiancé as we prepared for a movie night. Soon, My Favorite Wife began. For years, my family and I had regularly watched and enjoyed this classic movie. However, this was the first time I was watching the movie as an engaged woman. Seeing the humorous antics of Cary Grant's character (who discovers that he is accidentally married to two women at once) as I was preparing for marriage was not what I expected. 

In the beginning of the movie, Nick (played by Cary Grant) gets married for the second time. His first wife had been reported dead when, seven years ago, she was on a foreign expedition. Yet, all these years later, just after marrying another woman, Nick discovers that his first wife is alive and has returned to be with him. Thus ensues a series of misadventures as Nick awkwardly tries to figure out how he'll break the news to his second wife. Cary Grant really builds up the humor of the situation. Yet, as my soon-to-be-husband and I sat there, I thought about how poor communication is billed as funny only when it is fiction. 

It's the basis for countless comedies out there, but in reality, a lack of communication is no joke. 

What husband or wife actually thinks it is funny if his or her spouse does not communicate effectively--or even lies? I'm sure we've all seen relationships suffer when there is poor communication. While a communication breakdown (in addition to other factors) can lead to divorce, estrangement, and visibly broken families, it can also impact those families who--from all outward appearances--are stable and have "good" relationships with each other. 

Hidden from the public's view there live biting words, snippy comments, and simmering tension from unaddressed concerns. Poor communication can slowly hammer away at a couple's unity, pushing them further apart from each other. This, in turn, trickles down to their children. Not only are children affected by their parents' problems and tension, but they do not see and learn what good communication consists of. 

Couples need to cultivate healthy communication together, both for themselves and for their kids. 

Back in 2016, I wrote about communication when my husband and I were a few years into marriage. We are now nine years into marriage and have four delightful children (ranging in age from newborn to six years old). Healthy communication is a never-ending journey for us. We have grown a lot in cultivating clear, unitive communication as a couple, but we continue to learn and grow. 

For example, in November 2020, my husband and I drove eleven hours to have a one-hour conversation.

A Rule of Life: Monthly Confession

I once wrote about the importance of prioritizing our priorities; of making the time and space for the different things that are important in our lives--even when those look different from the priorities and values of other people. In that post, I mentioned that my husband and I practically accomplish this through our Rule of Life (a basic framework for how we want to live). I thought it would be fun to write a small series of posts that dive into a few different elements of our Rule of Life. 

Today, I'd like to share one element of our family's Rule of Life: Monthly Confession.

The Treadmill in the Bedroom

My pastor began his homily on that Saturday morning by telling a story: of the night before, when a friend texted, asking for decorating advice as he worked on the bedroom that he shared with his wife. My pastor looked at the photos his friend sent and texted back: The treadmill has got to go. Even when his friend replied that, oh, my wife really wants it there, my pastor was adamant: Get the treadmill out of the bedroom.

He told us this story because in the Gospel reading that day, Christ urged the disciples to “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while” (Mk 6:31). Rest, my pastor pointed out, is important. Time after time in the Scriptures, Jesus goes to a secluded place to pray and rest. Our pastor mentioned that if we have a treadmill in the bedroom, it can interfere with the rest and prayer that we need—because a large, visible symbol of what we “could be doing” (exercise, losing weight, etc.) is not conducive to a restful atmosphere.

That’s a good point, I thought, but we don’t have a treadmill in the bedroom, and I do a pretty good job keeping our space clutter-free so we can rest and recharge. I inwardly puffed myself up, happy that I apparently was winning at life (insert eyeroll here). 

Our 2020 Trip to Tennessee

In the past, I've talked a little bit here and there about the Domestic Church, a Catholic lay movement from Poland. As part of our involvement with the Domestic Church, my husband and I took our kids on a weeklong family retreat (called an Oasis retreat) in Summer 2019. Due to our schedule, we knew that we'd be unable to attend a retreat in Summer 2020, and then the pandemic hit-so most retreats were cancelled. 

But. 

Another Domestic Church Oasis retreat was scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving 2020. It would be on the smaller side and have certain restrictions, but it would happen. We signed up, and then waited. The pandemic raged on, our lives continued in an unpredictable manner, and I told people that I honestly didn't think we'd actually get to attend retreat until we were there. This is 2020! Everything gets cancelled! The week we were supposed to leave, New Mexico closed down. I kept checking for updates in Arkansas (which we would drive through) and Tennessee. They both were still open. The retreat was still happening. We hoped, we prayed, and I tried not to panic. The day before we were supposed to leave, I began throwing clothes into bags. Would we actually get to go? I felt like Indiana Jones, racing to leave a room as the door slid down. We just needed to make it to Tennessee. Then, the state could close down. But not until we were safely in Tennessee, at the camp.

My husband recently discovered these at a local Korean grocery store.
They are SO GOOD. High in protein, not too sweet, and a perfect mix 
of peanuts and sesame seeds. They are now our go-to car snack. 

Pray: The Story of Patrick Peyton (a review)

"The family that prays together stays together." 

As a child, I heard this adage many times, and it has stuck with me throughout the years. It wasn't until recently that I learned about the man who was known for preaching this motto: Father Patrick Peyton. This man entered America in the 1920s as a poor Irish immigrant, and wound up becoming known across the world for his dedication to family prayer and the Rosary. Pray: The Story of Patrick Peyton, is a beautifully crafted, moving documentary that brings to life the story of Fr. Peyton and his legacy. 

On Family Traditions

Perhaps your family eats Chinese food on Thanksgiving. Or, maybe you always open one gift on Christmas Eve before slipping off to bed. You might participate in a "turkey trot" together each Thanksgiving, or alternatively you curl up on the couch to watch endless Christmas movies while you sink into that post-Turkey relaxation. Traditions vary from household to household, but many families have them. These family traditions can be reassuring and comforting. Knowing that a certain practice will happen on an upcoming holiday can fill us with gleeful anticipation.

But, what if our family traditions cause more stress than jubilation? What if they create more tension than harmony? What if they force us to fit a mold that we have outgrown?

Overwhelmed by the stress of motherhood? Here's four questions we can ask ourselves.

We are sick and tired of "doing it all." We're exhausted at caring for our kids 24/7 and meal planning and grocery shopping and cleaning and being contributing members of our parishes and society. We know that we're supposed to fit time in for that elusive "self care" we hear so much about, not to mention spending time to nurture our respective marriages. Oh, and running a side hustle would be beneficial, too. After all, it would show that we aren't just lazy freeloaders who sit at home all day. We can earn money! Because THAT is what proves our value. Right? 

And as we cook, clean, entertain our children, run errands, chauffeur our children to playdates galore, and fill orders for the Etsy store, we become weary. Admirably, at some point we decide that we will chug back another cup of coffee and open our eyes to the chaotic and tiring life that consumes us. We take our gaze off the Instagram feed and place it on each other as we talk. We share our struggles and grief, and we find solidarity-yet we fumble for solutions. What can we do? we ask each other. We don't live in a village or "the good old days" anymore, but we don't want to live in this insanity any longer. How can we change?

I don't know.

I don't have a one-size-fits-all solution for the expectation that we need to "do it all." I don't have an instant remedy for the burnout and desperate loneliness that so many stay-at-home mothers face. I don't know when or how we can fix these problems, but I do know that we need to do something. We can't just expect that the problem will magically go away. When you've spent the past 16+ hours being touched and/or barraged with questions by small humans, I'm sure that the last thing you want to do is sit around for a brainstorming session. But, dear fellow mother, we need act. Here are just a few questions we might ask ourselves:

It's easy to act like Roy, but that doesn't make it OK

Pam Beesly is having a challenging time at the office. It's Valentine's Day at Dunder-Mifflin, and she has to watch her coworker, Phyllis, receive gifts all day long. But Pam hears no word from her fiancé, Roy. She doesn't receive any flowers, cards, or notes. She certainly doesn't receive an obnoxiously huge teddy bear. Nothing. Sure, they had agreed to not buy each other any big gifts, but Valentine's Day gifts-as Pam points out to Dwight-are about "doing something so that the person knows you really care about her." 

When Roy comes to meet Pam at the end of the workday, she tells him that she's upset about not receiving anything from him. Roy, in response, says: 
"Well, Valentine's Day isn't over. Let's get you home, and you are gonna get the best sex of your life."

At these words, Pam does not look thrilled. I think I can understand Pam's feelings in this episode of The Office. Roy pretty much ignores her all day, and when he does come up to talk with her, the one thing on his mind is sex; he has no thought or concern about what she actually wants or needs. His words and actions (and lack of action) portray an attitude of selfishness, of self-gratification. The way he approaches their entire relationship is pretty much summed up in this scene, and it's disgusting to see Pam treated in this way. Do you know what else is disgusting? All of the times that I act like Roy in my relationships with other people and God. 

I don't "have time" to read (so here's what I do)

I love to read books. Fiction or non-fiction, memoirs or novels; I'll pick it up. I've been going through stacks of books this summer, and I even just managed to finish Elizabeth Gaskell's lengthy, wonderful novel Wives and Daughters. I blog about books frequently, I'm always eager to talk about literature, and I read for several hours each month. 

I recently realized that I should be actively making a dent in my "to read" list
-as opposed to simply picking up whatever looks intriguing on the library's shelf-
so I've been requesting books through inter-library loan and naturally, many of them came in at once. 

This all might make you think: Wow, she has so much time to read! 

I honestly wouldn't blame you for having this thought; it seems like a fairly logical assumption to make. Yet, even though I stay at home instead of working an office job, time allotted to "reading for fun" doesn't just magically happen.

The Epic Domestic Church Retreat (and why I needed it)

On Thursday last week, I hugged my toddler and left him with my parents while my husband and I set off for a retreat. Since giving birth, I had never spent a single night away from my child, and now I was going to spend three nights away from him. Why? 

There was this retreat being held, called the Domestic Church Evangelization Retreat; a weekend for married couples to recharge or begin their spiritual life together and grow closer to God. This would be a time for silence, growth, and learning. While I was excited for all of these prayerful aspects, I also was pretty deliriously excited about the opportunity to spend a long weekend relaxing with my husband and not changing dirty diapers or cooking or cleaning. Altogether, I was pretty excited about this weekend away-and the retreat did not disappoint.

"La La Land" and the Sacrifices in Marriage

Since I practically live in a hobbit hole in regards to the current culture, I often am unaware of new movies that come out. I'll typically hear about movies once they've been in theaters for a few weeks, when I'm suddenly hearing about them all the time, and friends start recommending them to me (Marvel movies are an exception to this; I try to be somewhat knowledgeable about Marvel movies). La La Land is one of these movies. I began hearing about it after it came out, and had no idea what the plot even was. I just knew that it was a musical, and that I needed to watch it because it had been so highly recommended.

So, finally, I watched La La Land this summer. Actually, I watched it twice, because I figured, Why not watch this amazing movie a second time before taking it back to the library? I called this the "Cultural Enrichment" segment of my toddler's education. I have been aching to discuss La La Land here on the blog, and I finally have a moment to do so. There are many different topics we could discuss regarding this movie's depiction of people aspiring for their dreams in Los Angeles (here's one awesome article that I loved). As I think about the different deep themes I want to delve into, I keep going back to conclusion of this movie. So today, we're going to talk about the ending of La La Land (this is a warning to skip over this post if you don't want the ending spoiled).

Four years

It's a tidy chunk of time. 

Four years of high school. Four years of college. We look at these four-year spans and neatly wrap them up, setting them aside to fondly look back on in scrapbooks and at reunions. When we began high school, time seemed to drag on, and GPAs and who-asked-who to the dance took on a large amount of importance. When we walked across the stage at graduation, we knew that we had changed, but we may have felt rather similar to the chubby-faced fourteen-year-olds who had walked into the school just a few years earlier. We went off to college, and suddenly, our worldview expanded. Suddenly, no one cared about what had happened in high school, or what our grades had been, or if we had belonged to the National Honor Society. And these four years flew by, until we found ourselves with a degree in hand and a daunting world of responsibilities. 

Last week, my husband and I celebrated four years of marriage. As I look back on this time, I realize that it is not easily summarized and packaged like four years of high school, or even four years of college. 

House-Hunting is Like Marriage Prep

Part of the "marriage prep experience" for many Catholic couples includes a weekend-long event called Engaged Encounter. It's time and place where starry-eyed couples hold hands and talk about their future and how they will potentially address different issues and topics in their marriage.

I am a big believer in the weekend-long Engaged Encounter, and we loved having this experience during our engagement. We benefited from it a lot, and I'm so grateful that we spent that weekend away, instead of doing a one-day retreat or something similar.

That being said, I think it's interesting to see how different things are once you get married. When we were on Engaged Encounter, all of these different topics for couples to discuss individually-holidays, money, work-were fairly broad and futuristic. We weren't actually going through any of those things at the moment, since we were still engaged, so we just hypothetically talked about how things might happen in the future, and how we would address them.

But let's be real: It's one thing to calmly discuss all these hypothetical scenarios when you're spending a dreamy, prayerful weekend away, and it's another thing to face the reality of dramatic events head-on once you get married. 

I've been finding that this reality holds true when house-hunting, as well.

What Biscotti Can Teach Us About Marriage

Several weeks ago, I was hit with the sudden desire to make biscotti. I had never made biscotti before, and I had only eaten it a few times. But, thinking about how elegant and sophisticated it seems, I decided that I would make some during the Christmas season. I could give some away as a gift, and keep the rest for our household consumption. As I began mixing together ingredients for Double Chocolate Biscotti, I gleefully thought that the end result would be a tasty treat to munch on with my coffee and tea. Little did I realize that these cookies would teach me about marriage. 

What Football Season Looks Like in Our Home

Social media is beginning to display pictures of people in jerseys, recipes for snacks to munch on during games, and relatives turning against each other as football season begins. There's even an option to put an NFL-themed filter over your Facebook profile picture! With all of this festivity celebrating football season, how can I not join in?  

BUT...I don't make cute snacks for Game Day, wear sports jerseys, or watch football. In fact, football season looks very similar to "normal" life around here. However, my husband and I have our own quirky little culture. As some of you may remember, I married a wonderful man who plays competitive video games. A while back, I talked about how video games help me learn about marriage, but today I'd like to share some practical realities of what life looks like over here during the season of pigskin and team rivalries (and year-round, really). 

[Keep in mind that every person, marriage, and gamer is different-especially since there is a huge range of competitive video games out there, so you can't assume that what applies to Jacob and I applies to every gamer couple, or even that it applies to every competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee player.]

Three Years of Awesomeness...Another Glorious Marriage Anniversary!

Happy Feast of St. Clare! Yesterday, I was so blessed to celebrate three glorious years of marriage with my husband. This year was especially meaningful to me, because it marked our first full year of marriage as non-college students. It's really interesting how getting married, finishing our last two years of undergrad, and then moving to another state can change one's perspective. In a way, to me, it feels like we got married yesterday, the way things have flown by. At the same time, it feels like we've been married for a very long time, since we moved to Oklahoma a year ago, and our lives here are so different and so far removed from the first two years of marriage as college kids in Ohio. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's my weird musings on time this week. Time, why do you have to be so weird and complicated? 

Anyways, marriage is epic, and I believe that anniversaries are great days to celebrate marriage in a special way! We usually keep things fairly low-key (but fun!) on our anniversary, and this year was no different. 

Let's Talk About Wedding Gifts!

Happy Monday, friends! 
Summer wedding season is in full swing, so I think it's appropriate to discuss wedding presents. I don't know about y'all, but I am so bad at figuring out what to give people. I've been trying to get better at the gift-giving love language, and weddings are a great way to put my resolve into practice! Going with this theme, I am extremely honored to be a guest at Shannon's blog with the post "Gifts for Newlyweds Who Don't Need Much." 
Feel free to hop on over there and join the conversation! 

The joy of living out a vocation (thoughts from Corpus Christi Sunday)

This truly is a week of  awesomeness. Sunday was the Feast of Corpus Christi, a celebration which dates back to the 13th century. And today celebrates the Feast of the Visitation, in which we recall the meeting of Mary, Elizabeth, Jesus, and John the Baptist in Luke's Gospel! So party it up this week! Yet, as I sat in church on Sunday, I did not think about either of these feasts. Instead, I thought about marriage. 

The Non-Emerging Story & The Power of Personal Encounter

It is easy to frolic through life while seeing others on the surface level. For better or for worse, we'll make snappy assumptions about others based on how their attitude, appearance, or employment. This week, however, I have been overwhelmed by the beauty of personal encounters with other people. Whether walking to fetch the mail before a severe storm or bringing our car to the auto repair shop, God often surprised me with powerful, brief conversations that would spring up between myself and other people. Throughout my life, I have discovered that when we try to be fully present to others, a deeper story may emerge. 

The Walking Dead is Great Pregnancy Fare (at least for me)

Just two weeks ago, I sat in a middle-school classroom as a judge for my parish's speech contest (which wound up being more like a Forensics tournament, which was awesome!). During one of the breaks, the other judges in the room began speaking enthusiastically with the teacher about their obsession with The Walking Dead. One of the judges glanced at me and gave a somewhat apologetic look, with the disclaimer that "it's a really good show!" 

"Actually, I've been wanting to start watching it sometime," I confessed.

"Oh, but you don't want to watch it while you're pregnant." 

Fast-forward one week.

Jacob was working extra hours that day, so I prepared to eat my dinner alone. As I heated a plate of turkey enchiladas, I thought, I should watch an episode of The Walking Dead with my dinner. Why not? One week later, and I'm already a handful of episodes into the second season. I'm hooked on this show, I love it, and I am very glad that I've had so many sewing projects to work on, so that I can cut and piece together fabric as I watch Rick Grimes & Co. fight for survival. And as I see heads getting hacked, guts being ripped out, and zombies stalking in streets, I think back to the warning I was given: You don't want to watch it while you're pregnant. 

But you know what? As I've seen more episodes, I've realized that, for me, The Walking Dead is great pregnancy fare. So let's link up with Kelly and talk about it!