Premarital Evaluation & Self-Knowledge
St. Therese of Liseux
This chapter is meant to provide an opportunity for engaged couples to grow in self-knowledge by an evaluation of some of the major emotional and personality weaknesses which interfere with both self-giving love and marital happiness and fulfillment. A discussion by Dr. Fitzgibbons of the healing of some of these conflicts from the premarital series, Road to Cana, www.roadtocana.com, seen on EWTN, can be viewed on YouTube. Also, checklists are provided in this chapter to identify many of these issues and other chapters that can be found on this site offer suggestions to help diminish potential difficulties.
At the Institute for Marital Counseling at Comprehensive Counseling Services we have worked with several thousand couples since 1976. We also work with increasing numbers of engaged couples who want to have healthy marriages and are aware that emotional weaknesses can be uncovered and addressed before marriage.
The book which we most frequently recommend to engaged couples is Men, Women and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights in John Paul II's Love and Responsibility by Edward Sri. In Love and Responsibility, John Paul II described the importance of couples giving to the romantic aspect of the marriage, to the marital friendship and to betrothed love in marriage which includes more than sexual intimacy.
Marital Happiness
Marital happiness is dependent upon having a good romantic relationship, marital friendship anda healthy intimate relationship. Fortunately, in spite of the high divorce rate, many couples do report marital happiness. An important research study in 2006 of what makes women happy in their marriage revealed the following factors as important:
- a husband's emotional engagement
- fairness
- a breadwinning husband
- a commitment to marriage
- staying at home
- shared religious attendance
- traditional gender attitudes.
(Wilcox, B. & Nock, S., 2006. What's Love Got to Do With It. Social Forces 83:3, www.happiestwives.org)
In my experience, many husbands would express similar views and might add that they want to be treated with respect and appreciation. When these virtues are present, there are rarely issues of control with either person.
Misconceptions About Marital Love
The recognition of the common misconceptions about marital love can be helpful and these include:
- if one is not happy, it must be caused by a weakness in marital love
- it is based completely upon one's feelings
- it should make one completely happy and should heal any loneliness for parental love experience in childhood, adolescence or the present time
- it should not require hard work and sacrifice
- the loss of a romantic feeling is the fault of one's spouse
- it should be strong even if one does not work on the romantic aspect of the marriage or on the marital friendship
- when the feeling of love is not longer present, it cannot be restored
- the trust upon which marital love is based cannot be healed if it is damaged
- one has the right to intimacy even if the need for romantic love and friendship are ignored
- is not enriched by having children
- can be fulfilling even if one is selfish
- God's love does not enrich and strengthen marital love by providing another source of comfort, strength, hope and happiness.
Below are the major conflicts which interfere with marital self-giving and marital happiness. Please review them and see if you can identify any of these issues in your engaged relationship?
Conflicts in Marital Self-Giving and Receiving
These include:
- Lack of self-knowledge
- Selfishness
- Mistrust/anxiety and controlling behaviors
- Excessive anger
- Sadness/loneliness
- Confidence conflicts
- Negative parental modeling
- Excessive sense of responsibility/worries
- Disordered self-giving
- Lack of charity
- Neglect of spiritual life
- Character weaknesses including pride, laziness and control tendencies
- Poor communication patterns
- Guilt
- Materialism
- Failure to correct/be honest about difficulties
- Failure to understand the sacrament of marriage
- Use of oral contraceptives.
Do you recognize some of these weaknesses in yourself and in your fiance/fiancee? You should because most of us have one or more weaknesses in self-giving.
The following checklists are meant to give one a qualitative sense of important weaknesses in self-giving in oneself and in one's spouse. Scoring codes are not yet available for each measure.
Narcissism Checklist
Selfishness has been described as the major enemy of married love. It is a personality weakness which all of us can struggle with at times. However, excessive selfishness is a major conflict which creates significant pain and suffering in loving relationships, marriages and families. In fact, it is a major cause of marital anger, conflict and divorce in the first five years of marriage
Selfishness turns a person in upon himself/herself, thereby severely damaging the ability to give oneself cheerfully in a loving relationship. It leads one to resent giving and it interferes with the ability to move from the mind set of "me" to the "we" of married life. When this weakness is identified in a serious dating relationship, too often it is not adequately addressed, but it should be.
A study reported in the spring of 2007 revealed the extent of the problem with narcissism in young adults in
this culture. Dr. Jeane Twenge of San Diego State University reported in a study of almost 17,000 college students
that two thirds of them scored high on a measure of narcissism which was an increase of 30% over the past twenty
years. Dr. Twenge commented that narcissistic people are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short
lived, are at greater risk for infidelity, lack consistent emotional warmth, exhibit game-playing and dishonesty
and manifest overly controlling and violent behaviors.
Please complete the following selfishness checklist by identifying the appropriate number which applies to you and to your fiance/fiancee using this scale:
0 - Never | 1 - Very Little | 2 - Moderately Often | 3 - Very Often
A score below 30 indicates a low level selfishness, a score of 30 to 60 a moderate level of selfishness and above 60 a high level of selfishness.
When engaged people identify excessive selfishness in their loved one, we recommend that they ask him/her to work on this weakness by trying to grow in a number of virtues. These virtues include generosity, humility, sacrificial giving and cheerful self-giving. The initial response to this discussion is often one of defensiveness. Many individuals with this response will try to project their conflict insisting that their loved one has this difficulty. Fortunately, most individuals are willing to look at themselves and to work on growing in virtues to overcome this personality conflict. If you discover this personality conflict in yourself or in you fiance/fiancee, we recommend reading the selfish spouse chapter on this site.
If the person with strong selfishness is unwilling to recognize and to address this serious personality weakness, we recommend that consideration be given to ending the engagement.
Self-Giving Checklist
Marital happiness is dependent upon the ability of spouses to give themselves to each other, to their children, to work, to the care of the home, to relatives and friends and, in Christian marriages, to God. The marital self-giving checklist helps couples evaluate the quality of their friendship, romantic relationship and betrothed love.
Please rate the self-giving in yourself and to your fiance/fiancee and by identifying the appropriate number on the following measure.
0 - Never | 1 - Very Little | 2 - Moderately Often | 3 - Very Often