Catholic & Single Is there a "call" to marriage after not having the call for years prior?

Sep 2, 2009

Dear Anthony,

I take exception to the assumption you make in your column "The Call to Marriage" that there is only a calling to the priesthood and that marriage is a default position. This point of view is valid only for someone who has never lost hope in either the possibility of love or the sacrament of marriage. Those who have no good role models for marriage and who view marriage as temporary and always ending in separation or divorce because of examples set by parents, relatives, or friends, do in fact get a "call" to be married. My view of marriage for many years was that it does not work. I had lost any hope that I would have a lasting marriage and had simply decided I would not get married. After returning to the Church I began to get this call indicating that my assumptions about marriage were wrong. A divorced coworker, commenting on my attitude toward marriage, said I should try it, it might not turn out the way his did. I am getting a distinct "calling" that my abandonment of hope for a permanent marriage is not warranted. Marriage as a default position may hold for the small percentage of young adults who come from stable families with good role models, but for average young adults (and even older ones like me) who see long-term marriage as rare, and have few good role models, God does indeed call to tell them there is a chance for something different in their flawed concept of marriage.

Thank you for taking the time to share this. I can appreciate your position. But you are definitely coming from a different perspective than I was. The points and observations you make about marriage are very good and important. But they are from the perspective of marriage as it is NOT meant to be. In other words, you are citing things about marriage based on the failure of human beings at trying to make marriage work.

My position was an objective sense of vocation and of marriage. Just because human beings fail at marriage does not mean they were not called to be married. And my point is that the majority of human beings born into this world are supposed to be married. Marriage is practical. It has as its main purpose the bringing forth of children into this world and educating them to be the persons they were created to be, as well as leading them to know, love, and serve God. Marriage is practical for helping two people develop as better individual persons through the love and dedication they have to the other person. Marriage also prevents things that go against the nature of a human being, like loneliness, lack of purpose, sexual urges, and the need to give and share love. So a mutual care of the spouses is a main purpose to marriage.

Because marriage is practical, and because it involves two human beings in the promises of marriage, there is never, ever a "perfect" marriage. In fact, people fail at being a good spouse or parent all the time. So marriage does not guarantee there will be no problems, nor does it guarantee that the children brought forth in the marriage will always have the best example during their development. The beauty of the sacramental nature of marriage is also the only guarantee of marriage; namely, that God Himself will be part of the marriage and provide the grace to make the marriage work. And despite the imperfection of the two individuals as spouses or parents, God can still bring about good and healing and anything else necessary to ensure ultimately that each person of any family will get to heaven if they seek Him and walk with Him.

Too many people today are expecting too much of a prospective spouse, which stems from an ideological approach to marriage instead of a practical approach. In other words, people are looking for guarantees. They want a guarantee they will always be happy in their marriage; a guarantee their marriage will never end; a guarantee they are marrying the right person; a guarantee that things will always get better and never worse. The expectations that people put on the person they are dating or married to is dangerous because it puts marriage at risk in two ways: (1) that when marriage takes place, the pressures put on each other due to the high expectations make it almost a certainty the marriage either will not survive or will be rocky; and (2) that a marriage might not take place at all due to the "cold feet" brought about from these high expectations weighing on the mind to the point of never making an act of the will.

Marriage is a risk. Those who avoid it are risk-averse. They would rather never be married than risk any level of unhappiness or even ending up with a divorce. What they really lack is faith. And I don't mean only faith in the sense of things always working out. I mean also faith in the sense of when things don't go as we hope, and God still is there and working things out. We all want to take a leap of faith if we know it's all going to work out, but we hesitate if we feel it might not work out.

So I would like to see more people look at marriage not as a calling to be discerned, but the path to always prepare for and work at following unless a call to NOT be married happens, and exercise their call that all human beings share to become saints and to be mothers and fathers, whether it is through their natural children (which most will have) or through being motherly or fatherly toward children in other situations (as aunts and uncles to the children of siblings, as teachers, in the parish community, organizations for young people, etc.).

Because of all the failed marriages a person observes throughout their life, it can make a person become "turned off" to marriage, and thus psychologically cripple their ability to make the commitment to one person in marriage. But that does NOT mean the person is not called to marriage, nor that they don't still have a duty to get into marriage despite their fears.

I am all for people NOT marrying who are not capable of fulfilling the marriage commitment. These scars of the past, or other commitment issues, render a person not yet capable of entering into marriage. But that does not mean they are not called to marriage. Therefore, they should be working hard to do whatever it takes to heal and come to a resolution of their problems so that they are capable of marriage. But many do not do this. They choose to remain in their state of incapability of marriage and observe the world around them with blame and accusation, and use these as an excuse for their decision to not make a commitment to one person in marriage.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that your duty to your vocation to marriage depends, right now, on your taking action to resolve your personal issues with marriage, get healthy so you are capable of making the free-will act of marriage to one person, and then getting on with finding a suitable partner to marry. But please, do yourself, your future spouse, and marriage itself a favor and do NOT seek to marry just to "give it a try", as your coworker so loosely suggested. To "try" implies an intention to quit should it not work out. We don't want people "trying" marriage. We want them intending to make and keep their commitments, and making a decision. It is a decision based on the effort to determine as far as possible that both people love each other and believe they should make the commitment to marriage. It is also based, hopefully, on careful efforts to know each other as persons, as well as addressing any issues of the past or that make sense for ensuring the marriage will have two people moving in the same direction together. This is all very different from giving it a try. If you cannot get your issues about marriage resolved and healed and become healthy about marriage, then, though you are called to marriage (which you likely are), you should remain single.

I would guess your coworker meant to say "try it" in order to encourage you not to fear making a commitment to someone who will make a suitable partner, nor to fear it not working out. Obviously, your coworker took the risk of marriage and it did not work out for him. We cannot judge his situation. But despite all the best efforts and intentions, some marriages do not work out, whether it is two people remaining together and not being as happy as they would like to be, or a separation or divorce taking place. We all know these things happen, but they are never what was intended. No one goes into a marriage expecting it to be unhappy or to fail. But it certainly will be unhappy or fail if we are only giving it a try, or relying on the other person to take care of the main needs of the marriage.

For marriage to work, there MUST be a 100% individual effort by both spouses to love the other, and to continue improving themselves. At the same time, there must be a profound inclusion of God in the equation. Without God, it is impossible.

Sadly, many who want to be married do not get married, whether at all or later than they had hoped. That is another problem with the "call" aspect of marriage. It seems like a cruel thing for God to call a person to marriage and not provide the person to marry. God cannot force two people to make an act of the will to consent to marriage. So there are marriages that do not take place that should have, but one of the persons did not make the decision for whatever reason. So marriage-minded persons end up remaining unmarried. However, no person can escape their call to parenthood, even the single person. Single men and women can exercise this in their life by being a good uncle or aunt to their sibling's children, or helping with the children in their parish, etc. God did not intend any person to spend their life exempt from helping others (especially children) get to Heaven. Everyone might not be able to be married, but all can help children in some way.

Let us both pray to God that you get past this attitude you have about marriage and focus on what are the real issues you must overcome. I hope this has helped you with some points to start with as you approach God in prayer.

Yours in Christ,

Anthony