7 Steps To A More Spiritual Marriage
Ladies Home Journal - March 1998
Elizabeth Mehren
Are you and your husband vaguely discontented?
More like roommates than lovers?
Veteran counseling team Drs. Paul and Evelyn Moschetta
tell you how to reconnect.
After twelve years together, Jim and Wendy saw themselves as companionable strangers. Most of their time was spent focusing on their two school-aged children or on Jim's demanding schedule as a building contractor. Wendy was active on the school committee, and Jim was a volunteer soccer coach. Much of their remaining energy was consumed by parents who were growing older and more dependent on them. By anyone's standards, this couple's lives were full, but their marriage felt empty. Both Jim and Wendy reported that they had difficulty harking back to the tender partnership they envisioned when both said "I do." Even sex, Wendy confessed, felt routine.
Glancing at this marital snapshot, it took psychologists Paul and Evelyn Moschetta about two seconds to see what was missing. Jim and Wendy had mastered the companionship part of marriage, but the spiritual component of their relationship had evaporated--if it had ever existed. To the Moschettas, a husband-and-wife counseling team whose profession is helping couples improve their marriages, nothing could be more crucial. First and foremost, according to the Moschettas, marriage is a sacred experience--and by sacred, they don't mean something that takes place in a house of worship, but the divine nature that is the core of all of us.
A vibrant marriage has to be more than just problem-free, say the Moschettas. When a marriage is strong and healthy, it is a powerful vehicle for personal growth. More significantly, it becomes a place where unselfish love is not only enjoyed but generated.
This premise is at the heart of the Moschettas' book, The Marriage Spirit: Finding the Passion and Joy of Soul-Centered Love (Simon & Schuster). In it, the two long-time contributors to the Journal's popular "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column offer their manual for marriage in the new millennium. Based on more than two decades of counseling thousands of couples--as well as their own loving marital odyssey--the Moschettas present a seven-step formula to guide couples toward a spiritually intimate partnership. Their regimen blends Eastern mysticism with the kind of old-fashioned common sense your grandmother might have offered.
It is marriages like Jim and Wendy's--garden-variety unhappy--that the Moschettas face week after week in their dove-colored office. Most couples are not horribly abusive or destructive, the Moschettas report. Those who come in complain they are restless or bored or beginning to ask, "Is this all there is?" They are off course, momentarily or maybe even for the long term. What they need, the Moschettas say, is to learn to value each other, to be kind to each other--and most important, to treasure their partnership, its spirit and its soul.
Too many couples are leading lives like Jim and Wendy's, according to the Moschettas. By allowing spiritual awareness--rather than the demands of individual egos--to lead them, couples can change a survival-mentality marriage to one that fosters reverence and respect.
Married twenty-three years, both Paul and Evelyn came from first marriages they describe as spiritually vacant, and when they took their vows--on Valentine's Day--they were determined that this relationship would be a place where they could be, in Evelyn's words, "fully known, deeply loved and profoundly valued." Even for trained marriage counselors, attaining this goal requires constant attention. Still, with effort, any couple can overcome what the Moschettas call the three major obstacles to soul-centered love: bickering, blaming and boredom.
"In our society, relationships are not revered," says Paul. "People take better care of their cars than they do of their marriages." He detests the cynical marriage jokes that pervade movies and TV, and believes that happier marriages will make for a better world.
"It's a matter of evolution," Paul says. "A strong marriage makes for a strong family, a strong family makes for a better community, and it goes on from there."
Speaking of their reliance on both Eastern mysticism and Western psychology in their book, Paul says, "I hope it doesn't sound too New-Agey. We're trying to make some very sophisticated ideas available to a lay audience. When we talk about embracing a higher truth and finding soul-centered love, it's because we feel strongly that what is needed is an inspiring new vision for marriage."
In fact, the Moschettas have been promoting the idea of a spirit-centered marriage since well before the New Age movement began. "For a long time, Evelyn and I were loath to introduce the concept of the spiritual side of marriage," says Paul, "though we always knew it existed."
"The spiritual stuff may scare some people," Evelyn acknowledges. "But they relax when we explain that a couple's introducing a nightly walk together on the beach is definitely about nurturing the spiritual side of their marriage.
"This has nothing to do with religion," she goes on, "but with what religion points to"--in other words, an immeasurable, intangible inner core that makes a marriage stronger than either of its two human components. How does this work in practice? Listen to how the Moschettas navigate their own disputes.
Do they get angry? "Sure" they chorus. "Anger will always be a part of any relationship," Paul points out.
"The difference is, we close the anger quickly." Arguments fall into a pattern in most marriages, and the Moschettas are no exception. Evelyn gets anxious. She wants problems solved right away. Paul takes a slower approach. And even though they may raise their voices, "we never, never, never call each other names or trade sarcastic remarks," says Evelyn. "There is never a personal attack. When we realize there's no immediate solution, we set the problem aside temporarily." The Moschettas call this "haven time." All marriages benefit from this kind of problem-free zone, where instead of dwelling on difficulties, a couple can be "relaxed, playful and at ease, expressing interest in the details of each other's daily activities, thoughts and feelings." In essence, they agree to be on their best behavior. With practice, this kind of courtly interaction becomes the norm
"We have to negotiate," says Paul. "If we were to lash out at each other, we'd never get anywhere." Basically, what the Moschettas are suggesting here is simply to think twice before thundering back with an argument that is sure to take on its own dangerous momentum.
"I'm not censoring my freedom of expression," says Evelyn, "merely my ego. It's not something profound. In fact, I'm giving myself freedom by reining in that selfish part of me."
The Moschettas gave much the same advice recently to a couple who came to them for counseling. Both were lawyers, and they were locked in an ego-to-ego battle for control of the marriage. In every aspect of his life, Ed was a super-disciplined perfectionist. Candace was a tiger at work, but by Ed's standards, she had let herself go at home. The worst sin, in his mind, was that she had gained weight. To retaliate, he had a brief fling with a woman from his gym.
The Moschettas recognized immediately that Ed, with the fitness standards of a Marine, was trying to make Candace over in his own image. They urged him to practice what they call witnessing: seeing her without judgment (without what they call coercive expectation). To combat Candace's feeling of betrayal, as well as her own stubborn resistance, the Moschettas encouraged her to yield to the rich sense of trust she felt when she first married Ed. To both of them, the Moschettas admonished: Ego is fine in the business world, but park it at the door when you go home.
"But you're asking me to be totally vulnerable," Candace protested.
The Moschettas smile. Exactly! They reassured her that love based on soul and spirit "has an intelligence of its own." Tears and recriminations eventually gave way to promises and negotiations. The jury is still out for Candace and Ed, but the Moschettas feel hopeful not only that the marriage will survive, but that it will have a new foundation based on spiritual intimacy.
The Seven Steps To A More Spiritual Marriage
