Engagement and marriage are a wonderful adventure

Mariana and German Iramendi, teacher and bank clerk

March 1, 2009

Tags: Marriage, Holy Purity Saint Josemaria is “guilty” of having made our lives, first as fiancés and now as a married couple, into a “wonderful adventure”.

During our engagement we followed his advice: “Love each other, talk to each other, get to know each other; I tell you, respect each other, as though each were a treasure that belongs to the other…”.
It’s true that keeping clean and chaste throughout one’s engagement is difficult, but it’s so worthwhile! People need that time to talk to each other. Talk about what? About everything and nothing, about important things and trivial ones, and like that there won’t be any “surprises” once the honeymoon is over. If, instead of talking, people use the time of their engagement for the kind of love that belongs to married life, they probably won’t really get to know one another properly. We found it so beautiful to spend hours talking about our future together: where we would live, how many children we’d have, how we’d bring them up. We even talked about their schools, and tried to predict what daily life would be like as a family, where each member would have to give way, what would have to change, and so much more. We also tried to get to know each other’s faults, so that, as Saint Josemaria put it, we could “love all of each other’s defects so long as they’re not an offence against God!”

This helped us to approach our marriage calmly and in full freedom. We knew that “marriage is a contract between one man and one woman for life”, and that if we fight every day to keep what we have, God’s grace won’t fail us. We think that many of the problems that lead so many young couples to divorce these days, spring from the idea that if it doesn’t work, there’s always an escape-route and they can get out of it. That makes them incapable of sacrificing themselves for the other, or facing up to everyday problems from a different standpoint – that of having committed themselves to make it work.

The Founder of Opus Dei also encouraged us not to be afraid of life, in other words not to block the sources of life and never to complain about the children, but to accept them lovingly for what they are: “a proof of confidence from God, who sends you your children to turn your home into a heaven”. And that led us to overcome ourselves, because sometimes children do cause money problems or demand a huge amount of attention. So far we have Maria Paz, and we both agree she’s the best thing that ever happened to us.

We know that we are virtually still only newly-weds, and that if God wills, many years together lie ahead. But over the past two years we have learnt that we shouldn’t be afraid that our love might dwindle as the years go by. Saint Josemaria gave some sound advice for our journey. “Argue, but very little. And then each of you has to admit that it was your fault, and say to the other, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me,’ and give the other a hug…” And he advised us never to quarrel in front of the children.

He also asked both husband and wife not to neglect themselves. He used to tell married women to try and keep themselves looking “young and pretty, because a good-looking wife keeps her husband away from another woman’s door”. “It’s a matter of justice!” he used to add. And he told husbands that they should always show the love they have for their wives. “Don’t be stingy! You’ve got to keep courting her a little all your life… If you go home looking tired, with a long face… that’s not right! Your wife needs a kiss from you when you get home…” And in that way he showed us that marriage is also a sacrifice, but a joyous one, it means putting your heart on the ground “as a soft carpet for others to walk on”, and that is when it becomes a path not only to faithfulness but also to happiness.

It’s very difficult to quantify how much influence one particular person has had on our lives. It’s only now, by writing this testimony, that we are managing to see it a bit more clearly. We are eternally grateful to Saint Josemaria for his teachings and we know that God will ask us to render an account for having known him. May he help us to make this wonderful “adventure” that we’ve been talking about continue, and to have several more children after Maria Paz.