English
EspañolConjugal love is correspondence between spouses. One cannot be, simultaneously, the gift and its embrace. The spouse who gives himself without being embraced becomes discouraged and disappointed. And the spouse who attempts to embrace the other yet receives nothing becomes disenchanted and dispirited. The price for this lack of correspondence is loneliness and a love crisis.
Text
“The ideal of marriage cannot be seen purely as generous donation and self-sacrifice, where each spouse renounces all personal needs and seeks only the other’s good without concern for personal satisfaction.” (The Joy of Love, n.157)
Commentary
Conjugal love, like all love, is correspondence. For example, as in tennis, a player cannot be on both sides of the court, serving and returning his own serve, because it is a game played between two, not in solitaire, on your own. Sometimes, in married life, one player is absent from the court far too many times and expects the other to take over the whole game.
Married life does not consist in stabilizing situations in which only one of the spouses gives himself and embraces the other. In contrast, this other spouse takes advantage of the situation, like a vegetate in complete passivity, becoming a backpack loaded with stones upon the back of their spouse and dedicates themselves to dozing off in the hope that the other, through their love and kindness, will continue to take care of the whole marriage. These situations are, by definition, a radical injustice that rots both the generous and the stubborn.
Santiago and Rosa have two children. Rosa works part-time in an office and takes care of the housework and her children. Santiago comes home from work, plays with the kids for a while, and watches TV –his break after work –. He does not help with the housework or help much in taking care of the kids. On the weekends, Rosa is in charge of taking the kids out for a walk or to birthday parties so Santiago can rest. Emila is Rosa´s friend and questions why she does not ask Santiago for more help. Rosa answers: “because I feel sorry seeing him so tired, I want him to be well.” Emilia talks to her: “it is good that you love Santiago and that you worry about him, but the children belong to both of you, and the house belongs to both of you too. You are also a human being; you get tired, you are not made of iron. Learn to ask Santiago for help; it is a way for teaching him to gift himself. He does not know how to see beyond his comfort, and he does not see your needs, his children´s needs, like the need that each of them has to spend time with their dad on the weekends. You have to teach him.”
A marriage never ceases to be a matter of two united to become a solitary enterprise of one with oneself, not even with the best of intentions. Yes, even a great intention can be foolish and lead a marriage towards disaster. I exclude mentioning the case of one spouse choosing to doze off with malice without reciprocating and sharing, while the other spouse is forced and blackmailed into taking responsibility for everything. The price of these abuses is the marital crisis, whether covert and concealed or manifest and public.
