MARGARET RHODY
SPECIAL TO THE CATHOLIC HERALD
Dirty laundry on the floor in the living room again. It seemed like a little thing. It also seemed like the end of the world.
Dr. John Gottman’s research on thousands of couples over 40 years produced two surprising findings: Happily married couples don’t fight less than unhappily married couples, and two thirds of the things couples fight about in the first year of marriage, they are still fighting about 20 years later.
The best predictors of whether a marriage will be healthy and happy aren’t if a couple fights or what they fight about, but how they fight.
It wasn’t just about the dirty socks in my living room, but it took us a while to figure that out. A seemingly little thing can trigger a strong reaction rooted in a related painful experience, often before we’re aware that it’s happening.
The John Paul II Healing Center’s Healing the Whole Person teaching can help us understand these triggers in ourselves and others and bring them to the Lord for healing.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee offers the Healing the Whole Person teaching regularly through five-day retreats (Into the Deep) and eight-week series hosted by parishes (Engaging Your Story).
Susie Craft of St. Mary of the Hill, Hubertus, experienced deep healing of one such trigger at an archdiocesan Into the Deep retreat. She said that during prayer, the Lord brought her to a memory of an experience that had created a deep wound of fear, and she saw that the Blessed Mother was with her in the memory.
“I felt a sense of peace knowing I wasn’t actually alone in this,” Craft shared. “I began to feel a release of the shame and fear I had carried for many years. This also helped me recognize that I was bringing that wound into my family, operating often from a place of fear instead of trust.”
Dr. Gottman discovered that couples who fight with defensiveness, criticism, contempt and stonewalling — or who focus on “winning” more than respecting each other — erode their marriages.
Couples who can choose to help each other feel safe, loved and respected even when they disagree, who can forgive each other, and who can understand the reasons that their partner reacts so strongly to seemingly little things, are more likely to build happy, healthy marriages that last.
Patti Jones of Corpus Christi Parish in Waukesha discovered she had been carrying a deep wound of rejection for years. “I spent years stuffing my stuff,” she admits. Through Healing the Whole Person, she learned that “hurt people hurt people and everyone operates to the best of their ability out of their woundedness. This has helped me see others, including my spouse, with love and compassion and forgive them. This frees them and me.”
When Jones and her husband of nearly 35 years attended the Unveiled Couples Retreat (Healing the Whole Person for couples) at St. Monica Parish in Whitefish Bay this July, the tools they received helped them to experience what she describes as “a significant change” in their marriage. “We are having so much fun dating again and communicating better than we ever have before,” she shares.
Sometimes, one person’s experience can open doors that strengthen faith and ties for extended family.
After experiencing what she called a “life-changing” Healing the Whole Person Retreat, Pat Griffin of St. Vincent Pallotti Parish in Milwaukee participated in local team training (I AM Prayer Ministry Training) and has since volunteered over 200 hours in the ministry. “My husband, son and sisters attended retreats offered through the archdiocese. The ministry has brought deep healing for each of us and strengthened our relationships with God and each other.”
Twenty years later, my living room is still not safe from errant socks, but it no longer trips a trigger in me and no longer feels like the end of the world.
Healing the Whole Person is a ministry of The John Paul II Healing Center, featuring teachings by Dr. Bob Schuchts and Sr. Miriam James Heidland.
Find more information here on Healing the Whole Person in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Find more more marriage research from the Gottman Institute here.
Margaret Rhody is associate director for parish renewal with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.
Patti Jones, shown with her husband, Thys Jones, says the Corpus Christi, Waukesha, couple experienced “a significant change” in their 34-year marriage after attending a marriage retreat last summer. (Submitted photo)
