Episode Details

The One Main Psychological Reason Why Catholic Marriages Fail

1. Intro: Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics 
   1. Interior Integration for Catholics brings to you in each episode the best psychological information essential for your human formation, knowledge that is fundamental in shoring up the natural foundation for your Catholic spiritual life.  
   2. In this podcast, we confront the tough questions we Catholics have in our day-to-day lives, we confront head on our struggles in the natural realm, the psychological difficulties that keep us from fully loving our Lord and our Lady in a deep, personal, intimate way and living out our vocations. 
   3. And we deal with these difficult, demanding issues for one primary reason: to free you to love God our Father, Jesus our Brother, the Holy Spirit and Our Mother Mary more and more over time.  
   4. This podcast helps you focus inward on your interior integration -- to help you bring together the different parts of yourself into unity and harmony with God.
   5. Together, we are on a journey toward deep transformation, a radical conversion at the core of our being so that our souls can one day enter into contemplative union with God. 
   6. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  
   7. This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighbor
   8. This is episode 57, released on March 1, 2021
   9. This is the ninth episode in our series on sexuality and in this episode, we are turning our attention to Catholic marriages -- such an important, essential topic for our day and age, Catholic marriages
   10. And we are going to start with the real, deeper, often hidden reasons why Catholic marriages fall apart
   11. So this episode is titled The One Main Psychological Reason Why Catholic Marriages Fail
   12. Get ready for the deep dive into new ways of thinking about Catholic marriages, from an informed psychological perspective. 
   13. Focusing on the psychological aspects here -- not the spiritual ones. 
       1. Not qualified to judge souls, make statements about their virtues or vices
       2. Not criticizing or condemning, but rather focusing on understanding with gentleness and compassion
       3. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar  
       4. Focus on the natural level.   
   14.  What about you, Dr. Peter -- what do you know about marriage?  Fair question.  25th year of marriage, one marriage, 7 children.  
2. Windup: The Current State of Catholic Marriages
    
   1. Definitions
       
      1. What is Catholic Marriage 
         1. Catholic Dictionary:  
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As a natural institution, the lasting union of a man and a woman who agree to give and receive rights over each other for the performance of the act of generation and for the fostering of their mutual love.

The state of marriage implies four chief conditions: 1. there must be a union of opposite sexes; it is therefore opposed to all forms of unnatural, homosexual behavior; 2. it is a permanent union until the death of either spouse; 3. it is an exclusive union, so that extramarital acts are a violation of justice; and 4. its permanence and exclusiveness are guaranteed by contract; mere living together, without mutually binding themselves to do so, is concubinage and not marriage.

Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament of the New Law. Christian spouses signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and his Church, helping each other attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education