Discerning Marriage Pt. 1

Episode 2 – Discerning Marriage Part 1 – Highlights

Welcome to Episode 2 of Connect(ing) Loud, where we discuss connections within our families as they relate to our mental health and Catholic faith–– all while connecting YOU with those you love most! This episode is part 1 of my interview with Elizabeth Busby, creator of DiscerningMarriage.com. 

What is your background with Theology of the Body? 

I first experienced the teachings of Theology of the Body in 2007, and my life was changed forever. My ideas about womanhood, sexuality, body image, and relationships completely shifted. 

We are both LMFTs, so we live and breathe relationships. Can you share the “Twitter” version of how you and your husband discerned marriage? 

We met in college and our friend groups overlapped, but we didn’t know each other very well. We met again a few years later after I experienced a horrible breakup, and he was in seminary. I needed an accountability partner to help me go to Mass daily early in the morning, and he agreed to go with me. We became close friends. Fast forward a few years, he left the seminary and was interested in pursuing a relationship with me. All along I had been comparing guys I was dating with the wholesome masculinity I saw in him as a seminarian. Once we started dating, I knew if he discerned marriage he was the one for me. Building upon the friendship foundation we had allowed us to develop deeper intimacy. 

One of the goals you express on discerningmarriage.com helping people fall in love with Jesus and helping people discern and live God’s joyful plan for holy marriages and family life. I speak to a lot of young people who seem paralyzed – should I marry him/her, or should I keep praying?  Rather than make a decision, they wait for a sign. For anyone discerning marriage, what are the most important things they should consider? 

First and foremost is Jesus. It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness. You must make sure your heart, eyes, and mind are oriented on Jesus. It’s so easy to make idols of other things.  A wise professor once told me we worship whatever we think will make us happy. That becomes an idol. Instead, work to have a detachment from other things and realize that God himself is going to fulfill our happiness. We do this through prayer. Besides just liturgy, we need to have a personal relationship with God through prayer. Start with a couple of minutes per day in prayer, and increase over time. If you had only communicated with a person you were dating through text messages here and there, you would not develop a strong relationship. Often we can do that with God- we must develop a relationship through prayer instead. 

My husband had a unique experience – God told him to marry me when he was visiting a seminary on a discernment weekend. He realized he had never asked God what he was supposed to do with his life, he just thought he was supposed to be a priest because he knew he wanted to be holy and serve God. But when he asked God if he was supposed to get married, he heard a resounding “yes,” something he didn’t expect. Do you think that marriage is seen as the default vocation and that people just fall back on it if they aren’t called to the priesthood or religious life? How can people discern marriage actively, not passively? 

People equate being holy to being celibate. The reality is ALL of us are called to be holy. Marriage as a sacrament allows you to be made holy in this union. Marriage is a vocation and a calling that can make you holy. Reorienting your mind to realize marriage is something you can be called to, and not just something to fall back on, will help you take it more seriously. Schedule time for discerning prayer. Since we are not pulling away from the world like seminarians or those called to religious life, we must carve out time in our lives to pray about our vocation. Finally, date well. Be intentional about the people that you date. Then, pre-engagement, work together to discern marriage. 

Bad relationships are a common experience for almost everyone, and these can color the way we enter new relationships and think about marriage. We also have our own story about marriage that was influenced by our family of origin and the families that we were close to growing up. What advice would you have for people who, knowingly or otherwise, enter relationships with a cautious or skeptical disposition? How can they learn to experience the joy of these relationships as they discern marriage? 

If you have these barriers to intimacy, don’t ignore them. Look at them and address them. Be not afraid to dive in and figure it out. If you don’t deal with them ahead of time, you will still have to deal with them after marriage. As a single person, you have the luxury of time to really press into these barriers through prayer, confession, and/or professional help. Work on healing to set yourself free to love. To experience the joy of married life, befriend a couple living the vocation of marriage and spend time with them. Perhaps you can babysit their kids or spend time with the whole family in order to see the reality of family life and marriage. You can see the joy and happiness of the marriage vocation by doing this. 

Whenever I hear people from older generations speak about dating and relationships, it seems like it was normal to go on dates with multiple people simultaneously. It wasn’t until someone was “going steady”, I think that is the phrase, that they exclusively dated and discerned with one person. On one hand, I think if people knew it was normal to go on many dates with people, they might not feel the same pressure to know that this guy or girl is the one. I’m NOT advocating for hookup culture, but do you think that was a healthier approach to dating and discernment, or something that we should be grateful is in the past? Can we learn anything from that time?

I am a proponent of dating with a purpose. We can let our feelings and passions reign unchecked in our culture, and dating is done unintentionally. This leads to a lot of confusion and drama. Couples may wonder if they are dating or have to have the “define the relationship” talk and feel awkward. Is one partner moving faster than the other? Without talking about it, there can be lots of confusion. To me, there are three stages of dating. First, casual or group dates. Then exclusive dating where you are only dating each other. Next is dating where you are discerning marriage, and you acknowledge that we are either moving towards the altar for marriage or towards a breakup. Going on dates with multiple people, without being exclusive, can be a beautiful way to discern as long as appropriate boundaries are present. The older generations did this and held sex as more serious. It was not as culturally acceptable to have sex so quickly, so dating was an opportunity to discern while just spending time together. Everyone is different. Some people may only want to date one person, which can also be productive with the appropriate context of sex. 

Stay tuned for Episode 3 of Connect(ing) Out Loud, when we will conclude the interview with Elizabeth! Want to learn more, visit the discerning marriage Instagram page!