How hard should we have to work for our marriages?
Marriage in the Church is a sacrament of vocation. It's work. It can be fulfilling, and even joyful. Performed right, it will make you a better human being. But it's work.
That's why marital sloth is so dangerous. Sloth is a spiritual disorder that, in marriage, consists of a dislike for the things one needs to do to sustain and build a relationship.
Slothful spouses are negligent in performing the everyday tasks of nurturing their coupleship. They forget birthdays or anniversaries, or handle them in formulaic, cursory ways. They grumble as they carry out the tasks of cooking, cleaning, caring for their children, or fixing things around the house. They commit to date nights, taking walks with their spouses, art classes, marriage encounters and other efforts to work on their marriage, then meet those commitments with reluctance, truculence, or excuses. They go to marriage counseling or marriage encounter, but fail to incorporate anything taught there into their marital life.
For Christians the sad irony of sloth comes from the fact that we were created to work.
In John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, he interprets God’s command to Adam and Eve "to cultivate and care for" the garden of Eden as a metaphor for (among other things) the joint work of cultivating and caring for one another in the garden of your relationship.
And in his 1981 encyclical letter on human work, Laborem Exercens, the pope wrote:
Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being’
So the human need to work, and to find joy in working toward a goal, precedes original sin. But with sin, work became burdensome. Humans still find joy in working toward an important purpose—a purpose like marriage—but they cannot find that joy until they overcome their sense of being burdened.
One illusion people have about sloth is that people who show diligence and industriousness in their work, or their care of their homes, or the diligence of their studies, are not slothful. They focus on getting ahead by working hard, being the early bird that catches the worm, and generally striving to outwork competition.
But these very activities may be the obstacles that get in the way of focusing on their love, their marriage, and their family. The workaholic, who is on the job 24-7 and in the process neglects their spouse and family, is an all-too common manifestation of sloth in our time and culture.
Perhaps the most dangerous illusion people suffering from sloth have is that they can put their marriage is in stasis, like some kind of suspended animation in a science fiction movie. Many people speak in counseling as if their marriage will coast along as long as needed until they can find the time and energy to work on it more diligently.
In fact, love dwindles and dies under the burden of inactivity by couples. Unless spouses are actively engaged in caring for one another, they fall victim to sensual, ambitious, proud and selfish thoughts and actions. They search for diversions-- sports, television, the Internet, or many other possibilities--that allow them an escape from the work of love.
Eventually romance gives way to routines, playing with children gives way to leaving them in front of the electronic babysitter, lovemaking gives way to pornography and masturbation.
Ultimately, St. Thomas warns us, sloth will eventually lead to despair, for "sloth is a real sadness that casts the spirit down."
This post is an excerpt from our book Climbing the Seven Story Mountain. Click to read the entire chapter.
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