Partners And Marriage

Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo de Manila where he had Father Ferriols as a professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo. Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind-opening and enriching classes but is also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them every day (if only they could do something about the grades...)

Come grade-giving time, Father Ferriols had a long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+, which the student eventually received.

Read the article below to find out why.

"Partners and Marriage"
by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each others. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual tolerance of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each others' foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible.

How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.


One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see the relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us everyday. To us, they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make.

Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.

It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousness come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.

There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.

If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom… endlessly.

The Right Person?

A nice article for the married, soon to be married,and waiting to be married...

Food for thought and in the words of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ:

THE RIGHT PERSON?

During one of our seminars, a woman asked a common question. She said,"How do I know if I married the right person?"

I noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so I said, "It depends. Is that your husband?" In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?"
Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's weighing on your mind. Here's the answer.

EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning, you fell in love with your spouse. You anticipated their call, wanted their touch, and liked their idiosyncrasies.

Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience.You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in love...because it's happening TO YOU.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet." Think about the imagery of that expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something came along and happened TO YOU.

Falling in love is easy. It's a passive and spontaneous experience.

But after a few years of marriage, the euphoria of love fades. It's the natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome(when it happens), and your spouse's
idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute,drive you nuts.

The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship, but if you think about your marriage, you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage.

At this point, you and/or your spouse might start asking, "Did I marry the right person?" And as you and your spouse reflect on the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else. This is when marriages breakdown. People blame their spouse for their unhappiness and look outside their marriage for fulfillment.

Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is the most obvious. But sometimes people turn to work, church, a hobby, a friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances.

But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your marriage. It lies within it. I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the same situation a few years later. Because (listen carefully to this):

THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It'll NEVER just happen to you. You can't "find" LASTING love. You have to "make" it day in and day out. That's why we have the expression "the labor of love." Because it takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO
DO to make your marriage work.

Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery.
There are specific things you can do (with or without your spouse) to succeed with your marriage.

Just as there are physical laws of the universe(such as gravity),there are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It's
a direct cause and effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable...you can "make" love.

Love in marriage is indeed a "decision"... not just a feeling.

Buhay Pag-ibig!

BUHAY PAG IBIG
Yung ibang tao, naiinggit. Wala kasing nagmamahal sa kanila. Yung iba naman, tatanga-tanga! Minamahal na nga nang todo, binabalewala lang! Alam mo, swerte ka sana kaso tatanga-tanga lang!

Minsan na kong nagmahal, minsan na kong naloko. Minsan na nga lang, naagaw pa! Pero di bale! Mas bagay naman sila, eh. Isang basura, isang basurera. Perfect match, diba?

Nung iniwan mo ko, ikaw ang sinisi ko kung bakit ako lubos na nasaktan. Mahal kasi kita pero di mo ko maintindihan. Ngayon salamat, ha? Kasi kung di mo ko iniwan, hindi ko siya matatagpuan.

Sometimes you tend to be in despair when your loved one doesn't love you back. But don't worry, don't cry much. Just close your eyes and whisper, "Mahal din ako nun. Pakipot lang."

When you ran, I chase you. You told me to stop following you. When I stopped, you got mad! Aminin mo na. In love ka rin sa kin, no?

If you ever find someone better, funnier or nicer than me, go ahead, hindi kita pipigilan. Pero pag iniwan ka ng gagong yun, tingin ka lang sa likod mo. Nandun ako, nang-aasar sayo, "Better than me pala, ha?"

Lagi ka na lang may rason. Nakalimutan mong tumawag, nakalimutan mong magtext, nakalimutan mong magpaalam. Pero ingat ka, ha? Baka pag naalala mong mahal mo ko, nakalimutan na kita.

Pag nakita mo na masaya ang mahal mo sa piling ng iba, wag kang malungkot o umiyak. Isipin mo na lang na masaya siya dahil mukhang clown ang kasama niya.

If I see you flirting with others, I won't cry. Instead I'll stand in front of you, chin up, stomach in, chest out at sabay sabi, "Mas masarap akong magmahal diyan. Sana wag mong pagsisihan!"

Kapag ikaw ang iniyakan ng lalaki, ang swerte mo dahil mahal ka nga niya! Pero pag ikaw ang umiyak dahil lang sa kanya, di ka lang malas, tanga ka pa! Lalaki lang yan, pwede ba?

Minsan lang magmahal ang pusong tanga. Niloko pa! Subukan kaya niya ang magmahal at lokohin din siya? Nang masabi niyang,"GOSH! Masakit pala!"

Nagkita kami ng ex mo kanina. Nalaman niyang tayo na. Pinagmasdan niya ko at bigla siyang tumawa. Sabay sabi, "Pang-ilan ka? Ako kasi yung una!" Sagot ko, "Una ka nga, ako naman ang last niya!"

When you love, don't give your 100%. Leave at least 70% for yourself so if ever he'll hurt you, you could still stand up to him and say, "Wala na bang mas sasakit pa diyan? Sus, walang kwenta!"

If someone leaves you, don't dare cry. Just smile and be happy. Pero bago mo siya tuluyang palayain, ibulong mo to sa kanya, "Maganda ako. Pasalamat ka pinatulan kita!"

Before, hinahabol kita pero di mo ako pinapansin. Tapos isang araw nawala ako, hinanap mo ako at tinanong, "Bakit ka nagsawa?" Ngumiti ako, "Hindi ako nagsawa. Natauhan lang."

Pwede mo kong lokohin pero wag kang magpapahuli sakin. Pwede mo kong palitan pero siguraduhin mong mas mahal mo siya sakin. Pwede mo kong iwan pero siguraduhin mong kaya mo. Kasi pag ako sobrang nasaktan, wala ka nang babalikan.

Boys? Pag trip ka, magpapakilala. Kaibigan kuno hanggang pumorma na. Tapos pag nahulog ka na, ayun, goodbye na dahil sawa na sila. Pero dapat walang iiyak ha dahil ... anong silbi ng karma?

I fell in love and got hurt but I didn't shed too much tears nor did I ask him to love me again. Instead, I stood up proudly and said, "Ganyan talaga ang magaganda! Hindi bagay sa tanga!"

Simple lang para hindi ka masaktan. Kapag minahal ka, mahalin mo din. Kapag ginago ka, gaguhin mo rin. Pero kapag umiyak ka, tanga ka! Ginago ka na nga, iiyakan mo pa?

Does Love Needs A Reason?

Lady: Why do you like me..? Why do you love me?

Man: I can't tell the reason.. but I really like you..

Lady: You can't even tell me the reason... How can you say you like me?
How can you say you love me?

Man: I really don't know the reason, but I can prove that I love you.

Lady: Proof? No! I want you to tell me the reason. My friend's boyfriend can tell her why he loves her but not you!

Man: Ok ok!!! Erm... because you're beautiful, because your voice is sweet, because you are caring, because you are loving, because you are thoughtful, because of your smile, because of your every movements..

Unfortunately, a few days later, the Lady met with an accident and became a vegetable.

The Guy then placed a letter by her side, and here is the content:

Dearest,

Because of your sweet voice that I love you... Now can you talk? No! Therefore I cannot love you.

Because of your care and concern that I like you.. Now that you cannot show them, therefore I cannot love you.

Because of your smile, because of your every movements that I love you..

Now can you smile? Now can you move?

No, therefore I cannot love you...

If love needs a reason, like now, there is no reason for me to love you anymore.

But does love need a reason?

I still love you... Because love doesn't need one

The KISS

She is pregnant, he had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out of the house into her front yard, while he continued to fight the fire.

When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte , North Carolina newspaper, noticed her in the
distance looking at the fireman.

He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do.

As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies and kissed him just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

Scroll down for photograph.

10 Commandments of Marriage

Commandment 1.
Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning.

Commandment 2.
If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.

Commandment 3.
Marriage is grand -- and divorce is at least 100 grand!

Commandment 4.
Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.

Commandment 5.
When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: Either the car is new or the wife is.

Commandment 6.
Marriage is when a man and woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

Commandment 7.
Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you said. After marriage, he will fall asleep
before you finish.

Commandment 8.
Every man wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook. But the law allows only one wife.

Commandment 9.
Every woman wants a man who is handsome, understanding, economical and a considerate lover, but again, the law allows only one husband.

Commandment 10.
Man is incomplete until he marries. After that, he is finished.

The Happy Hang-over

Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Christmas Party. Jack is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong.

Jack had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose! Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house.

He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: "Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian"

He stumbles into the kitchen and sure enough, there is a hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee, and the morning newspaper all waiting for him. His son is also at the table, eating. Jack asks, "Son... what happened last night?"

"Well, you came home after 3 in the morning, drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door."

Confused, he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"

His son replies, "Oh THAT! Well, Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed,'Leave me alone, I'm married!'"