Michael J. Rayes

Couple prayer

2016-07-05T00:07:08.000Z

This is a reminder – you and your spouse are supposed to pray together. Why is it a reminder, instead of news? Because you already know it. Let’s spend a few moments thinking about the difference between praying together as a married couple and praying individually.

Praying alone: You offer your own desires, gratitude, needs, and praise to God.

Praying with your spouse: You unite your own desires, gratitude, needs, and praise with that of your spouse. The two of you in “one flesh” (Matt. 19:4-6) offer your prayers as a sacramental couple.

This united couple-prayer is more effective in Heaven than if both marriage partners offered their prayers separately. Why? For one thing, because the couple must unite their wills when they pray together. They show God by their couple prayer that they are living His words in the Gospel of Matthew about “cleaving” to the wife and being “one flesh.” God wants the hearts of both you and your spouse. You think differently; you are both motivated differently. God wants both pieces of that puzzle. When you pray together, you fulfill the original plan of our Creator God in the first chapter of Genesis (verse 27) by reflecting the image of God.

And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)

Practical application

If you are not used to praying together, it will be awkward at first. But only at first. You’ll get used to it. Also remember this couple prayer is in addition to your individual prayers, not a replacement for them. Here are some tips to get started:

Keep it short, especially at first. Your spouse may not have the endurance or the temperament to stay in prayer as long as you. Gradually add more formal prayers as the weeks go by.
Pray alone with your spouse. This couple prayer time is in addition to family prayers, such as the rosary. A good time to pray together is at night, after the kids have gone to bed. Close your bedroom door so the kids don’t hear your petitions. Spend a few minutes in prayer together before you go to bed or do any other last-minute activities.
Pray on your knees. Don’t pray sitting down or lying in bed. For one thing, you might fall asleep. Besides, posture really does matter. It shows God you are really serious about humbling yourselves before Him and asking His help for your marriage and family life.
The husband should always lead the prayers. The man should begin the prayers with the Sign of the Cross and should say the first parts of whatever formal prayers you choose, such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. The couple together then says the rest of the prayer.
Pray both formal and informal prayers. Formal prayers are written down and memorized, such as the Our Father, the Hail Holy Queen, the Glory Be, etc. Informal prayers should come after the formal prayers, and consist of talking with God, Blessed Mother Mary, and the other saints and angels in your own words. Ask them for what you need and be sure to thank them for blessings and graces you’ve already received throughout your marriage.
Strive for the same time and place. Be consistent and actually set aside a time and place every day for your couple prayers. This doesn’t mean you can’t pray together at other times of the day; it is rather a method for developing a habit. Consistent behavior performed for several days in a row will begin to form new habits.

Centenary of my great-grandmother's death in World War I

2016-05-15T06:19:07.000Z

This summer marks the 100-year anniversary of the civilian casualties in “Greater Syria,” which included my Maronite Catholic great-grandmother, Mariam Rayes, and my great-uncle Jacob Rayes. They were killed during a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in May and June 1916. I do not have an exact date, but British forces worked their way north from Egypt, through Mount Lebanon (which includes my family’s home village a few miles northeast of Beirut), and into Turkey. Simultaneously there was an “Arab Revolt” which worked its way from what was then Arabia, into Syria, and finally into Turkey.

Sometime in the summer of 1916, imperial forces from Turkey fought either the British or the Arab rebels In the Mount Lebanon region and my family was killed. I don’t know how they died but World War I was the first modern war, with long-range shells, air combat, and full automatic rifles.

The Lebanese people and my family suffered greatly. There was widespread famine and of course, civilian casualties as European and Middle Eastern politics pushed various factions against each other.

I cannot paint this as a fight of Muslims against Christians. My great-grandmother’s death was senseless and a simple matter of being caught in a war. But the politics behind it were complex; we learn from Our Lady of Fatima that World War I itself was a chastisement which was allowed by God to shock the world back to its senses. It didn’t work: shocked, yes; sensible, never. At the time they naively called it “the War to end all wars.”

There were Christians and Muslims on both sides during various facets of the war, which as far as my family was concerned, was a desperate grasp of power between British and French on one side, Germany and what is now Turkey on the other side, and the Rayes family in the middle. The war was launched by devout Catholics in Austria and escalated by “freedom fighters” in my family’s ancestral home, who were given conflicting promises by the British and French, and eventually led by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). But all this passion and patriotism cost my great-grandmother and my great-uncle their lives in their own village. My grandfather was 26 years old in America when he received the telegram of their deaths.

I will pull two lessons from this. One, ideas have consequences. I am a traditional Catholic and I also have a romantic political tendency to root for the underdog; to advocate libertarian and subsidiary government. I dislike big government and I distrust all levels of government and all governing bodies. Yet, my great-grandmother was killed 100 years ago because of a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, in a war begun by conflict between Austrian Catholics and Serbian Orthodox. Politics played a far, far greater role than religion regarding the war, but the first lesson is that we must be prudent and prayerful when developing one’s own worldview. Rash, inflamed passion and misguided nationalism play exactly into the hands of rich, manipulative politicians. Innocent people thus die. (Catholic Austrians in full military dress came to the pope for his blessing when they were starting the war in 1914. He yelled from his balcony window, “we bless peace, not war!” and walked away, refusing to grant a papal blessing.)

The second lesson is that regardless of my own guarded and even hostile feelings about these United States of America, the nation’s Masonic origins, its vague pan-Theistic founding documents, and its unnecessary devolvement from a confederated republic into a military empire, I owe my very existence to it. If my grandfather had not emigrated to the United States a year before World War I broke out, he would have been killed alongside his brother and mother in his hometown in Lebanon. I thus would not exist.

Join me, as I reflect on my own fatherhood, in raising a generation of godly Catholic Americans who will benignly but assertively shape our country to be ruled by Christ the King, the Prince of Peace.

Bank Robbery sequel is now available

2015-11-26T02:48:48.000Z

Here's some news you've all been waiting for: the sequel to Bank Robbery is finally published! Papal Bull Heist is the second volume in my Spencer Family Mystery series.

I want to thank everyone for your continued support. This is truly a family project, as my talented wife crafted the illustrations and my children read the manuscript and gave me suggestions.

To help Catholic families this Thanksgiving weekend, Rafka Press is offering free U.S. shipping and 20% off all orders. (Use coupon code BOOKS20 to receive the discount.)

Click on the book cover to shop online at Rafka Press, where you can buy the book.

Quick, easy, free, and pleasing to God

2015-08-20T18:35:18.000Z

How to improve your prayer life and enjoy your family at the same time

I would like to show you something that is so quick it only takes 20 seconds. It is remarkably easy to do and completely free.

It won’t cost you one red cent.

And the best part: It will make God smile.

First, I have a question for you: Let’s say your sister comes to visit and she gives your children candy or a little toy. The child takes the gift from her aunt with a big, quiet smile on her face and turns to walk away. What do you do as a parent?

If you are like many parents, you look at your daughter and prompt her with "What do you say?" The child then remembers to thank her aunt.

Let’s get back to the quick, easy, and free thing you can do that will both please God and draw your family closer together at the same time. You probably already pray the "Grace Before Meals" prayer. It goes like this: Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Do you have trouble keeping the family together at meal time? Do the kids leave when they are finished eating, without asking if they can be excused from the table?

Pray "Grace After Meals" and your kids will stick around. They don’t have a choice. They have to wait at the table until pretty much everyone is done eating (you can start the prayer when the last person is still eating, so everyone isn’t stuck waiting for the straggler).

Grace After Meals is quick. It only takes 20 seconds. It’s a very easy prayer. And it’s free. The best thing: You and your entire family will now show gratitude to God! Your loving Savior in Heaven just has to smile when His children on earth remember to say "thank you" after they enjoy a meal from His bounty. Like your daughter who says "thank you" to her aunt in above example, your family can also learn a habit of gratitude.

The prayer goes like this: We give Thee thanks O Almighty God for all Thy benefits, who livest and reignest world without end. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Starting today, you can keep your family together at the table, teach them by your daily practice that they should be grateful people, pray for the poor souls in Purgatory, and show your own gratitude toward God for His blessings.

All in 20 seconds.

Mass-Behaving Children

2015-08-20T18:33:57.000Z

Originally published in The Remnant, October 15, 2007.

You pretend not to notice, but you see them.

All those families. Some with well-behaved children, some with, shall we say, issues.

You try to focus on Sunday morning Mass, but your own kids are distracting and perhaps you are aware of families in the pews around you with similar travails. Every family has children who misbehave at some point or another, but some parents seem to struggle every week. Are there simple changes parents can make that will immediately improve their children's behavior?

Parents with misbehaved children never position them correctly in the pew. On the other hand, parents with well-behaved children almost always position them well. Here are two examples:

[end of pew] Dad, Mom, boy, boy, boy, boy, girl, [end of pew]
The kids in this pew are naughty, unfocused, turn around in their seat, and generally distract everyone.

[end of pew] boy, Dad, boy, boy, Mom, girl, boy, [end of pew]
The kids in this pew are much better behaved. They usually don't turn around, and they kneel when they are supposed to.

If you change your seating arrangement in the pew, that strategy alone will make your children behave better. How is the father supposed to keep an eye on his sons if they are out of reach? The best seating arrangement is done by knowing your children and placing them strategically by their temperaments and their ages.

The temperaments

You might ask, what's the difference between temperament and personality? Temperament is what someone is inclined to do because of how they are wired. Personality combines temperament with the learned habits of a person. So, temperament is how you were born, but personality is what you became. Since children--especially small children--do not yet have fully developed personalities, let's take a closer look at temperament.

It is somewhat rare that a person is purely one temperament. Most people have a mixed temperament, but one temperament tends to dominate the other (especially in childhood!). Thus, you may have a sanguine-choleric child and a choleric-melancholic child. Here is a quick snapshot of the four temperaments from Greek antiquity:

Temperament	Characteristics
Sanguine	Optimistic, flirty, shallow, sociable, prefers group activities.
Choleric	Ambitious, argumentative, insensitive, self-confident, active.
Melancholic	Introspective, avoids groups, prefers to work and play alone, lacks self-confidence, moody, frets and worries.
Phlegmatic	Slow, lazy, distant, mood is constant, indifferent to external affairs, sluggish, passive.

Recommended positioning for your family

Here are a couple of seating arrangements I recommend when attending Mass with your family. They take both age and the classical four temperaments into consideration:

[end of pew] Melancholic-Phlegmatic older child, Sanguine younger child, Father, toddler, Melancholic-Phlegmatic older child, Sanguine older child, Mother, baby, [end of pew]
In the above arrangement, the mother needs to sit on the end so she can make a hasty exit if the baby starts to make noise.

The next seating arrangement is for a family with a father who tends to discipline more than the mother.

[end of pew] Sanguine-choleric teen, Melancholic-Phlegmatic younger child, toddler, Father, toddler, Choleric older child or teen, Melancholic-Phlegmatic older child or teen, Mother, older child (any temperament), [end of pew]
Notice that in the above example, the toddlers sit next to Dad. This works well in a family with a calm mother and a somewhat high-strung father. Why? Because the calm mother is soft. While this works well during the week because of her natural tenderness, she'll put up with too much from them during Sunday Mass. They need to be on either side of Dad, who should have the endurance to keep focusing them on the Mass. Some fathers have a tendency to sit away from children who irritate them the most. They should do the exact opposite. The young child will be motivated to behave well, and the father will naturally correct the child every now and then.

This may seem like a lot of work, and the last thing you need at Mass is more distractions. Yes, it may be difficult to correct one of your children sitting next to you the first Sunday or two. But it gets easier as time goes by. God never denies graces to parents who keep trying; even if you must discipline a child and don't hear part of the Mass, you can unite that sacrifice to the liturgical sacrifice of our Lord on the cross.

Parenting styles

In the above examples, the father disciplines, the mother is laid-back (or is easily overwhelmed). One spouse in most marriages tends to be more laid-back about child discipline, and the other spouse tends to be the active disciplinarian. What about your marriage? Who tends to have a lower tolerance of misbehavior from the kids? Sit the younger ones next to that parent. The older children can sit next to the calmer parent.

Notice also, in the recommended seating arrangements, that the gender of the children has nothing to do with where they are seated. It doesn't matter if your child is a boy or a girl. What really matters is their temperament. Who clashes with whom? Children who tend to have a lot of friction shouldn't sit together. Oftentimes, it is because their temperaments clash. If you have a large family, you can also use their age ranges to your advantage. Place older children next to younger children. Have the older children help the younger ones focus on the Mass.

In both recommended seating scenarios, the mother and father are strategically placed (especially the father) so they can reach the "highest maintenance" children easily.

What if you have a small family, or there is only one parent at Mass? Try this arrangement:

[end of pew] Sanguine child, Melancholic child, Mother, Choleric child, [end of pew]
The sanguine child has the end seat, so he can see the altar better. Sanguines tend to have focusing issues, so this seat may help. Having the choleric child next to the parent will help curtail the child's natural bossiness from irritating the other children. Or, depending upon the age of the child, you may want to put an older choleric child next to a much younger child--the older choleric could help the younger child follow a prayer book.

Before you go to Mass next Sunday, plan with your spouse how you will position your children in the pew. Then, Sunday morning before you enter the church, have them line up in the vestibule in their proper seating order. That way, they won't have to climb all over each other getting into the proper position when they get into the pew.

Everyone in your family will be better off in their new positions. Your children will behave better and there will be more peace. This is a relatively easy change you can make as a Catholic parent. Once the children adjust to their new seats, it will make an often hectic Sunday morning smoother for you.

When my wife and I began to separate our children in the pew according to their temperaments, we noticed improvements in their behaviors right away. Of course, we still need to correct their posture periodically throughout Mass (especially Low Mass, for which the younger ones seem to have a low tolerance). Having a strategy really helped, instead of simply showing up without a seating and discipline plan. After all, if Holy Mass is important, shouldn't we plan for it?

You can spice up your marriage this week (Part II)

2015-08-20T18:28:21.000Z

The previous article discussed ways to spice up your Catholic marriage. Part II features even more ways to add zest to your marriage, keep it Catholic, and reawaken the love you and your spouse have for each other.

Play one of your favorite songs from when you were dating, and dance together.

Like the love notes, this is more important for a couple who danced together in the past, but fell out of the habit. If you think your spouse won’t like dancing, try it anyway and see if your assumption is true. If neither of you enjoy dancing, stop and do something else. On the other hand, you may have both found a new activity together.

Music is very powerful. A relatively new field of study called "Music Cognition" shows that music affects the brain and can strongly affect memory. The Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, held a symposium in 2006 on music’s ability to affect memory. Topics included musical therapy and psychology. ^[1]

In the early 1980s, Dr. Howard Gardner developed a theory of "multiple intelligences." The idea is that children and adults learn best one certain way. Some learn through hearing, some are visual learners, some hands-on, and others are musical learners. Put words to a song, and the words will easily be memorized. ^[2]

What this means for your Catholic marriage is that music has an emotional and cognitive power that you can use to help bond your relationship with your spouse. The Church recognized this long ago; that’s why Gregorian chant is so old and has a place in the liturgy.

Pick a song you remember back when you were dating. A flood of memories will more than likely accompany that song. If they are happy memories, play the song when you and your spouse are alone together. The song should be a love song that doesn’t blatantly go against traditional marriage.

Play Charades together (a word guessing game where you cannot speak).

This makes the two of you focus on your body language more, and ironically, it will really improve your communication! Hint: A great time to play this game is when the baby is sleeping. It’s a quiet game that won’t wake the baby.

There are many forms of communication. Verbal communication is simply one of them. The really interesting thing about non-verbal communication is what it reveals. You may begin to feel "connected" with your spouse in a way you haven’t felt recently.

Unfortunately, this is because much verbal communication with one’s spouse is, shall we say, "charged." There is urgency to the voice, perhaps a critical tone; couples talk about what is important to them (the laundry, child care, bills, bills, and more bills).

Non-verbal communication in a relaxed, playful atmosphere (in a game of Charades or any other body language / non-verbal game) does not have this charged, stressful tone. Women in particular may learn a lot from this, as their husbands may readily agree to the game. This is because multiple studies have shown that women speak, on average, two to three times as many words per day as men. There are many conflicting studies regarding this, but all the research points to more words out of the mouths of women.

This kind of game might just be the thing your husband agrees to do with you.

If you’re both super busy, meet for lunch.

Make it a lunch appointment. Try to get a longer lunch hour for that day if you can.

It sounds weird, but treat your spouse as if he or she were a client or someone important to meet with. Write the lunch appointment into your calendar and actually make time for it. A babysitter at home and the couple going out for lunch alone is best. Both spouses at home during a lunch break, however, works almost as well.

Use this time to talk about whatever you want. Some couples may want to "catch up" and talk about all the errands they need to do; others may wish to only discuss non-stressful topics. The important thing is that both spouses agree to discuss whatever is mutually agreeable for the lunch break. This should not be an acrimonious time.

The important thing is to purposely break up a work day and force yourself to spend time with your spouse. Doing this once or twice a month (or more if you can) is a great way to stay "connected" with your spouse and show you really do care about his or her day.

You see, minds wander. For women especially, when too much time is spent away from each other, all kinds of nagging doubts enter the female mind. The devil knows just when to plant a little negative suggestion into the mind of your wife. If you don't spend enough time together, your wife may begin to wonder what you are doing. Trust may slowly break down over the course of several months.

Husbands, you can avoid all of this by showing your wife by your lunch appointment that she is so important, you are making time for her. This goes the other way around as well. Men will appreciate the respect and trust his wife has when she schedules a lunch date with him.

Spend 15 minutes in front of the tabernacle. Together.

Take a break from work (perhaps a lunch hour), meet your spouse at the nearest traditional Catholic Church, and spend 15 minutes of quiet time together, kneeling in front of the tabernacle. Ask God to bless your spouse. Trust and peace are critical to a good marriage. As Bishop Fulton J. Sheen once wrote, there are three to get married: the third party is the Holy Ghost. Bishop Sheen also wrote in his book Three to Get Married that true love rises up to meet the one who is loved. This is why the two of you should physically travel to the home of the third party in your marriage and visit Him.

"Because love goes up to meet the beloved," wrote Bishop Sheen, "it follows that the nobler the love, the nobler the character... Love is useless when alone, as it is in sleep or death." ^[3]

Bishop Sheen then drove home the real problem that modern people have:

[M]any hearts develop a restlessness and a fatigue which keep the rich busy running to psychoanalysts to have their anxiety explained away, and the poor having recourse to the cheaper charlatans of alcoholism and sleeping tablets.... The basic error of mankind has been to assume that only two are needed for love: you and me, or society and me, or humanity and me. Really it takes three: self, other selves, and God; you, me, and God.^[4]

The 15 minutes of time you spend in prayer with your spouse, directly in the Real Presence of God, is in addition to the time you spend at Sunday Mass surrounded by a thousand other people. At the very least, try to spend 15 minutes every month at home if you can’t make it to a church. Pray some prayers together, asking God for help, re-consecrating your marriage, and thanking God for your spouse. As always, the husband must lead these prayers.

All of these activities have one thing in common: time. Life gets pretty busy with work, kids, and church activities. Sometimes we don’t remind our spouse how much we like him or her. It’s one thing to love someone, but do you like them?

You didn’t get married just to spend time away from each other. No one ever says, "Yes! I think I’ll get married so I can spend time away from my spouse, drift apart, and not enjoy any activities together."

Re-awaken the reasons you married in the first place. You might not like your spouse very much right now. Perhaps you can relate to some of these comments:

"He is grumpier than he used to be."
"He isn't patient with the kids."
"She isn't as pretty as she was when I married her."
"She criticizes me way too much."

Find focused activities you can do together like the ones in this article. It really is true that people have an affinity for those with whom they spend enjoyable time together. Shouldn't that person be the one you married in the first place?

“Music Cognition Symposium 2006-2007,” Music Theory Dept., Eastman School of Music (online from http://theory.esm.rochester.edu/dept_website/mus-cog-hist.html). ↩
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., “Multiple Intelligences” (online from http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm). ↩
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, D.D., Three to Get Married (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1951) p. 69. ↩
Ibid., pp. 71-72. ↩

You can spice up your marriage this week (part I)

2015-08-20T18:28:12.000Z

Whether you are newlyweds or celebrating your silver anniversary, you can try some new activities that will add zest to your marriage and help you both communicate!

This is a two-part article. Part I discusses ways to add spark to your marriage and encourages couples to express love in ways the other will readily understand.

Play a board game together. Get a good old-fashioned one, like Scrabble or Monopoly.

Playing a game together (just the two of you) provides a non-stressful activity you can both work on and enjoy. Many couples already work on the bills together. They talk about child care, education, work, and other stressful topics together. A board game is a great stress reliever that will pull you and your spouse together again.

Watch her nose crinkle when she laughs. Look at his eyes when he’s concentrating on the game. This is still the same person you committed to on your wedding day.

Start a hobby together that you will both enjoy. Tennis, anyone?

A hobby together is like playing a board game on steroids. If you really want to stay close to your spouse, a mutual hobby is a great way to do it. There will probably be some compromise here. He may want to go hunting or bowling and she may want to play chess or go garage-sale bargain hunting. You’ll have to find something in which both of you are interested.

The point of the hobby together is to keep the two of you centered on a safe mutual interest that hones your communication skills. It also keeps the marriage fun and helps the couple fall in love again. According to Dr. Willard F. Harley Jr., a noted author and expert on marriage, the married couple should make sure their most enjoyable recreation time is spent together. Dr. Harley writes that married couples tend to spend more time apart as they have babies because someone always needs to be with the baby. However, couples tend to forget that they need to spend their most enjoyable recreation time together. This time creates (or sustains) an emotional attachment to the other person.

As it turns out, falling in and out of love is not as much of a mystery as some literature and music make it out to be. Love is simply an emotional reaction that is triggered by repeated associations of very good feelings with a person of the opposite sex. Technically, we can fall in love with anyone of the opposite sex if we feel particularly good whenever we are with that person. ^[1]

Go for walks together around your neighborhood and compare front yards.

It’s free, it’s good exercise, and it helps the two of you re-focus on your own house and yard. Be sure to hold hands when you walk.

Land is important to a family. Even if you have a city row house or a small lot in a suburban area, your own land is where you can grow a vegetable garden and watch your children play. You may not realize how important this is to the proper development of a child, but running around and exploring raw nature outside helps a child focus indoors. ADHD researchers have conducted studies with groups of children across the United States to confirm this.^[2] If going outside is good for your children, it must also be good for you and your spouse. The fresh air and change of scenery clears the mind.

Leave love notes for each other in the bathroom. Or, write notes to each other in a notebook.

This is especially important if you once wrote notes to each other (for example, before you were married) but fell out of the habit.

The note doesn’t have to be a big production. Make it short and sweet so it doesn’t seem like a lot of work. Then it will actually get done and you won’t dread doing it! Here is an example for a man writing to his wife:

Hi honey,

I was thinking about you today and I want you to know how much I appreciate all you do around the house. I love you.

The above sample love note is very short. It has three expressions of love that a woman craves:

Thought. "I was thinking about you today." That means your mind is engaged on your wife.
Gratitude. "I appreciate..." The bitter feminist movements of the '60s, '70s, and '80s may not have even started if men showed women how thankful they were.
Articulation. "I love you." You actually have to say or write "I love you" to constantly remind your wife of it. Here is an example for a woman writing to her husband:

Hi honey,

I noticed how well you handled that phone call and I want you to know how proud I am of you. I really love and respect you.

This sample love note to a man has two expressions of love that a man craves:

Appreciation. "I noticed..." It doesn’t matter what you noticed. Just pick something he did that you were impressed with. Men need to be appreciated. This motivates them.
Respect. "how proud I am..." and "respect you." Regardless of their temperament, men crave respect, according to Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. He writes in his book Love & Respect that men need respect from their wives. St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:33) shows this as a revealed dogma of Christian marriage, according to Dr. Eggerichs.^[3] Men need to be looked up to by their wives. Belittling or critical remarks wear them down, but respectful comments energize them.

Some people may voice an objection to being taught how to write love notes (or to speak these words to your spouse) because, they say, if you have to be shown what to write or say, it isn’t sincere. The simple answer to that is: only write in your love letter what you sincerely mean! Ladies, most men really do love their wives, but they literally don’t know how to express their love in a way you understand. The same goes for you: women may not really understand what kind of love a husband needs. These love expressions can be taught, but the words you use will always be your own.

Look for Part II of this article, which features even more ways to add zest to your marriage, keep it Catholic, and reawaken the love you and your spouse have for each other.

Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D., “Why Should a Couple Plan to Be with Each Other When They Are the Happiest?” (online from Marriage Builders (http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5069_qa.html). ↩
Jeannine Virtue, “Nature: An ADHD Treatment,” Mental Health Matters (online from http://www.mental-health-matters.com/articles/article.php?artID=707). ↩
Emerson Eggerichs, Ph.D., “About Love & Respect” (online from http://www.loveandrespect.com/content/about_love_and_respect.php). ↩