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Document Details : Title: Le dialogue conjugal Subtitle: Colonne vertébrale du couple Author(s): DE LAYRE, Isabelle , DE LAYRE, Alain Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Date: Spring 1997 Pages: 36-43 DOI: 10.2143/INT.3.1.2014810 Abstract : The marital dialogue The understanding between the marriage partners is a real element for the success of their relationship. A key instrument of such understanding is marital conversation – a real art, learnt by practice and demanding constantly to be cultivated and deepened. This conversation should not be confused with the frequently superficial and banal communication of everyday life. We are talking first and foremost about a genuine and profound exchange in which the marriage partners learn to give themselves each into the hands of the other and to discover each other more and more. This mutual surrender helps them to an understanding of themselves and of the other, an understanding that they themselves would once scarcely have thought possible. A presupposition for such a conversation is that the marriage partners take off their “armour” and share with the other what concerns them inwardly. This succeeds only where there is a conviction of genuine love. A valuable aid to the attainment of this level of mutual surrender consists in entrusting the marital conversation to God, leaving it to Him and conducting it in His presence. It would be desirable if this kind of conversation could be practised right at the beginning of a marriage, before disap- pointments and crises first begin. In this way many crisis situations could be alleviated. The marital conversation is the best way to establish harmony in the relationship and it is also part of the (job-bringing) duty of the partners – at least if they are Christians. It can make them into contagious examples of successful love to others. |
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