While we appreciate Joanna Moorhead's sentiments (“There are no perfect marriages outside Hollywood, or perhaps outside of the Vatican”, The Tablet, 22 November), there are omissions in her summing up of the Vatican's "sepia-tinted movie version" of marriage.
The given reasons as to why these couples have remained "connected, spiritually and emotionally, through the many up and downs" she suggests, is due to any or all of the following: their background, education, similar outlook or just good luck. We are sure that we are not alone as a married couple, in claiming that none of these apply to us. We come from different cultures (Brian Irish, Maureen English), very different experiences educationally (Maureen passed 11+ grammar school, Brian, being a son of immigrants in the fifties, had no settled education and left school at 14). Many of the difficulties in our marriage have come from our different outlook on life, and luck doesn't come into the equation, hard work does.
Much of what Joanna Moorhead says we see as eminently sensible, especially her comments regarding the importance of communication in marriage. What we find missing is the fact that despite the many difficulties and challenges we (and others like us) have had to overcome in our 48 years of marriage, and parenting of seven children, is that it is our faith and our individual and couple response to the graces inherent in our marriage, that continues to sustain our relationship. It is the “working at it” together, as we were taught to do ten years into our marriage, and renewing the “yes” to our vows by daily “yeses”.
We speak about these realities in schools, on Missions, in our home to the couples before us on the brink of breaking up – just commit to coming here once a week for six weeks we say, join us on this roller coaster. What do you want is the key question? How can you get there? Maybe the love and harmony shown by those couples in the Vatican films is a fruit of their working at their marriages, and maybe what it is signalling is the need for much better preparation, ongoing support and awareness for all in the Church. We know of many broken marriages, including among family and friends, and the mess that follows. Live in the messiness of marriage but put your Sunday clothes on if you're being filmed.
Brian and Maureen Devine, Leigh on Sea, Essex
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