About National Marriage Week
An initiative to support and encourage married couples, and those preparing for marriage, right across Ireland.
A week set aside, for a lifetime that matters
National Marriage Week is a week set aside to focus on marriage. It's for couples who have been together thirty years, and couples who married last spring. It's for anyone who wants their marriage to work, and to work well.
We want to help couples live out the dream they started with: a long and lasting marriage, built on love, laughter and commitment. Marriage doesn't have to be average. It can always be better.
How do you spell love?
T.I.M.E.
A gift for pleasure and enjoyment within a marriage. A vital part of the relationship. Talk through problems. Be tender. Be responsive. Be romantic. Build each other up.
The big "C" in Irish society
In recent years, the world has become far easier to access. There is so much more to see and choose from, and a lot of that is good. It has helped us develop as a nation. But with more choice, we sometimes stand back and hold off committing to anything, or anyone, just in case something better comes along. We change lanes like traffic on a motorway.
Love and loyalty are two of the parts of a relationship that hold it together. Sometimes we don't feel love for our husband or wife, but we can choose to be loyal, and to love them even when we don't feel like it. Choosing can be an act of will, and the feelings follow. If marriage is for life, as most people hope, then it takes work to keep it that way.
Love has an immense ability to help heal the wounds that life sometimes deals us. It also strengthens our sense of connection to the wider world, and it's worth fighting for.
We live in the drama of connection and disconnection with each other. Turning to each other for emotional support is a sign, and a source, of strength. When we feel safely linked to our partner, we more easily roll with the hurts they inevitably cause, and we're less likely to react with hostility when we're upset with them.
Conflict is normal, and can be an opportunity for growth. Unwrapping the layers of ourselves so that we have a deeper relationship with each other can be challenging. We may sense the raw spots left by old hurts we'd rather not expose again. We want to protect that, which is understandable. Forgiveness can be hard. Holding onto unforgiveness can be like drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer for it.
Research suggests that when marriages fail, it's rarely rising conflict that's the cause. It's more often decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness. As psychologist Jim Coan puts it, the people we love are the hidden regulators of our bodily processes and our emotional lives.
In Genesis, the Hebrew word for a husband and wife "cleaving" to one another carries the sense of being glued together. Not just physically, but emotionally, socially and spiritually. Let's all stick together with the person we love.
Thank you
A community can help raise a child. In the same way, a community can help support a marriage. Many parents support their children by looking after the grandchildren, giving a married couple the time they need to strengthen their relationship. Thanks to relations and friends who help marriages stay together, and to everyone who gives couples the breathing space to reflect, recharge and go again.
It's never too late to reconnect
Disconnection can happen to any couple. We can end up living parallel lives, dealing with day-to-day tasks together but not really connecting. Looking at what we do separately and what we do together, then choosing what to change, can help bring a marriage back to life.
See the Restoration exercise