The childless couple
Some years ago, I was invited by a parish priest to facilitate a review of a marriage preparation course that he had offered in his parish over the previous decade. He had invited all couples who had participated in the program to come together for a working session.
Before this meeting, I had prepared a questionnaire to be completed by each partner to enable him or her to look back over their years of marriage and to inquire how well the course had set some helpful guidelines for their union.
There was one critical question that elicited an almost universal response: “What has given you the greatest fulfilment during the years of your marriage?”
Each participant, almost without exception and without comparing notes with his or her partner, gave the unequivocal answer: “Having our children.”
Some couples enter into marriage with no intention of having children. They are either content merely with each other’s company, usually both being deeply involved in a career, and possibly believing that a child would be a hindrance to their plans.
Alternatively, they might be couples who took on the vocation of marriage knowing that parenthood would never be a practical issue for them due to their advanced years.
With those two exceptions, there are couples who longed to have a child and yet were never able to achieve that objective. Through some medically evident reasons or ones of no explanation, they found themselves incapable of conceiving. They might have invested time and money on various medical procedures to achieve their aim with no success. They might have chosen the other ever-decreasing option of adoption.
Where does that leave the childless couple? Do they have to see themselves simply as ones who have missed out, or just as deprived partners in the general sea of couples, who have been endowed with children?
Only the couples who finds themselves in these circumstances can attempt to tell you how they feel, and share with you the ways in which their situation has affected their relationship, and how they have coped.
The absence of children ought not to preclude the fulfilment and happiness of the partners. In essence, a true marriage is the giving and receiving of each other in love. And, if both persevere with that, with the help of God, then they ought to constantly be a source of happiness to each other.
While children can be the beautiful products of such a union, of and by themselves, they can’t guarantee its fulfilment. Partners who find themselves childless, can have a deeply loving and truly fulfilling relationship without them. A bond that bears no offspring ought not to be a totally inward-looking link, because ideally speaking, the genuine love of the husband and wife concerned should overflow to neighbours and to others.
If your marriage happens to be a relationship that has not been blessed with children, may I offer you a prayer? It is one that I have composed. I offer it to you with my sincere good wishes that you will find happiness together.
Prayer for a Childless Couple
Lord, in the journey that we are making together,
we have found ourselves without children.
While so many couples around us
rejoice in a son or a daughter,
and even delight in a grandchild,
we simply have to be content with each other.
Given these circumstances, it’s so easy at times
to focus on what we are missing
rather than concentrate on what we have– our own selves.
Having each other,
so long as we don’t take each other for granted,
can be really wonderful.
It gives us tremendous scope to work onour relationship,
to grow in real knowledge of each other
to deepen our respect and strengthen our love.
So, may we strive to do all these things,
ever ready to admit our failures,
to say we’re sorry and to forgive each other, too,
where that’s called for.
In the end, may we give and receive each other,
just as we promised to do on the day we married,
and started this great journey together.
As broadcast during The Family Counsellor program over Radio Sport 927 on Sunday, June 22, 2003.
By Dean Emeritus Gerard Dowling OAM
Spiritual Director of Centacare, Catholic Family Services, Melbourne
Grace Mizzi
www.mmponline.org
Send Oh Lord Holy Apostles into your church“Christ has no body but yours, no hands butyours, no feet but yours.Yours are the eyes through which Christ’scompassion must look upon the world.Yours are the feet with which He is to go about
doing good.Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”St. Theresa of Avila
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The Childless couple
Posted - Oct 22 2008 : 9:27:25 PM
