Note: To hear an audio recording of Dr. Philip Mango’s talk on the “The Theological and Psychological Dimensions of a Healthy Marriage,” along with the discussion that ensued, click here. You must have RealPlayer installed to hear the recording. Click here to download a copy of RealPlayer, if necessary (please note there is a free RealPlayer Basic version of the software available). You can also, if you are interested, order a copy of his talk on tape or CD by sending an e-mail to info@catholicculture.com. Lastly, both The Theology of Body and The Good News About Sex and Marriage, books which Dr. Mango mentions in his talk, are available from Our Father’s Will Communications at (866) 333-6392.

“The Theological and Psychological Dimensions of a Healthy Marriage”

It may be the hope of each of us to fall in love, to give ourself to someone who truly loves us. John Paul II has written The Theology of the Body which we will be studying for this entire century. It is so profound and important, and it is at the very core of what it means to be a human being. While difficult to understand in its original presentation, Christopher West has translated the Pope’s thinking into a book called The Good News About Sex and Marriage.

Based on 30 years experience as a psychotherapist with individuals, couples and families, coupled with research on what constitutes a healthy marriage, Dr. Mango set fourth four dimensions of a healthy marriage, interweaving psychology with the teachings of Pope John Paul II.

1. The Influence of Our Family of Origin

First, it is important to look at major trials in our childhoods — sexual abuse, alcoholic parents, fathers not loving sons —and confront these. There’s a crisis in our culture — a fear of commitment — stretching back to the emotional unavailability of the father to affirm the son. Also for girls — what does it mean to be feminine? Maybe we’ve already dealt with this. We should close our eyes and go back to when we were seven years old. If pain comes up, that’s normal. It’s not over till it’s over, and we want it to be really over. Facing this means we will have more insight on ourselves and others, more compassion for ourselves and others, and we will develop character qualities called virtues: courage, perseverance, humility.

2. The Quality of How We Communicate with Others and Resolve Conflicts

Neurologically, men and women are different. Learning how to communicate effectively and resolve conflict is a step-by-step process, which becomes second-nature. The book Brain Sex shows how hardwired and radical these differences are. Men think on the right side of their brain. Women think on the left side, but can also switch left to right. John Paul II asked the human sciences profession to study masculinity and femininity from the biological, cultural, social perspectives.

Right brain thought — how men think — is neurologically oriented towards doing, objectivity, analysis rather than synthesis, parts rather than whole, goals, actions, externally oriented. Women are oriented towards relationships, persons, whole context, detail, concreteness, specificity, being (not primarily doing).

Research has shown young girls and boys to play games very differently. When asked to make a scene with blocks, boys build towers and lanes. Girls build round objects to put something in. The way the little boy experiences his physical self is the phallus going up and down, and he is propelled outward. The girl has an interior sense of her vagina. The body is the basis for characteristically feminine and masculine attitudes which then become the basis for the spiritual roles of men and women in the church and society.

Men initiate a positive action. A man who is not taking initiative is experiencing conflict. Like God (who is “Papa”), their essential identity is to initiate good action and sustain it with love and power.

Woman is predominantly taking in and working on what is given by the male and giving back out creatively. The masculine power is authority — this is how we should do things for harmony. The feminine power is relational — you and me, honey, we have to relate to each other. Women glue things together. Like Mary at the wedding at Cana. She asked her son to do something about the wine. It’s not my time, he said. She went to speak to the waiters. Then they went to Jesus and said “Yes, sir?”

There are two definitions of manipulation in the dictionary. The first is skillfully arranging conditions so that something selfish can happen to you. The second is skillfully arranging conditions so that something good happens to others. This second definition is the feminine genius, so, women, go into your law firms and businesses and bring the genius of Catholic womanhood. Help heal the world and glue us back together.

Once, while working with Mother Teresa, Dr. Mango wrote up a study and showed it to her. It’s got a very beautiful border, she said. As Dr. Mango was leaving, he felt a gentle tap. “Dr. Mango, if we say it this way, everyone will know we love them.” Dr. Mango had the technique, principles, the objective truth, but women are mercy. Men are justice. Justice without mercy is cruelty. Mercy without justice is corruption. This is why we need both. Only God has this together totally.

So, effective communication hinges on learning the differences between men and women. Men and women have the same needs with different intensities of voltage.A woman wants connection, she needs to be physically and emotionally touched, tenderly cared for. Five on a scale of 1 to 5. Men need this too, but at a 3 level. For a man, the most intense need — a 5 — is to be admired for who he is and what he does.

Women imagine in their subconscious that the man has the same need, so she gives the guy what she likes. He’s not being selfish, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, but his way of feeling love is admiration for his character — he wants to be affirmed for what he is doing. Women’s greatest fear is abandonment. Men’s greatest fear is failure. A woman can help restore a man if he is demoralized — thought she cannot give him his manhood. These are forms of love between the sexes.

The fact that women want connection and men want independence and autonomy causes fights in relationships, and it need not. Abandonment is not meant at all by a man sitting silently. Or a woman who is looking for affection is not necessarily clinging and desperate. A man’s need in marriage to express love and affection sexually is more intense and frequent than a woman’s. This need not cause conflict if dealt with as a human difference. Women are more likely to get their needs for affection met if she meets his needs, and vice versa.

St. Paul said women, respect and fit into your husbands’ plans. Men, love your wives as Jesus loved the Church. John Paul II calls this a mutual yielding to one another. Men are the head of the family, the authority, but they are not the boss, not authoritarian or wimpy. It is not a suggestion by God that men lead, but a command. Any country, church, school, family without authentic sacrificial male leadership is dying.

When our brothers stormed into the Twin Towers, we saw authentic manhood at its best. Dr. Mango had the honor to interview some of them. “You guys are heroes,” he said. “Naw, just doing what I’m supposed to do.” There’s no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. And when we have that in a father in a family, when we have that in a priest, then the women benefit too, because they flourish.

So, the needs of men and woman have a different hierarchy, and if we appreciate this then we talk to each other differently.

3. Sexuality and Love

The first dimension of sexuality and love is libido, the physical sexual drive for the opposite sex. This needs to be present pre-maritally. The second is the erotic dimension. Eros includes the sexual and physical but goes beyond this to his person and her person. She has a sweet smile, a sweetness and gentleness. The third dimension is friendship. I’m not only attracted to her, but I enjoy her, I respect her, we have mutual values, we trust each other. The fourth is agape. I am ready and willing and able and I do make a commitment to you. I will love you. Your needs are as important as my own.

Before marriage, we should look at where we are at in each of these dimensions. Are there former boyfriends or girlfriends we have not healed from? Are we still angry/do we feel inadequate? Does Mom or Dad need to be forgiven? Etc.

How long do you date? Dr. Mango would say 1 or 1 1/2 years. He has women who come to him who say “I’ve been dating John for six years. John’s not sure." Dr. Mango says, “Take John and dump him now.”

4. Spirituality and Prayer Life

There is extrinsic spirituality and intrinsic spirituality. Extrinsic means we are doing all the right things, belong to the Catholic club. Intrinsic means we are Roman Catholics trying to live out the fundamentals of our faith. Am I letting Jesus take my heart? Am I trying each day to give him my heart? Is there anyone in my life whom I hate, whom I haven’t forgiven? Christ came to reconcile us to ourselves, so we can be at peace with ourselves, with each other, and with the Father. The rosary, Mass, scripture are only to help us reconcile us to ourselves, to each other and to the Father, with preferential love for the poor.

Couples with a personal relationship with God have much more success. The University of Chicago has a beautiful study that says the more religious a woman is the better her marriage and sexual satisfaction. This came as a shock. For one hundred years, psychologists have been saying religion is bad, it’s the thing that makes you sick. The more genuinely intrinsic our spirituality is — we pray, love, forgive, believe in the Eucharist — the chances are we’ll have a better sexual and married life, we will live longer, we will come out of depression quicker.

Non-contracepting couples have a 2-4% divorce rate, compared to 50% on average. Why? The woman is responsible concerning her fertility, and so is the man. They are both learning about her body together — God’s creation. They are spacing their children for just reasons. They are allowing Christ inside their marriage. The woman does not feel like she is being used. The man is not viewing her as a sexual object. So when they make love, there is a certainty they are not using each other. And it requires that they talk to each other and communicate well.

John Paul II said that sexuality in marriage is what life is all about. What’s going on in the Trinity for all eternity is that the Father is giving Himself totally to the Son, the Son is receiving and giving Himself totally back to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the relationship between the Father and Son. This is the highest level of love. The sexual act where man and woman give and receive each other is a profound medium of exchange of God. Orgasm is the physical symbol of God — God’s incredible delight and joy.

In the last chapter of Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla writes that man must be lovingly attentive to bring his wife to climax, or else she might develop resentment and bitterness. This is a very beautiful thing, because John Paul is saying that a way for a man to be Christ to his wife, to be holy, is sexual. The Holy Spirit has given this brilliant and holy Pope the insight into a very important issue of our time. “I will have no prudery,” the Pope has said, “I’m dealing with God’s creation.”

Our sexuality is that part of us that is very vulnerable. It is not something we do but something we are. Every single cell in a woman’s body is female; every single cell in a man’s body is male. The first reality we perceive about another person is gender. Our awareness of each other is always sexual.

See George Weigel’s Witness to Hope for the finest summary (twelve pages) of the theology of the body. Read it and meditate on it, because it is the most important issue of our lives, for our happiness and holiness.