64 Subtle Ways Catholics Cheat on their Spouses: How and Why

1. Intro
    
   1. It is good to have you with us,
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   1. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist
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   1. Interior Integration for Catholics 
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   1. Part of our Online outreach Souls and Hearts and soulsandhearts.com
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   1. Episode 64 released April 19, 2021
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   1. Subtle Ways Catholics Cheat on their Spouses:  How and Why.
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   1. Getting into natural level issues around our commitment, the covenant a husband and a wife make in a Catholic sacramental marriage.  
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9. Brief Review -- Canopied Marriage Bed
    
   1. Description of each part of the bed -- symbolism of each part, what each part represents.  
      1.  The rock-solid floor in the bedroom is the Foundation -- The presence of God -- and an active belief in God's Providence
          
         1. This is the foundation
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         1. Childlike trust, absolute confidence
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         1. Reflects the reality of our existential dependence and God's paternal care, Mary's maternal care for us.  
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      5. Four legs -- now more in the natural realm
          
         1. Leg 1 -- the husband's commitment to his own interior integration, his own human formation, his psychological health, his emotional wellbeing -- removing the beam from his own eye -- last episode. Episode 63
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         1. Leg 2.  the wife's commitment to her own interior integration, her own human formation, her own psychological health, her own emotional wellbeing -- her taking on her own personal responsibility for her natural life  last episode. Episode 63
             
            1. Definition of Human Formation  Human formation is the lifelong process of natural development, aided by grace, by which a person integrates all aspects of his interior emotional, cognitive, relational, and bodily life, all of his natural faculties in an ordered way, conformed with right reason and natural law so that he is freed from natural impediments to trust God as His beloved child and to embrace God's love.  Then, in return, because he possesses himself, he can love God, neighbor and himself with all of his natural being in an ordered, intimate, personal, and mature way.
         2.  
            1. That is what we are focused on in this podcast.  Human formation:
                
               1. This podcast helps you focus inward on your interior integration -- to help you bring together the different parts of yourself into unity and harmony with God.
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               1. Together, we are on a journey toward deep transformation, a radical conversion at the core of our being so that our souls can one day enter into contemplative union with God.
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      7. 
         
         1. Leg 3.  Attachment Needs and Integrity Needs --  Episode 62,
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         1. Leg 4.  Internal Family Systems approaches -- understanding deeply how the human person is both a unity and a multiplicity -- like an orchestra is a unity -- one orchestra, but also has within it multiplicity, multiple musicians -- check out Episodes 60 and 61
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      10. The Frame  and the Box Spring -- this holds the whole bed together and it represents the firm commitment between the husband and the wife, the upholding of the marriage vows,  
          1. We are focusing on this today.  The commitment, the vows of Catholic married life
          2. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.  
          3. It's the charity.  Willing the highest good for one another
      11. The Mattress -- Empathetic attunement -- really knowing the spouse, really being able to enter into the phenomenological world of the spouse
      12. Bottom sheet fitted sheet -- sexual attraction, the intensity of sexual passion -- hinges on all that is underneath it.  Can't you just help us get the fire, the passion back into our love life.  
      13. Top Sheet -- communication between the Catholic spouses. 
      14. Two Pillows -- Acceptance of who the husband is right now -- Acceptance of who the wife is right now. Self-acceptance and Spouse acceptance   
      15. The blankets -- human warmth, emotional connection
      16. Four bedposts -- intertwined spirals, like a double helix --  Mindset, Heartset, Bodyset, Soulset  
      17. The Canopy and the curtains, which cover the bed and provide privacy -- for good or for ill.  
      18. The Shams, the bedspread and the bed skirts -- these cover up the bed, give a favorable and even a false impression to the world of what the bed is like, keep the real bed under wraps, as it were
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11. Definition Marriage Commitment
     
    1. Commitment is essential
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    1. Frame and box spring of the bed -- holds the whole structure of the bed together.  The commitment to loving the other person in the sacramental marriage covenant is vitally important
        
       1. No one else can do it for you.  Not even God.  
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    1. Definition of Marriage -- Fr. John Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary
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MARRIAGE. As a natural institution, the lasting union of a man and a woman who agree to give and receive rights over each other for the performance of the act of generation and for the fostering of their mutual love.

The state of marriage implies four chief conditions: 

1.  there must be a union of opposite sexes; -- one man and one woman
2.  it is a permanent union until the death of either spouse;
    
   1. CCC 2382:  Between the baptized spouses, "a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death"   1983 CCL 1141
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   1. Until Death  I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.
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5. it is an exclusive union, so that extramarital acts are a violation of justice;
6. its permanence and exclusiveness are guaranteed by contract; mere living together, without mutually binding themselves to do so, is concubinage and not marriage.

Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament of the New Law. Christian spouses signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and his Church, helping each other attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children.

1. Solemnified by Formal Vows
    
   1. Usually the only vow a Christian Layman or Laywoman will ever make
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   1. CCC 2364:  Both spouses give themselves definitively and totally to one another.  They are no longer two; from now on they form one flesh.  The covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble.  
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4. Originates in the will
    
   1.  I will love you and honor you all the days of my life  Love is an act of the will.  
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   1. Not just a one-time event  I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.
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   1. Ongoing willing, year to year, week to week, day to day, moment to moment
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   1. But impacted by human formation and spiritual formation
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   1. Supported in the natural realm by human formation, an awareness of attachment needs and integrity needs, an awareness of how complex w...