From the book Joyful Wedding: A Spiritual Path to the Altar by Susan Piver, published by Rodale, 2003.

Conscious Marriage
By Judith Ansara

There can be a magical quality to the time between deciding to marry and the actual wedding. If we are able to drop beneath the busy-ness of all the planning and arranging and remember why we have chosen to get married, this can be a precious time that may be filled with excitement, possibility, and of course your love for each other. You are marking the end of one chapter of your life and the beginning of another. Whenever we are able to approach the major transitions in our lives with awareness and intention, we invest the passage with meaning and potency. We each approach marriage with the hope of a deeply satisfying shared life. But we also carry with us the fears and apprehensions of what might go wrong. We have seen too much to be ignorant of the dangers and pitfalls of married life.

But there is hope and there is help. A good marriage need not be left to chance. You can learn attitudes, skills, and practices that can help you deepen and grow in love and satisfaction together, through a lifetime of change. This is the path and practice of conscious marriage.

Marriage as a Spiritual Path

What does it mean to hold your most intimate relationship ”your marriage” as a central part of your spiritual path? Imagine marriage as a cauldron, a vessel that holds the hearts and souls of you and your beloved, a vessel crafted to withstand fire. The cauldron heats up in the fire of relationship, because there is no hiding in marriage. Our partner will see and receive the best and the worst in us, and reflect this back to us, like a mirror reflects back the heat of the sun.

On the spiritual path of marriage we understand this hot fire is like a refinery or alchemical process that helps us see and heal the part of us that brings suffering to ourselves and to those we love. We see how we hold back from life, from truth, from passion. In the fire of intimacy, we encounter places in ourselves and in our partner where we may withdraw or lash out in fear, sadness, or anger, as well as time when we give everything, stretching beyond our imagined limits to love and to be loved. It is our protective mechanisms, our barriers to love that are purified within the cauldron.

When we understand marriage in this way, as an opportunity to deepen love and wisdom, we can learn to welcome the brilliant intensity of the fire of relationship. And if we dedicate our intention and love to strengthening the vessel of our marriage, it will not only withstand the heat, but can help to simmer the soup of our shared lives into a deeply nourishing and lasting partnership.

Partner as Teacher

You may have heard of teachers of Zen Buddhism who walk around the meditation hall with a big wooden stick. Whenever they see a student whose posture has lapsed, an indication that she has lost the rigor of attention, the Zen master will whack the student on the back to wake her up. In most marriages, each partner will undoubtedly have the experience of being whacked by the other. It is almost inevitable that we will push each other’s buttons and act in ways that are upsetting and unsettling to the other.

When others do or say things that upset us, our instinct often is to try to make the other person wrong. In embarking on a conscious marriage, we strive to accept or bow to our partner as we might honor a spiritual teacher. We acknowledge that our partner may well bring us lessons the hard way. We acknowledge that they will see our less enlightened behavior more than others do and that therefore, they are in a better position to reflect this back to us. Rather than running away, falling apart, or becoming aggressive when things get challenging, we make the agreement to do our best to learn from the difficulties. We turn toward the challenge and embrace it as an opportunity for our individual and mutual growth.

My husband and I have been married for 33 years, and over this time have experienced many challenges and feelings of wanting to run away. One of the things that has been most helpful to us is the concept and practice of being spiritual friends. A spiritual friend is one who holds the other’s well being and growth as a high priority. We remember, even in moments when we may not feel particularly loving, that we want what is best for our friend. We also remember the simple truth that our relationship will suffer if we demand that our partner be or do something against his will.

When Robert and I first met at the tender age of twenty-one, I was sure I had found the man I was destined to be with. Robert was clueless. If he thought about marriage at all, it was as some abstract notion of something he might do sometime in his thirties. Yet there we were, side by side, forging a shared life.

I continued to be reliably two years ahead of him in my readiness for various levels of commitment whether it was living together, a joint checking account, or getting married. When we were each around twenty-five, I came down with a serious case of the baby itch. I was ready. I could barely let three days go by without bringing it up again. This went on for some time. I think I was afraid that if I didn’t push my agenda I wouldn’t get what I wanted. Finally, and for this I will be forever grateful, Robert looked at me and with strength and complete clarity said, “Judith, you do not want to have a child with me if I am not ready to be a father!” I remember standing completely still with my mouth hanging open.

There was so much truth in that statement. In that moment, my partner taught me that my needs and his needs were not separate, that I could never win at his expense. I understood that we were really in this life together. We would have to navigate our differences from a place of true and respectful partnership.

So I dropped it. I rested in knowing that we were together and that Robert was very open to having a family when the time was right. I enrolled in graduate school and put my attention on developing skills which would enable me to do work I felt called to do, part time, while raising a family. This ended up being a choice that has served me well.

Robert sped up his own internal process. He loved me and was willing to follow my lead, once I stopped pressuring him. One day about two years later, he came home after spending the weekend alone in the woods and said, “I’m ready.” The choice to start a family was clear and clean. We were both fully aligned and we have raised three beautiful children together.

As you and your partner approach your wedding, consider discussing what it might mean to be spiritual friends. How can you honor your separateness and your differences, as well as the ways in which you naturally connect? Can you see your partner as existing not only to meet your expectations and fill your needs, but someone on their own path recognizing that we are two unique individuals with different histories, different gifts, and different dreams? We support and challenge each other to grow and be the best we can. We give the great gifts of our love and our companionship and the willingness to travel through life together. We can agree to do our best to be skillful and patient in this journey and to do our best to listen beneath awkward or unskillful communication for the jewel of the teaching which may be available. When we are on a spiritual path together, we are choosing to learn not only through the joys and ease of relationship but also through its challenges.

What greater gift can any human being offer to another than the commitment to stay and to keep turning towards one another with an open heart?

Honoring Our Feelings

As our wedding day draws closer, amidst the joy and excitement, it is also completely natural to have waves of feeling overwhelmed, irritable, or frustrated. We may feel anxious, fearful, or even begin to doubt our choice. One of the mistakes couples often make is thinking that they have to hide their fears and doubts from each other. If you and your partner can successfully share these feelings with each other, this can actually strengthen the bond of intimacy between you. To build a strong foundation for your marriage, it is important to be able to bring both your joys and pain, optimism and fear, strength and vulnerability. Hiding what we label as inappropriate or unlovable often leads to the sense of distance and loss of intimacy from which many marriages suffer.

Unexpressed fears can loom larger when held inside, rather than being felt and released within the embrace of our partner’s acceptance. The time before our wedding is an opportunity to begin learning how to become each other’s safe harbor from the fears that we all experience. You can learn to be more open with each other by listening without interruption, without judgment, and with compassion. When we receive each other in this way, when we create a truly safe space for each other, miracles of love can blossom.

Another key to conscious marriage is to claim responsibility for your own emotional responses. One of the most confusing and difficult challenges of married life comes when we begin blaming our partner for how we feel. This does not discount that he or she may in fact do things that we dislike, or that we experience as hurtful. All of us are unconscious at times. Blaming others can feel attractive, perhaps even comforting in a strange way. But it actually damages the fabric of your relationship. Our real power lies in taking responsibility for our own responses. When difficult feelings are up, breathe deeply, do your best to refrain from speaking from a place of anger or blame, and turn your attention to your own emotions. Take some space to reflect on the upset in you, what deeper feeling has been triggered? When you are calmer you can usually find ways to communicate that honor the truth of your emotions, but are also productive and will help you learn to better understand and care for each other.

As you take those deep breaths, remember that this is your friend, your life partner, and your beloved. Remember how much you loved this person and felt loved by them just a short time ago. Together, from this place of remembrance, you will be able to deal more skillfully with whatever may arise between you.

Many of us enter marriage without having already developed these skills of listening, truth-telling, and self-responsibility for our emotions. If you find the pre-wedding period brings up feelings or issues that seem too difficult to handle together, another good habit for couples is to remember to ask for help. All too often couples try to hide their problems behind closed doors. All of us struggle in learning to share our lives with another. Talk to your friends, a more experienced couple, or schedule a session with a therapist or counselor.

Developing Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to feel as the other feels. More than an intellectual understanding of our partner’s feelings, empathy is a knowing of the heart, a felt sense of what it’s like for them, their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows. When empathy enters our hearts, two things happen. We naturally begin to feel compassion for our beloved. And our partner begins to feel understood, safe and loved.

To develop empathy, we must be willing to step outside of our experience, our beliefs, and our own perceptual lens. It is common to imagine that our partner is, or at least should be, like us. We may feel threatened or annoyed by their differences. “If only they saw it as I do!” But we didn’t marry ourselves. Our partner is truly different.

We may also make the common mistake of trying to express love to our partner in ways we would like them to express love to us. Early on in our marriage I would often try to make contact with my husband when he really wanted some space. When he was tired from a long day of work and interaction and wanted to be alone, I would try to love him by offering my companionship. Knowing that I had had a draining day I would want to curl up in his arms to replenish myself, I assumed this was what he would want. I then interpreted his desire for space as a rejection of the love that I was offering.

It took me quite a while to really empathize with Robert’s experience. But as I was able to enter his world, I stopped feeling rejected. I understood that he experienced my offer of contact as one more demand on his energy. I learned to be more skillful. I would make him a plate of his favorite food, bring it to him, and leave. I would offer him a foot rub, with no attachment to it being accepted. Or I would simply and kindly leave him alone. I always found that he was grateful for the understanding and that when he had replenished himself he would return ready for contact. He actually felt loved by my spaciousness.

The other half of this story is that Robert assumed that I wanted what he wanted. He thought the most loving thing he could do was to give me my freedom. If I asked if he wanted me to accompany him somewhere, he would cheerfully reply, “Do whatever you want.” He believed this was offering me the great “gift” of space. But I didn’t feel loved by his gift. I felt not wanted and not cared about. As he learned how I received love, he too became more skillful at bringing me the kind of response that nourished me.

As we develop empathy, we deepen our understanding and compassion for our partner in all the circumstances of their lives. We stop responding with the impulse to fix or change them, and we are able to be with them, lovingly, just as they are. In this field of empathic love we each flourish like a well-tended plant.

Here are two practices that may help you develop your empathy and compassion for your partner.

If your partner is upset, encourage him to express what he is experiencing. Your job is to witness by reflecting back what your hear and then to beam your love and acceptance at him. It is not a time to editorialize, analyze, or in any way try to fix the situation for him. Perhaps your partner says, “My mother is driving me crazy. She just wants to control everything and I feel like this isn’t even my wedding.” Simply reflect back what you heard your partner say. “You’re upset because it seems to you that your mother is trying to control the whole wedding and it feels like it isn’t even yours.” Then stop. Resist the urge to give advice, or tell your partner why they shouldn’t feel the way they do. You can simply ask, “Anything else?” Your partner will feel heard as you continue to reflect and send him love. When heard in this way we often solve our own problems. When he is finished, gently ask, “Is there any way I might be able to help you?” Or, “What do you need or want right now?” Amazingly, this simple technique also works wonders if your partner is upset with you!

Another useful practice is to close your eyes and imagine that you are your partner. Imagine being him, with all the life experience he has had, with his own personality and emotional wiring, his own way of thinking and perceiving. Then imagine going through his days at this time before your wedding, doing what he does, and try to experience it as if you are him. This imagination game can really help you develop a more compassionate glimpse into the experience of your loved one. And please remember, they are called practices because they require practice. If we want to improve at anything, work, sports, music, and yes, relationship and the art of marriage, it requires dedicated practice.

Cultivating Presence

Many years ago while driving in California, my husband and I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Having a wonderful time, wish I was here!” During how much of our precious lives are we not actually present or awake? We go through the motions and activities of our lives, from arising and dressing to eating, driving, to having a conversation, without being fully “here”.

Where are we, when we’re not here? Our mind is off somewhere else. We are often thinking about the past, analyzing it, re-playing it, thinking “if only”, or “that was good”. If we’re not thinking about the past, then we’re usually off in some imagined future, rehearsing for it, anticipating it with excitement or with apprehension. Sometimes we can learn from examining the past, or make useful preparations for the future. But mostly, this mental activity keeps us from being present. We often think of “relationship” as a noun. I have a relationship. Yet consider how much of the time you are in physical proximity to the one you love, but are not actually experiencing the verb of “relationship”.Our relationship is not a possession, like a house or a car. It is the ongoing experience of relating to each other. In conscious marriage, we continually practice being right “here” with our partner. Really awake. Really listening. Really being with each other, as if each moment matters, as if each moment might be your last.

We call these moments of being here together “presence”.

Presence is what we experience in that magical time of falling in love, in those precious moments when we gaze into each other’s eyes and the sense of separation fades. Presence is always available to us. We can conjure that magic again and again. It is a skill that can be nourished and developed. Practice by sitting face to face, matching your breathing, allowing your inhalations and exhalations to find a unified rhythm. Practice taking turns speaking while the other just beams love and listens with full attention. Practice taking a walk in silence and opening your senses to the sights and smells and sensations of the life around you. When you touch, pay exquisite attention to the sensations of both giving and receiving. When you make love, slow way down, and savor every moment. These are practices of presence.

It is my heartfelt wish that you be present during your own wedding ceremony. It is a moment of power that will never occur again. Give yourself and your beloved the gift of breathing, looking into each other’s eyes, and remembering why you are standing there together. Don’t miss a moment of it!

May you be blessed with a lifetime of loving, skillful, and satisfying partnership.