A Relationship Question

[PhuturePriest]

So, obviously, you are supposed to love God more than anything. However, I have noticed it is quite easy to love the person you are in a relationship with more than God. How do you make sure you love God more, especially when you get married? Or do you in fact love God more, you just have stronger emotional "feelings" at the time for your significant other?

[Not The Philosopher]

As someone who has never been in a serious relationship before, I'm probably not the best source of advice. But I guess you cross the line if your love for someone is leading you into sin. So, for example, if you wind up skipping Sunday Mass in order to spend time with someone, then they're displacing God in your life.

[Nihil Obstat]

A truly chaste and loving relationship will never put into conflict the love of one's spouse and the love of God. They will always be directed towards the same good. Loving your spouse, then, is loving God, and loving God is loving your spouse.

The only way there could be conflict is if one's love for one's spouse was deficient in some sense, such that what one thought was love was in fact harmful in some way. Then the problem is not that they love their spouse 'more' than God, but rather that they love their spouse poorly.

[Annie12]

I would say that one shouldn't get too caught up in the feelings. I think this is where it easy to go astray and set the significant other first in your heart where God should be first.

[Norseman82]

You show love for God by loving your spouse properly.

[Seven77]

I think that FB is talking about feelings bordering on obsession. From my own experience (as someone with a melancholic temperament), I know that it can be a struggle to get your feelings about people (especially for males towards women) in check and to keep them from eclipsing thoughts about God. I could be struggling with this at very moment so it is relevant to me.

 

Perhaps spending time with someone in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament can be very helpful…

[Seven77]

FB=FP

[MissyP89]

I went through this same question not to long ago. I sat down and talked about it with a priest in New York, and basically what he said is this: if you are honestly called to marriage, then that is something God is specifically asking you to do for Him. Loving your spouse (and eventually your children) will be the primary way that your love for God is expressed.

 

So by loving your spouse and accepting their love in return, you are loving and accepting God's grace into your life.

 

We love God properly by doing the best we can to discover His will and follow it. So in some way, if you were married and chose to spend all of your time doing charity work, or praying, or doing other religious things that put your spouse second in the name of "loving God," that would be missing the mark.

 

In short: look at the situation God has placed you in. Look at the people around you and your relationships with them. Love them well. Serve them well. Thank God for them. That's loving God.