Spouses who Separate: the importance of living together

Recently, I was watching the Office re-runs for the ump-teenth time.  Wherever I end up in life, this series seems to follow me and give me a laugh or two.  I don’t find it terribly relatable (though many of my family swear that I am Dwight), some moments I find incredibly offensive, and some seasons are definitely better than others, but I always find a laugh in each episode.  Maybe it’s the mundaneness of it that keeps me returning.  

In any event, this particular time I was watching, I was struck by the turmoil Pam and Jim experienced during the final season, when Jim was working part-time in Philadelphia.  Anyone who has seen the show will know what I’m talking about.  Though I don’t remember the exact arrangement, I think he was there for either a week at a time or two weeks, alternating with his mild-mannered paper salesman job in Scranton.  This work/life balance situation, as anyone who has watched the show can tell you, almost ended their relationship.  Their communication tanked, they began to find consolation elsewhere (most notably with Pam seeking at least a Platonic friendship with Brian the sound guy), and they began to accept that hardship was there lot in life.  Several pivotal moments where they ought to have communicated but didn’t, blaming each other for the particular hardship, showed a marked decline in what the show had worked so hard to build as the sweetest hearts in America.  And finally, just when it was all about to come crashing down, they worked it out, and turned towards each other once again.  As if to certify their renewed relationship, one of the very last episodes of the regular season (not the finale) shows Jim turning down a three-month gig.  The offer was the dream gig of his life, traveling the country with his favorite sports players, where all that he had been working towards would have come through.  But he turned it down, saying that he couldn’t do that to his family.

I had always remembered that he turned down the dream gig, but it wasn’t until this past time that I realized how long the travel commitment was supposed to be.  3 month investment of time, and a completely fulfilled payout?!  I internally mocked Jim for what seemed, for a moment, an insane decision.  3 months is not that long of a time.  He and his wife had just patched things up, at least he could have talked to her and brought it up?  With a clear end-date of 3 months out, how hard would that really have been for these two?  I simply could not believe it, and judged this fictional Jim in a very hard-core fashion.  Until I remembered that being separated from your spouse - even for a long weekend - is supposed to be hard.  And, in the normal course of events, it is.

I can remember my first long separation from my wife, several years ago going through basic training.  One night in particular I had laid on my bunk, dog-tags in my hand, wondering what I had done.  I wondered how my wife and I could have consciously made the decision to be apart for so long (17 weeks, so something like 4 months and some change), and would things be the same when I got back.  There was much doubt in my mind, and some insecurity as to how our relationship could heal from the long separation.  

I returned home, was activated on State duty, immediately followed by a 13 month deployment.  What I had thought was going to be 4 months turned almost overnight into an almost continuous 2-year separation.  To be fair, there was a random month and again a couple weeks thrown in there where I was home, but the aforknowledge of the impending separation stunted any healing that was required from the previous.  And, recovering from that long of an absence, was no small feat.  

It was in the wake of watching the Office, and my interior judgmental attitude towards Jim, that I came to a realization: 3 months is a long absence from your spouse, I’ve just been de-sensitized to it.  Marriage is a community in itself, it is the smallest community.  It is the first and most naturally occurring society, and the natural place where humans find connection, unity, and communion.  But, in order to do all of those things, you live together.  And this is a core precept of Catholic marital theology.  In the Catholic understanding of marriage, the marital union is not only for the purposes of begetting and raising children; marriage is also designed to bring the spouses into an ever closer alignment of their lives and souls, and so bring them into Heaven.

Modern society would have us believe that Marriage is a label, a tax credit, an institution which can be whatever the contracting parties want it to be.  Such a “marriage” may indeed flourish with a 3-month long absence so that the husband could pursue his dream of sports Marketing.  In fact, if we believe the idea that in a marriage the two contracting parties retain some right to autonomous individuality outside of the context of their marriage vows, then such a relationship might even demand the husband’s freedom to pursue his dream apart from his wife.  But this is not the Catholic view on Marriage.  It is why the Church does not approve a separation of any sort for long periods of time without grave cause (and, military service does fit the bill).  And, in the aftermath of any separation, why it is important for husband and wife to take some time together to re-learn how to live a life of communion together.

Over the years, my wife and I have endured several longer absences in the name of obligation.  That’s just the world, though: sometimes real-life gets in the way of the shared life intended by marriage.  But it is important that married couples do not become desensitized to the consequences of Original Sin in their lives.  There is immodesty and perversion everywhere we look, and yet we still make attempts to shield ourselves from it.  We watch violent movies, video games, or goodness sakes even the evening news, and yet still take steps to remain attentive to the violence in our communities.  Language decorum is decreasing, and swearing is on the rise; and yet, we try to keep it from invading our homes.  Just as we do not readily accept all these aberrations as normal, so too must all those who are separated from their spouses for work or valid reasons be vigilant in not becoming desensitized to their own separation.  It is important to see these for what they are, and to take steps to heal and cultivate a sense of permanence and shared physical life with their spouses.  Only with such vigilance can married couples who endure such necessary aberrations continue to live a life aimed at fulfilling the 3 ends of marriage: Procreation, Mutual Edification, and enjoy the Remedy of Concupiscence.