Keeping Your Covenant (Even If Your Spouse Doesn't)

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

We all have physical and emotional needs we want our spouse to meet.

One of Dawna's emotional needs is to be heard. The third child of four, she grew up the unheard daughter, the third child no one listened to. In our marriage, she doesn't want Mark to try to solve her problem, she doesn't want him to tell her that everything is okay, and she definitely does not want him to defend or excuse himself if his actions are the subject of her words.

More than anything else, she wants him to listen to her words, and reflect back to her what she is feeling. She wants to know he hears and understands, even if he doesn't agree.

This is hard for Mark. He grew up in an emotionally volatile family where one always needed to have a ready excuse or explanation for one's actions. A good defense might make the difference between being scolded, being browbeaten, or being hit.

So Mark's frequent inability to meet Dawna's irritation with reflection instead of an excuse is understandable. But it's also understandable that his need to explain or excuse his actions, rather than hear her tell him how she feels, can lead her to feeling alone and unloved in their relationship.

When Jesus tells his disciples in this Sunday's Gospel that those who love him keep his commandments, he is telling us that love is not a feeling but an action. He is telling us that love is evidenced by what we do.

This principle sits at the heart of Christian marriage and carries practical consequences for how we navigate the real work of life together.

Love Shows Up

American songs, television and movies often portrays love as something that happens to us, a feeling that persists or fades. Actions matter in a Rom Com, but often they are at the service of the feelings.

But the Catholic understanding of marriage, and the findings of relationship science, both point to something different: True love is something we do, not just something we feel. We show love through concrete, daily choices: listening when we would rather retreat, speaking with care when we feel hurt, showing up for our spouse even when we are running low.

Covenant Love Is Not a Transaction

This is expressed in the teaching of the Church that love is a covenant, as opposed to the secular understanding of love as a contract.

Contracts are legally binding agreements built on mutual distrust and conditional obligations. They operate on an "if-then" logic: if one party fails to perform, the other party is released from their obligations, or can seek penalties. Breaking a contract isn't necessarily considered a moral failing if the breaching party pays the specified penalties because the payment itself is seen as adequate compensation. Contracts are time-bound, so they include termination clauses, and are designed for specific transactions with clear endpoints.

Covenants are solemn promises based on faith, trust, and unconditional commitment. In a covenant, each party commits to fulfill their obligations regardless of whether the other party keeps theirs. Breaking a covenant is always considered a betrayal of trust and morally wrong, even if penalties are paid. Covenants are permanent agreements with no termination clauses. Covenants are designed to last forever.

And in marriage, the covenant includes not just the spouses, but God.

One of the most consequential distinctions in a Christian marriage, therefore, is the understanding that covenant love is not conditional. Transactional love says, "I will give, and you must give in return." Covenant love simply says, "I will give" and hopes and trusts that the other will do the same.

In the vocation of marriage, each of us has a part to play, and our faithfulness to that part does not hinge on whether our spouse is holding up their end. This is not passivity or self-erasure. It is a commitment to who we have chosen to be in this marriage, regardless of circumstances. If our spouse breaks their promise to God by not acting toward us in love, we are still bound to keep our promise to God that we will love them.

This does not mean we accept mistreatment or ignore the need for honest conversation about what is not working. It means we do not use our spouse's failures as permission to abandon our own integrity. We are not released from our covenant responsibilities because our partner falls short. What we do in our marriages says more about our character than about our circumstances.

What Research Tells Us

What's amazing is that this is not only a theological conviction. Research supports the power of deliberate, sustained positive behavior to build relationships.

Decades of research on couples led Psychologist John Gottman to what he calls a "5-to-1 ratio": in happy, stable marriages, partners maintain roughly five positive interactions for every negative one. Critically, this ratio is something each partner builds through daily choice, not something that just happens automatically when both people feel in love.

Your consistent, loving actions shape the emotional climate of your marriage, independent of what your spouse does in any given moment.

A Practice to Try This Week: The Intentional Bid

Gottman's research also identified what he called "bids for connection." These are small attempts to reach toward your spouse: a question, a touch, a comment about the day. Turning toward these bids rather than ignoring them is one of the ways happy couples build that 5:1 ratio.

For seven days, make three deliberate bids for connection each day, and make a conscious effort to notice and respond to your spouse's bids. These do not need to be large gestures. Ask a genuine question. Acknowledge something your spouse shares. Put down your phone and make eye contact when they speak to you.

Keep a brief note about what you did and what you noticed. At the end of the week, reflect on whether the emotional tone between you shifted.

Closing

Not everything counts toward that five-to-one ratio. The actions you take to show love must be the actions your spouse needs to feel loved.

If Mark is going to truly love Dawna, he cannot simply tell her he loves her five times per day. He needs to defy the habits of a lifetime, make himself vulnerable, and reflectively listen to her, even in the face of her expressions of irritation and exasperation at his actions.

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus says: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Covenant love, at its deepest, participates in the love God has for us: persistent, present, and not contingent on our performance. When we choose to love our spouse through action, especially when it is hard, we are not simply maintaining a relationship. We are living out a vocation.

That is both the challenge and the grace of Christian marriage.