To Remain: Building A Marriage of Communion

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the wedding of a young couple we had mentored. In his homily the priest referred to the growth of mutual intimacy between the couple: "The two become one flesh." The following Sunday was Trinity Sunday, and our parish priest, drawing on the Catechism, made the analogy of the Christian family as “a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205).

It was with this in mind that we heard Jesus words of communion in this Sunday's Gospel: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." The word our Bibles translate as "remains" is the Greek μένω (menō), a verb that appears about forty times in John's Gospel.

There's no real English translation for this word. It means a a close, ongoing union or steadfast relationship. But it also means to live in a place, to dwell. And it means to last, to endure. And it means to be who you are, to persist in the face of pressures and challenges. It is all these layers of overlapping meaning that we try to capture in English with the words "abide" or "remain."

How do we abide with one another? How do we remain in one another? What does this really mean for our marriages?

We think about this in terms of marital intimacy. Not just sexual intimacy, but the active, ongoing, and intentional effort to be fully present for the other. This image of faithful, constitutive presence has something important to say to our marriages, because it turns out to describe exactly what relationship research identifies as one of the foundations of a secure and lasting partnership.

Being There

Psychologists Mario Mikulincer and Phillip Shaver have spent their careers studying how adult attachment functions in intimate relationships. Their work consistently identifies one factor as particularly important to our sense of security in our marriages.

It's not how often a spouse expresses love. It isn't resolving conflict skillfully. It's not how creative we are in planning dates, and vacations, and other meaningful shared experiences.

Their research found that it is the perceived availability of our spouse that matters most. And it's the sense that our spouse has that we are genuinely reachable, emotionally present, and responsive when it matters.

Think about what this means. Our marriages are shaped less by our grand gestures than by the daily, often unremarkable experience of feeling that our spouse is there. Not just physically in the room, but attentive and accessible.

And the opposite holds true. It isn't usually conflict or criticism that is the most damaging thing in marriages; it is a particular kind of absence. A partner who is physically present but consistently withdrawn or distracted creates the same insecurity as one who is rarely home.

Try This: The Daily Availability Check-In

One practical way to build a felt sense of reliable presence is through what therapists sometimes call a daily check-in, a brief, structured moment of undivided attention between spouses. The goal is not to solve problems or coordinate schedules, but simply to make genuine contact.

Here is how to do it:

• Choose a consistent time each day, ideally not the final minutes before sleep when both partners are depleted.

• Sit facing each other without phones or screens.

• Each partner takes two or three minutes to answer one question: "What is one thing weighing on you today, and one thing you are grateful for?" 

• The listening partner's only role is to listen. They should not advise, fix, or reassure, but just receive what is shared. A brief acknowledgment is enough.

  
  

Practiced consistently, this small ritual sends a message that accumulates over time: I am here. I am paying attention. You matter to me today. In the language of attachment research, that is precisely what builds security.

A Closing Thought

When Jesus describes the relationship of mutual indwelling in John 6, he does not describe something effortless or automatic. He describes a practice: eating, drinking, returning again and again to the same source. The word menō in John's Gospel is not a passive state but an active and repeated one, something done by choice.

Our marriages ask something similar of us. Not one decisive act of commitment, but the daily, repeated choice to remain present, available, and genuinely attentive to the person we have promised ourselves to.

That ordinary faithfulness, both research and tradition suggest, is where love takes root and holds.

Photo by  Alexander Mass via Pexels.com