Emotional maturity, according Fr. Raphael McCarthy S.J., the author of the 1945 booklet after which this website is named, is the ability to regulate one’s emotions in proportion to the situation. To “manage his own emotional responses.” I can imagine an intelligent, accomplished woman reading this right now and thinking: “I’m emotionally mature. I’m 35. I have a master’s degree.” Or a man saying to himself, “That isn’t my problem. It’s my mom and sisters who are always freaking out. I’m the calm, reasonable one.”
Well, according to Fr. McCarthy, emotional immaturity, and all its attendant miseries, was a problem for many of the good people he encountered as a priest helping couples and families in his day.
“People just do not grow up. One of the parties in the marriage remains emotionally immature. He or she goes on playing a child’s game in a state of life that demands the emotions and feelings of an adult.”
The biggest difference between the demographic Fr. McCarthy was dealing with back in the 40s, and the people he would most likely meet today, is this: back then, people got into relationships with other human beings, and usually ended up married. Hopefully, most were able to grow up and out of their deficiencies together, or at least to practice acceptance, thus living out their marital promises. Yet, today, many people don’t even bother. They despair, actually. They never embrace the necessary challenge that marriage entails. Anticipating that marriage requires a certain degree of emotional maturity to succeed, they avoid marriage altogether. In fact, many of them don’t even attempt to date!
From the reading, one gets the sense that the couples Fr. McCarthy was counseling were young, naive, and eager to marry. This is presumably because in 1945, when people felt a strong attraction to each other, or just really wanted to have sex, that’s what they did. By contrast, the people I’m encountering in my circles are usually older—30s and 40s or beyond. Although they might have assumed marriage as inevitable (that’s a bit different than having a desire), they realize now that its just not happening. Some are perplexed and desperate to figure it out before it’s too late. But many are so diffident, confused and frankly afraid, that they fail to get out of their comfort zone. They say they probably should get married, and yet that they seem to avoid the real issues that come up when they think about what marriage may mean for their specific case.
This trend is not limited to non-religious people who say they have no moral objection to drifting from one meaningless sexual-encounter to another; living with someone until they inevitably go their separate ways; substituting porn, fantasy and masturbation for a genuine relationship with an actual human being. I always try to encourage these people, many of whom I love dearly, to find a better way. What’s more astounding, though, is that I see many of the same self-sabotaging beliefs and patterns among faithful Catholics—and I mean ardent Catholics who accept the teachings of the Church, attend mass once or more a week, and go to Confession!
What’s the deal? Why are good-looking, intelligent, well-formed, faithful Catholics (and other conscientious people) failing to form relationships that leads to marriage? Let’s look at the idea of ’emotional maturity’ again. I honestly feel like a hypocrite talking about this, because I am not exactly a poster-child for emotional maturity myself. Who am I to lecture anyone about it? On the other hand, even though I am not perfect, I did get married.
Let me reiterate how non-perfect I am: I was an alcoholic stoner in my twenties who slept around—and around— looking for Mr. Goodbar. I had an abortion, and then developed a severe anxiety disorder. My biggest fear at the time was not so much dying of alcoholism—although that could have happened—rather, it was a vision of myself as an old woman with no friends, no family and no love in her life; peering out of windows and muttering psychotically to herself. I could see my life headed toward a desperate end. In fact, inside, despite my apparent successes, I was already desperate. I was, as they say, “spiritually bankrupt.” So I asked for help.
I had no faith to speak of, but I was okay with the “God-thing,” as long as it wasn’t Church. I entered that anonymous club for extremely imperfect people (you know, the one with the 12 Steps?). I made a decision, by God’s grace, to change—and change and change and change! I agreed, as a part of that huge undertaking, that I was going to keep changing and growing and transforming, according to whatever God wanted me to do and be, as a way of life. I agreed to throw away my old ideas and become like a little child, in order to grow up. I’m still living according to that initial agreement with God. Everything that I have, including my marriage, is built on it.
That’s the ironic thing. To develop any degree of emotional maturity—at least enough to quit drinking and doing self-destructive things, I had to become truly child-like. I had to “let go and let God” manage my life—including my emotions. This seems like a rather spiritual and mysterious proposition, and believe me, it was and is. To grow up at all, I had to put my pride on the altar of sacrifice, and ‘become a child’ in the way Jesus told us that we must be, or else lose the Kingdom.
Grow Up and Marry! 