Latest / The Quest Atlanta Catholic Radio / Divine Intimacy Radio - Spiritual Warfare and the Family Questions
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, a co-production of EWTN Radio and SpiritualDirection.com, where we provide you with a spiritual haven of rest and explore the riches of the wisdom of the saints and the path to union with God.
- 0:20This is Dan and Stephanie Burke.
- 0:21Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest.
- 0:24Your hermitage of the heart.
- 0:26Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints to help us navigate the tumult of this very challenging life.
- 0:36And today we're continuing...
- 0:39our answering questions from the spiritual warfare and the family summit.
- 0:44Okay.
- 0:45And, uh, we just got so many, we know, and, and we'll, I think we're adding these to the vault.
- 0:51We adding these to the vault producer.
- 0:52Yeah.
- 0:53Are you going to tell our listeners what the vault is?
- 0:55The vault is a way that you can get access to, um, whatever we offered at the summit spiritual direction.com.
- 1:05Okay.
- 1:07uh, forward slash vault, V U L A. V A U L T. V A U L T. 2026.
- 1:14There you go.
- 1:15Spiritualdirection.com forward slash vault 2026.
- 1:19And there's all kinds of amazing content in there.
- 1:22So there's a, there's a couple of questions that are kind of in the same,
- 1:32vain, but they have enough nuance.
- 1:35We'll answer them separately.
- 1:36This one's a very sad question.
- 1:39And my heart breaks for the person who asked it and the person who's on the other side of this, but how do we stay in a marriage when a spouse is disabled and,
- 1:49And that disability is wrecking the family with choices and decisions that are related to financial, sexual, and physical matters.
- 1:59So you have someone who's, you know, when somebody experiences a disability, and I have myself,
- 2:08where I was out for months and months, you know, with illness and struggle with that, it can affect the way you think, the way you pray, you know.
- 2:19The way you perceive yourself.
- 2:21The way you understand yourself.
- 2:23And so I just want to speak to that and say this person who's doing all the damage and who's suffering needs mercy too, you know.
- 2:34So they're doing some bad things in response to what they're struggling with.
- 2:38But, you know, it's a tough situation.
- 2:42Yeah, yeah.
- 2:46You know, I think there's a bit of a false narrative here that happens, whether it's this kind of cross or any other cross for that matter, is that the enemy is such an opportunist.
- 3:02Yeah.
- 3:02He's such an opportunist in that he will...
- 3:08He will latch on to whatever situation of suffering that's going on.
- 3:13He will multiply the desolation within it.
- 3:20His voice becomes extraordinarily loud and God's voice and presence perceivably in your perception become very faint and distant.
- 3:33And so there's this,
- 3:36situation that's terribly destructive and painful.
- 3:41And the enemy can cause us to say, all is hopeless.
- 3:47I can't take it anymore.
- 3:49This is too hard.
- 3:51I need to get out.
- 3:53I need to X, Y, Z, right?
- 3:56Now we're not talking about physical abuse where somebody's in danger.
- 4:02we're not talking about substance abuse that puts others in danger.
- 4:10Yeah, so we're not saying, we're not judging whether that's occurring in this, but you're saying what your answer doesn't.
- 4:17Apply to that.
- 4:18We're taking those things off the table right now because this person used the word disability, which means there's something in it that is beyond that person's control.
- 4:32Right.
- 4:33Um, now there are just so many nuanced pieces here.
- 4:37So the spouse that has the disability, the enemy goes after them and multiplies and takes them down through the, cause he latches onto that.
- 4:49He multiplies that situation for the spouse.
- 4:52That's not who is the caretaker or is having to withstand the suffering as well.
- 4:58Mm-hmm.
- 4:59you know, there's a different kind of desolation and work of the enemy against them.
- 5:05And the enemy seeks to destroy.
- 5:07He wants to separate, divide, isolate.
- 5:13Everything's impossible.
- 5:14You know, false, what is it called?
- 5:19False obstacles.
- 5:21Yeah, false obstacles and universal negatives.
- 5:24You know, so in all of this,
- 5:28Like what, what is a couple to do?
- 5:31Because there's not just one person in this narrative.
- 5:34There's two.
- 5:35There's the person that is suffering the disability because it is a suffering.
- 5:40And there's the person, the caretaker who is suffering in it and having to be the strong one and help and do all those things.
- 5:48And really at the core of it is prayer, fasting, sacrifice, rosary.
- 5:56From the non-disability person, they need to be super strong spiritually.
- 6:00Yes.
- 6:01And they need to not give up hope, not go into despair.
- 6:05Yeah.
- 6:06Because, you know, I think there's this idea that, well, if I just get out and I, you know,
- 6:18everything's going to be okay.
- 6:20Right.
- 6:20And it's, it's just not true.
- 6:23It doesn't because it sets off an avalanche of, of the spirit of divorce and consequences that we never see coming until we're in it.
- 6:33And Dan and I, yeah, yeah.
- 6:35Dan and I can really speak to that.
- 6:37That's why it is like, like we will talk about separation, a medicinal separation to work through things, to get
- 6:49you know, to shore things up.
- 6:51Maybe that's necessary in this situation.
- 6:53I don't know, but we're not ones to ever advocate for divorce because we understand what happens through divorce.
- 7:02It's devastating to everyone.
- 7:03And in this case, I do want to go to the medicinal.
- 7:06I'm glad you went there because it says financial, sexual, physical.
- 7:10It sounds like, you know,
- 7:14you always go to the green, yellow, red.
- 7:16So yellow is that realm you started with where there's difficulties in marriage and you gotta strengthen yourself spiritually.
- 7:25Red is when there's abuse.
- 7:27And this sounds that level when you start, when you use the word sexual and physical and financial, it sounds like the person with the disability is just kind of spiraling out of control, maybe in a major depression.
- 7:41It is appropriate sometimes, as you noted, and the church allows for medicinal separation, meaning it's a separation with the intent of getting back together.
- 7:52It's a separation so that you can heal emotionally, get some distance from the constant struggle.
- 7:59get your head about you, right?
- 8:00Because when you're struggling with this, and I know this personally, when you're struggling with abuse, you, you get incredibly disoriented.
- 8:10You know, you can get incredibly disoriented where you don't have the ability to think straight.
- 8:15And so you separate out now, now, and then you get into counseling.
- 8:20It's got to include what, what systems need to, to be brought in to help, what needs to be addressed, what kind of proper boundaries need to be set up.
- 8:30Right.
- 8:30Right.
- 8:31Because if there's a sexual abuse towards the spouse, that's never acceptable.
- 8:36If there's sexual abuse as in, you know, sexual behaviors.
- 8:40Well, I mean, children, that's a full stop.
- 8:46The spouse or the children, that's not to be allowed.
- 8:49That would be a means for separation, immediate separation to get some proper boundaries and help.
- 8:57But counseling, medical doctors, all of those things.
- 9:01It is okay to say, I'm going to drown under this situation right now.
- 9:07I need to step out and get a breath of air in a medicinal separation.
- 9:12And we need to approach this a different way, get proper support systems and all of that.
- 9:17So I'm going to close this question out with some really clear prescriptions.
- 9:23One, I really think you need a Catholic community around you.
- 9:27So you've got to find...
- 9:29Good Catholic people who are, and I can tell you to find good for you, is they're going to encourage you to stay in the relationship if it's viable.
- 9:38And they're going to encourage you to fight for all that is good and unifying and healing.
- 9:43And find hope in the darkness.
- 9:45The other thing is you've got to be practicing mental prayer every day.
- 9:49You've got to be praying the Archangel Michael prayer every day.
- 9:52praying your rosary every day.
- 9:54If you can do three rosaries a day, you need to be praying as much as possible.
- 9:59Yeah.
- 9:59Fasting.
- 10:00Yeah.
- 10:01All that you can.
- 10:02But I, but I'm not, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about base level, you know,
- 10:08foundational, it's good to pray three rosaries a day, but some people can barely get one in.
- 10:14So foundational level stuff, but do that and pray and fight and then get a good counselor, a good Catholic counselor, catholictherapist.com.
- 10:25It's a good source.
- 10:28If you don't have a spiritual director, that can be even more powerful than a good counselor.
- 10:32You can find that at seek direction dot APP.
- 10:40Those, those are some good resources for you.
- 10:42Get some community.
- 10:44You know, you can join us for formation the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, which would help you a lot as well.
- 10:52So this to get out of a sense of isolation, because that's what the enemy really wants to do.
- 10:58Stephanie's referencing good community.
- 11:00It's apostoliva.org, A-P-O-S-T-O-L-I-V-I-A-E.org.
- 11:05And we do free formation for hundreds of folks, second and fourth Saturdays.
- 11:11And it's a worldwide community as well that you'd be entering into.
- 11:16And everything on the site's free.
- 11:19And it has courses on mental prayer, on prayer,
- 11:23on persevering in the midst of the storm.
- 11:26It has, you know, all kinds of good stuff there for you.
- 11:29So, uh, rest assured of our prayers.
- 11:32Yeah.
- 11:33We'll definitely be praying for you.
- 11:34It's, it's, it's a very painful thing.
- 11:37We're going to go to break.
- 11:38And then when we come back, we're going to answer the question.
- 11:40Um, what if you don't, if you're not in love with your spouse anymore, big, big, that's another very, very painful question.
- 11:49Before we go to break though, I want to remind you of this book, which I think is absolutely, it's a book I wish I had when we had, when our teens were teens.
- 12:00Yeah.
- 12:01It's Discernment of Spirits for Beginners.
- 12:03It was written with Mary Ruth Hackett, who is as a educational psychology degree with an emphasis in parenting and identity development.
- 12:17And I did it with her because she has kids, teens and 20s.
- 12:22She has both when we're writing the book and she has the psychological background.
- 12:26And it's really, it's incredibly powerful to help your kids get their heads on right or your young adults.
- 12:32Check that out at spiritualdirection.com.
- 12:35Hit the shop button, but we're going to go to break now.
- 12:39When we get back, we'll answer more of your questions.
- 12:46The beautiful fact that no suffering is wasted, that all suffering has a purpose, and to wrestle with the idea, which is that everything that happens in our lives is either willed or permitted by God.
- 12:59Okay, God, why would you permit these things?
- 13:03I know that you're a good father and you're a loving father, so there's something there.
- 13:08So I have to bridge this gap between your permission of my suffering to your love for me as a father.
- 13:17And uniformity with God's will, the book by St. Alphonsus Liguori, bridges that gap.
- 13:23And he explains as only he can, because he's such a hard hitter, the reality that these are all moments of growth, of virtue, of, hey, your legs are weak.
- 13:37You're like a newborn deer.
- 13:38You can't stand on your own.
- 13:39We need to get you to stand on your own.
- 13:41You know, those sorts of things.
- 13:43Even desolation, you know, the day-to-day kind of, the ebbs and flows of the spiritual life.
- 13:48Those things are all permitted.
- 13:51for a greater good, whatever that might be.
- 13:54Check out the brand new updated version of Uniformity with God's Will titled Finding Peace in the Storm with Commentary by Dan Burke.
- 14:04Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio.
- 14:07Dan and Stephanie Burke.
- 14:08Stephanie's back from her pilgrimage.
- 14:10I'm grateful to have her back.
- 14:12And we are continuing to answer questions from our Spiritual Warfare in the Family Conference.
- 14:22And you can still have access to that conference and many of the talks and even some of these follow-up answers that we're giving.
- 14:31by going to spiritualdirection.com forward slash Volt 2026, V-A-U-L-T 2026.
- 14:38So this question is an incredibly painful question, but I want to restate it and say one quick thing, and then I'll give it to you, Steph.
- 14:49And that is, it says, what if you feel like you are not in love with your spouse anymore?
- 14:55And my answer in the simplest, most concise way that I can is,
- 15:01and if you're the one who asked it, please listen carefully and then we'll unpack it for you.
- 15:07Is real love begins when feelings end.
- 15:12That's great.
- 15:13Real love begins when feelings end.
- 15:16You might even say real love begins when feelings begin to wane.
- 15:22Right.
- 15:24I'm grateful.
- 15:24I mean, not to flaunt it in the face of somebody who's struggling, that I have not experienced that with you in our relationship.
- 15:34but um that i love you more than when i first met you now there isn't the elation you know that happens when you're first courting oh that's so sad you know it's wow too there's not the elation and all the you know the raging desire and stuff that happens when we're because we're designed by god for those things to bring us together
- 16:00And to get us past all the mess that we are when we come together.
- 16:04That's true.
- 16:04That's the design for that.
- 16:05Yeah.
- 16:06Otherwise, you can't make it through if you don't have that.
- 16:09But real love begins when feelings begin to wane or feelings end.
- 16:14What are your thoughts?
- 16:15Yeah, this is an interesting question because I've lived through this both ways.
- 16:24It's a fascinating question.
- 16:26I'm going to go at this from the spiritual realm, spiritual realm.
- 16:31Because we're faith and reason.
- 16:33Yeah.
- 16:34And as I always say, the enemy is an opportunist, right?
- 16:38Life gets hard.
- 16:40You know, we've, we've courted or dated somebody and we think we found our knight in shining armor and he did everything right.
- 16:49He said all the right things.
- 16:50He always smelled good.
- 16:51He always brought us flowers and
- 16:53He texted and called us all the time.
- 16:56He was, he hung on our every word and watched our every movement and just thought we were the bee's knees.
- 17:05And then life happens and diapers happen and difficulties, dirty dishes, financial struggles, emotions, hormones, anxiety.
- 17:15mother-in-laws, father-in-laws, business troubles, you know, you name it, disease, you know, all kinds of things.
- 17:24And then we're going, we wake up one day and because we are desolate,
- 17:31we hear this voice that says, I don't love him anymore.
- 17:34You don't love him anymore.
- 17:36And I'm just going to take this from the female perspective.
- 17:40Okay.
- 17:40You can, you can speak to the other if you like.
- 17:43I think it's a, it's a bigger problem for women because we tend to be motivated by feelings more than men.
- 17:49men can compartmentalize, you know, as long as their bedroom is kind of peaceful, they can, you know, just kind of put up with a lot that they just want peace in their bedroom.
- 18:00That's kind of where you get the husband.
- 18:03If you start to, if things start to devolve in the bedroom, um, is my personal opinion.
- 18:09So, like, what do you do when you feel that?
- 18:12Well, like with any discernment of spirits, we have to be aware, understand and take action.
- 18:18The enemy wants to destroy your marriage.
- 18:22He wants to destroy you.
- 18:23He wants to destroy your marriage.
- 18:25He wants to destroy your kids, wreck your kids.
- 18:27He wants to go after your kids.
- 18:29He wants to go after your sexual union because that's the glue.
- 18:33when you're in a state of grace that holds you together and helps you to withstand some of the other things.
- 18:39And so if he can whisper into your head when you're tired, worn out, weary, just exhausted emotionally, physically, spiritually, hormonally, blah, blah, blah, then he could whisper into your head when you look at him, you know,
- 18:56You don't love him anymore.
- 18:58Yeah.
- 18:58You should just give up.
- 19:00Yeah.
- 19:00The other thing the enemy does, and I wonder if you experience, is they'll also begin to constantly talk to you about their flaws.
- 19:08Oh, that's part of it.
- 19:09Yeah.
- 19:09Yeah.
- 19:10He's not meeting your needs.
- 19:11He doesn't listen to you.
- 19:12He doesn't love you.
- 19:13He doesn't care about you.
- 19:15He doesn't see you.
- 19:16And then as we spew those things out towards our spouse, then we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- 19:25Yeah.
- 19:25We create a cycle of sin and destruction.
- 19:28It is terrible when we cannot keep our mouth closed.
- 19:31We have no discernment.
- 19:33So every thought that comes in our head comes out of our mouth towards our husband.
- 19:37And then he starts to go do the very things that we're accusing him of doing.
- 19:41And we're surprised, right?
- 19:44Because we're not building him up.
- 19:45We're not respecting him.
- 19:46We're not loving him.
- 19:47We're not serving him.
- 19:49we're not doing what we are called to do in Ephesians five, which is respect him and love him.
- 19:57Now, are we totally do that when he's great?
- 20:01No.
- 20:02So back to this, you know, voice, I've heard that voice.
- 20:07I've heard it in my past life.
- 20:10And unfortunately I've heard it in this life with you.
- 20:14And it was it was short lived, but it was a trial that the Lord showed me.
- 20:19And when I when I noted it, I was like, Whoa, what is that?
- 20:23Because that's not me.
- 20:25And I, I, I've smelled that demon before.
- 20:28I know what that is to come to it before.
- 20:31I have succumbed to it in my past, in my life before I ever met you.
- 20:37So I recognized it.
- 20:39I understood what was happening and I took action.
- 20:43And I said, in the name of Jesus, get off me, get out of my head.
- 20:47And what did I do?
- 20:48I did the opposite.
- 20:50I went towards my husband.
- 20:51I went towards you.
- 20:53I went to love and serve you.
- 20:54I went and got in your space.
- 20:56I moved over.
- 20:59in the bed, you know, whatever I needed to do, but I went towards you.
- 21:03Which is the opposite direction of what the enemy is.
- 21:06Absolutely.
- 21:06Which is one of the one of the discernment of spirit.
- 21:08It is absolutely key.
- 21:10And guess what?
- 21:11It was exceedingly short lived.
- 21:13It was like gone.
- 21:14Yeah.
- 21:14Because we know if we resist the devil quickly, he will flee.
- 21:18And then we draw near to the Lord and he will draw near to us.
- 21:21Yeah.
- 21:22And I remember praying in that moment, get off me in the name of Jesus.
- 21:25Get off me.
- 21:26I move towards you.
- 21:27And I'm like, Jesus, help me.
- 21:29Blessed Mother, help me.
- 21:31And I'm praying and I'm doing the St. Michael prayer because I knew I was under spiritual attack.
- 21:35Yeah.
- 21:36And because that is what that is.
- 21:38Please understand that is what that is.
- 21:40And the goal is to destroy your marriage and then go after your kids and destroy your kids.
- 21:44So the key is resist it, renounce it.
- 21:49Don't listen to it.
- 21:50Go towards your husband.
- 21:52Start working on your on your marriage.
- 21:54Read this.
- 21:55Read the Sermon of Spirits for beginners.
- 21:57Read the Sermon of Spirits.
- 21:58Watch the series.
- 22:00Come to a marriage retreat.
- 22:01Yeah.
- 22:02You know, we offer these marriage retreats.
- 22:04We have seven on the books for 2027, which is like unheard of.
- 22:09And the demand is like through the roof.
- 22:11She's trying to wear me out.
- 22:14It's the Lord.
- 22:15So come, come, come, you know, come and learn what's going on in your marriage.
- 22:22And, you know, so if I could speak to something too, when you feel like you don't love your spouse anymore, it's probably means there's a lot of pain that's gone through the relationship, that sort of thing.
- 22:33The one thing you got to understand is you have the spouse you have because you need the spouse you have for your salvation.
- 22:39Yeah.
- 22:40Which means that,
- 22:42The Lord is giving you opportunity in your relationship to become who you're called to be.
- 22:47And if you give up because you because you struggling with your attraction or whatever, or your feelings, you're I promise you, you're going to replay it.
- 22:59Yeah.
- 22:59And the devil will take you down by the way.
- 23:01Yeah.
- 23:02And he will, if you turn and you do not fight for your marriage, the enemy will come after you.
- 23:09He'll devour you.
- 23:10And he will try to, he'll go after your kids.
- 23:12And the reason is because you were, you're giving in,
- 23:17You're saying yes to him instead of to God, which is an invitation.
- 23:22It's like saying to the devil, yeah, come on in, take me, take my kids.
- 23:29You asked, how is this with a man?
- 23:32For me, it's a whole different scenario in the sense that I...
- 23:38Theologically, when I became a Christian, I understood love is not a feeling.
- 23:43It does have feelings associated with it, but it's not essentially.
- 23:48The essence of love is not in how I feel.
- 23:53The essence of love is self-giving, self-denial for the sake of self-giving, for the purpose of serving the other.
- 24:03And in that you can see love is an action.
- 24:06It's not a feeling.
- 24:07It's a commitment of living and giving yourself away like Jesus did for us.
- 24:13And so I never have been, I've become more sensitive to this person who suffers with this issue because our culture just tells nonstop lies about, you know, you are what you feel.
- 24:27I feel like a woman, so let's go get surgery to fix that, you know.
- 24:32Or I feel like a man, let's go get surgery to fix that rather than saying, well, what is objective reality?
- 24:37You know, you have man parts, so you're a man.
- 24:42But in terms of marriage and love, love is self-giving.
- 24:48And the last thing I'll say about this, which is pretty important, as you are with men, so you are with God.
- 24:54Right.
- 24:55As you are with men, so you are with God.
- 24:58I want you to remember that.
- 25:01Can we say it a different way?
- 25:02As you are with your spouse, so you are with God.
- 25:06And really let that sink in.
- 25:08How you behave with your spouse, how you are towards him or her, how you love and serve them, how you relate to them is how you relate to God.
- 25:18Right.
- 25:18And if you don't believe that, just go meditate on the epistles of John in the New Testament and do it for about a month and you'll come away.
- 25:27Well, not very long.
- 25:28You're going to come away slack jawed, so to speak, and just going, oh, wow, I can't live this way.
- 25:35And hopefully it'll bring you to a new understanding of who you are and who the Lord is.
- 25:40But what that means is that we can think, oh, I'm fine with the Lord.
- 25:46I go to Mass.
- 25:47I do these religious things.
- 25:49But then the way that we comport ourselves with other people, we don't make that as part of the equation of I'm okay.
- 25:56Right.
- 25:57But Scripture does.
- 25:58The Word of God does.
- 25:59The words of God do.
- 26:01Mm-hmm.
- 26:02And it's really when you have a lack of love, you have to understand that's a deficiency in your spiritual life between you and God that then is playing out in your marriage.
- 26:13You get your spiritual life right, you'll begin to see some healing in marriage, which is what we talk about today.
- 26:20at our marriage retreats.
- 26:21If you want to learn more about marriage retreats, go out to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events or events page.
- 26:30If you went out right as this is published, you may not see events, but we do have seven or so coming divine intimacy and marriage retreats coming next year, 2027.
- 26:41And so they will, they will be listed sometime soon.
- 26:45They fill up baths.
- 26:46We have had over 50 on the wait list from our current retreat that's coming up here sometime soon.
- 26:52So with that.
- 26:54Until next time, may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness.
- 27:01May he preserve you whole and entire spirit, soul and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- 27:08Amen.
- 27:11Learn more about the interior life.
- 27:13Visit spiritualdirection.com.
- 27:16Divine Intimacy Radio is a co-production of EWTN Radio and spiritualdirection.com and heard worldwide on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network.