HOMEPAGE for this issue: November 30, 2011 // Download PDF Version // Click to install/update Adobe Reader on your computer

Couple shares tips in ‘Marriage 911’ 

By Nissa LaPoint

Greg and Julie Alexander’s loveless and worldly marriage was doomed for divorce court until a faithful priest opened their eyes to the truths of the Catholic Church and guided them on their journey to a now selfless and Christ-centered marriage.

The Alexander’s went on to become marriage counselors for couples worldwide after founding the Alexander House, a Catholic, lay apostolate dedicated to proclaiming the beauty, goodness and truth of marriage. They’ve been married for about 23 years and are parents of seven children.

They describe their journey in their recently-published book, “Marriage 911: How God Saved Our Marriage (And Can Save Yours, Too!)"

They recently spoke with the Denver Catholic Register about their marriage and their new book.

Register: You write in your book that your marriage was based on societal values and worldly pursuits. Can you describe what your marriage was first like?

Julie: We assumed and felt we were in love and we got married in the Church just because that’s what you did, but we didn’t understand it fully. We didn’t even think of marriage as a sacrament. The foundation (of our marriage) was wrong so the things that pulled us away were success and worldly things and keeping up with the Joneses, even to the point of immersing ourselves in trying to find happiness whether it would be in the money we made, the things we would buy or the people we would hang around. Our marriage and our life were based upon our success in worldly terms.

Register: What was happening in your marriage that convinced you divorce was the answer?

Greg: It was about six years of building up to that point. As many in a relationship might say, you start losing that ability to communicate. All of a sudden you don’t have things in common anymore. We were literally married singles. Julie started hanging with the girls and I started hanging out with the guys. Unfortunately, as we were looking for happiness in money and material things, and it was no longer there, we both resulted in looking for that in other people. So infidelity became very much a part of the problem.

Register: You describe in the book how you sought marriage counseling to try to salvage your marriage, but one person had suggested that you might not be right for each other. 

Greg: We went to our parish priest as a last resort to see if there was any opportunity to salvage this relationship. We had concluded we didn’t want to look back and say that we didn’t try it all.

Julie: The couple of places we went affirmed the fact that maybe we shouldn’t be together, so all hope was gone, or so we thought. Then God sent this priest into our lives … we thought to help us get out of our marriage. He just sat back and listened to every word that came out of our mouths about his fault or her fault and we’re miserable and we’ve done all this stuff wrong. … It was devastating to realize … that we did not know how to be married. He asked a few questions about God’s plan for marriage and the writings of St. Paul. Truly that was the first time we had ever even thought that God had something to do with our marriage or should even be a part of our marriage and that is pretty sad.

Register: How long did it take before your marriage became focused on Christ?

Greg: It was probably a year and half after this priest had charged us to go back and read and study. I started with St. Paul in Ephesians. I began to consult anything I could find in the Bible referencing marriage and paragraph 1602 of the Catechism (of the Catholic Church) called “God’s Plan for Marriage.” It was talking about a lot of things that we were experiencing: hatred, separation, domination, lust, infidelity. I was like, Wow, maybe the Church does know something about marriage, because this is exactly what we are going through. I also read Blessed John Paul II’s encyclical on family in the modern world. It began to lay the blueprint or the template of what I need to be to be this good Christian man, Christian husband, Christian father. This whole notion of dying to self we had never heard of. I thought, I’m supposed to die to myself for this other person? Are you kidding? She’s supposed to be serving me. As we both began to die to all of our desires and we began to focus on the other person, all of a sudden things started working. 

Julie: I know the day I truly felt a sense of peace and total trust in him was the day (Greg) came into the room and started teaching me about God, our Church and the faith. That is truly the day my heart was on fire and I fell in love with him. … Our marriage had hope, so we took those steps forward. Now it’s been over 10 years ago that we had that hope and have worked on our marriage; I continue to be in awe of the amazing state of our marriage. Every day it gets better than it was yesterday. 

Greg: It’s kind of like our relationship with God. We will never know everything there is to know about God and every day there’s a new opportunity to learn about God and experience God in a new way. It’s the same thing in our relationship. Every day we have that new opportunity to find a deeper level of love.