Toni Rossi interviewed Lisa and I on our new book, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage. You can read the whole thing here, but here is a snippet. We hope you enjoy!
“This is a generation that has a real fear about making marriage work, and they’re hungry to figure out how to do it so they don’t end up making the same mistakes they see everyone else making and experiencing that agonizing pain.”
That “agonizing pain” is divorce, and marriage counselors Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak say they’ve had many couples approach them for help because they want to avoid the devastating break-ups they witnessed among their own parents, family members and friends.
To help newlyweds avoid those pitfalls, the Popcaks have written a new book called “Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage.” It incorporates the latest relationship research, their personal experience of 24 years of marriage, and their work through the Pastoral Solutions Institute, which offers both in-person and telephone counseling.
Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?
During a recent interview on “Christopher Closeup,” the Popcaks discussed their belief that “no newly married couple knows what they are doing when it comes to marriage” – and they admitted that held true for them as well.
Lisa said, “Greg and I went to a university that had a whole course on Christian marriage, and we had a wonderful advisor, Father Angelus, who said, ‘If you get past me, you’ll make it forever!’ But even with that, there’s a culture shock to being married: joining your traditions, working out the everyday ins and outs of life, having to live with somebody during all their moods. The Church knows what it’s talking about when it says the vows are ‘for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.’ Most people don’t realize how quickly you’ll go through all those stages, even in the first year of marriage!” READ MORE