Early in my marriage my husband sat across from me and shared something he’d been keeping in for six months: 

The clothes on our bedroom floor really bothered him. 

I was shocked. The floor of our room had looked the same for the entirety of our marriage: covered in my clothes. I had no clue it was such a big deal and felt blindsided by his pent up frustration. Being tidy has never been a strength of mine, one highlighted by the command to keep things organized given throughout my childhood years. Tears came hot and fast on my cheeks as he shared how he’d held his resentment in, not wanting to upset me with his desire for a clean room since he knew my history of “rebellion” when it came to what my room looked like after I moved out of my parents’ home.

Brandon’s natural inclination to orderliness was at odds with my natural inclination to, well, laziness. I called it “freedom” to do whatever I wanted with my clothes after the strict house I grew up in, but the truth is that I wasn’t disciplined in that area. The attention on that weak spot of mine, combined with how long my husband waited to tell me it annoyed him, made me shrink in shame.

That after-dinner conversation was a turning point in our relationship. My husband promised to tell me sooner than later about things that bothered him, and I resolved to keep the floor of our room clear. It was a decades-long habit I needed to break, but it wasn’t about the clothes - it was about loving my husband better. 

That’s the attitude I tapped into as I looked at the mess, first doing a major tidying up and then developing the discipline to keep it that way. Every night as I changed for bed I had a choice: leave my clothes in a puddle by my bed or put them in the laundry hamper by the door. Every morning as I figured out what to wear I could put the shirt I’d decided against on the bed to deal with “later” or right back on the hanger. Every time I touched a piece of clothing and had the choice to put it away properly or leave it where it was, I would look at it not as simply being tidy (something I didn’t care about at the time), but as a decision to love my husband (something I definitely cared about). It wasn’t perfect progress—many days my ingrained habit loop from over two decades of not dealing with my clothes would keep me from putting things away—but it got better. I progressed from only dealing with the clothes I’d already worn to taking clean clothes out the dryer and putting them away, too—instead of opening the laundry to find new socks every morning. 

I couldn’t have kept doing this simple act of love of my own accord. God helped me choose the most loving action, the one that would show my husband kindness and respect while also bringing me closer to God: putting my clothes away. 

And that simple act? It’s the Sacrament of Marriage in action.

Being in a sacramental marriage gives us an incredible, supernatural gift to live out the true meaning of marriage—even in something as simple as dealing with a messy room.

In a sacramental marriage, God’s love becomes present to the couple in their total commitment and union, going beyond just the two of them and out to their family and community. Their free, total, faithful, and fruitful love for each other reveals something about what God’s love is like. We’ll never be able to love as perfectly as God does, but our marriage can imitate the way God loves us, especially through the example of Jesus. 

God’s vision for marriage is that each couple’s relationship showcases the unbreakable bond of Christ’s love for us. Just as Jesus loved us—freely and wholeheartedly sacrificing himself to gain us access to heaven and complete union with God—we’re asked to live that out in our marriage.

On one hand, it’s as simple as saying a sacramental marriage is a forever kind of commitment. Just as the vows say, it’s “‘til death do us part”; a lifelong covenant, not just an empty promise, to be there for each other no matter what happens in life. Easy to say, much harder to live out—and that’s where sacramental grace comes in. 

Grace is a gift to help us choose God. It’s how (if we’re open to it) we can choose to love like Jesus, even if there are dirty/clean/who-knows-how-long-they’ve-been-there piles of clothes all over driving you absolutely nuts or you’re faced with the choice to put your clothes away instead of dropping them in said piles.

Our goal is to get each other to heaven—full union with God—so on top of just being considerate of each other, my husband is encouraging me to grow in virtue (practising discipline by putting my clothes away) and I’m encouraging him to be honest (giving his whole, unreserved self more completely to me). 

By practising love in these simple ways, we’re working out the muscles we need to live out our vows now and when things are much more difficult than dealing with a messy room.

We’re asking God for help to love when it’s hard, accepting the grace He gives to act on what’s best for us, and, above all, preparing ourselves for union with Himself in heaven.

That grace from the Sacrament of Marriage has done its job to bring my husband and I closer together, strengthen our relationship, and remind us that Jesus is the source of this gift. Jesus gives us courage in our marriage to face hard things, support each other through tough times, forgive each other, and, ultimately, love each other with a supernatural, together forever, kind of love.